Teaching Meditation to Children

Oct 02, 2024

Now and again, I’ll type a prompt into ChatGPT as a thought starter when I’m going to write a blog post. I did this for this topic on meditation for children, even though I’ve been training people to teach meditation to children for decades. It greases the wheel.

So I popped a prompt into the app and got up to go toast a piece of fresh sourdough bread. As I stood up from my desk and peeked back at the cursor spewing out a suggested outline, I caught the title she had created: …A Path To Calm, Focus and Emotional Well-being.

The word “path” niggled at my nervous system. As I steeped my tea and buttered my toast, I explored the sensation in my body. The words she (this AI system) often uses are “embark” and “journey” and “path.” All indicate the need to be somewhere else. They all take me out of the present moment, indicate that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. It gives me a little bit of low-grade anxiety. I feel time pressure. It's subtle but it disturbs my peace.

THIS is why I teach meditation to children, I realize, and train others to do so. I want children to have the tools and the experience to be with what is, to recognize their timeless nature and to notice when they’re being pulled out of it by the expectations and demands of society.

It’s great to make progress and be on your way and travel along a path. But it’s meaningless unless you also have a sense of self grounded in the forever now moment.

This is the gift of meditation, dropping into timeless being. From this, actions taken are right actions. This is the meaning of The Dalai Lama’s famous quote, “If every 8-year-old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.”

One generation. We create a ripple effect. You teach 8 children to meditate. They go into the world with more peace and awareness. The human experience is contagious. The more peace there is in the world, the more peace will spread.

This is the benefit of meditation, along with the other suggestions from the AI prompt of emotional regulation, improved focus, better sleep and the reduction of stress.

Teaching meditation to children is simple. They request it and list it as one of their favorite activities in a kids’ yoga class that’s full of games, partner poses and magic carpet rides.