How to Teach Meditation to Children: Help Kids Deal with Shyness and Anxiety and Be More Focused, Creative and Self-confident

by David Fontana, Ingrid Slack, Amber Hatch (Foreword)

This is the classic guide to teaching children of different ages how to meditate, helping them deal with anxiety, shyness and depression, and improving concentration, creativity, emotional balance and self-confidence.

This is a new edition of the classic guide to teaching meditation to children – one of the first and still one of the best in terms of clarity, practicality and usability. Avoiding religious terminology, it’s aimed at parents and teachers and explains techniques for working with children in different age groups (5 upward), offering a wide range of easy-to-follow and effective exercises. The book explains the benefits of meditation for children, from relieving shyness and anxiety to reducing aggression and impatience. Meditation has also proved helpful when treating asthma, insomnia and depression, and in boosting concentration, emotional balance and creativity. It is one of the best tools we can offer children to help them cope with pressures at home and at school. It gives even very young children power over their thinking and emotions through enhanced self-understanding and is incredibly valuable in helping adolescents to navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood. An attractive, friendly design highlights the exercises and case studies makes the book easy to navigate. The text has been updated for this new edition by parenting and meditation expert Amber Hatch, author of the bestselling  Mindfulness for Parents,  and she has also written a foreword.

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2017

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

David G.J. Fontana FBPsS was a British psychologist, parapsychologist and author. He was Professor of Psychology at Cardiff University. He was also visiting professor at Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Algarve.

Reviews

[Lady Heather]

Publication Date: September 19, 2017


"A copy of this book has been provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review."

[Regina Chari · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing groundbreaking in this book, but it does exactly what it promises. If you are new to mindfulness practices or meditation and want to teach these practices to your children this book is a great place to start!

The publisher provided an ARC through Netgalley. I have voluntarily decided to read and review, giving my personal opinions and thoughts

[Eve Costarelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great one-stop-book to learn how and why to bring meditation to children, whether they be your own or your students. This book very clearly lays out meditations for different age groups from 5-8 year old children to 15+, late adolescents and for different needs, such as creativity, relaxation and body awareness. The author has come up with fun and creative, and easy to follow, meditations with follow up exercises for home, daily life and school. One of the ones that immediately caught my eye was exercise #4 in the chapter about meditations for mindfulness. The exercise is about taking a familiar object and showing it upside down and having the kids draw it from this odd angle. The exercise is about perspective and focus and creativity. I use this exercise in my yoga class-which is just meditation in motion, and we turn yoga poses on their heels or backs or bellies and then recreate the poses from a different perspective. We can rename them and bring new qualities of them to light when they are taken from a different angle or a chair or are holding onto a cane. Our attention becomes more focused, our minds more creative as we experience gravity from another angle.

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it for it's unique and creative meditation ideas. I highly recommend this accessible book and strongly agree with the author about having a practice of your own as a necessary element in the desire to bring this to children.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

How to Teach Meditation to Children is a helpful guide for parents, teachers, and counselors who want to teach the children in their care the foundations of meditation. I was most interested in the information about utilizing mindfulness to improve body awareness and reduce anxiety. I received a free ARC from netgalley.

[Stuart Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book and I can endorse that the claims that meditation helps with self confidence and being more focused etc is correct. It is a really useful "tool" to help develop not only your children but your yourself to have that inner peace and in this hectic lifestyle we all live in. You can dip into this book and be selective in what you try you will not be disappointed .

[Toni Guyton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't a huge fan of the format for this book. A bit dry but still some helpful and insightful tips.

*Thanks Netgalley for a free advanced copy for an honest review*

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book on a goodread giveaway. Great practical book crammed full of tips for my anxious and shy child . I shall follow the advice and hopefully keep you posted on the results