kids

The Mindful Child - by BOBBY AZARIAN

The Mindful Child - by BOBBY AZARIAN

We don't just know that meditation helps kids to feel calmer, we see it in action.

Kidevolve has four programs running at various schools, parent host homes and community centres at the moment. It's exciting to watch our experienced team of teachers and Ambassadors share engaging and sticky mindfulness tools with kids ages 5-10 years. These kids are reaping benefits like focus, calm, emotional regulation, awareness, compassion...and more. And to top it off, these wily kids are teaching the grown ups a thing or two about being kind, resilient humans.

Check out the excellent and informative article below that one of our stellar Kidevolve parent Ambassadors sent us via @NewYorkTimes.

Parenting Mindfully through Divorce - By Erika Prafder

Parenting Mindfully through Divorce - By Erika Prafder

How does one manage huge life transitions, and difficult experiences with kids? None of us have received a 'how to' manual. So what do we do? Of the potential painful periods, divorce is definitely high on the list for both the adults and kids involved. This article brilliantly outlines how parents can sit with their experience, not judge themselves and find ways to navigate through a divorce mindfully. 

10 Mindfulness Exercises to Do With Your Kids (Kidsstuffworld.com)

10 Mindfulness Exercises to Do With Your Kids (Kidsstuffworld.com)

Labour Day weekend is sometimes fraught with anxiety of what's to come. School is starting. The summer is over. Change is afoot. 

We love these 10 simple mindfulness exercises to do with your children.

Think, Feel, Act: Lessons from research about young children (Ontario Ministry of Education)

What Is Self-Regulation?
Just about everywhere you turn these days you come across someone talking about the importance of enhancing children’s ability to self-regulate. This is because of a growing number of studies showing that self-regulation lays a foundation for a child’s long-term physical, psychological, behavioral, and educational well-being (Shanker, 2012).

We highly recommend this important reading by Dr. Stuart Shanker
York University:  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/selfRegulate.html

Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ Helps Kids (and Adults) Discover the Mind's Rich, Emotional Tapestry (New York Times)

Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ Helps Kids (and Adults) Discover the Mind's Rich, Emotional Tapestry (New York Times)

Can movies think? This is a longstanding critical question, usually answered in the negative. Literature, the thinking goes, is uniquely able to show us the flow of thought and feeling from within, but the camera’s eye and the two-dimensional screen can’t take us past the external signs of consciousness. 

Healthy Habits of Mind (Neuroscientist Richard Davidson & Mindful Schools Program)

Healthy Habits of Mind (Neuroscientist Richard Davidson & Mindful Schools Program)

Great film that shows how kindergarteners in Oxford Elementary School in Berkeley, San Francisco are introduced to mindfulness in school. They practice mindful listening, mindful eating, mindful movement and yoga. Mindfulness is a way of being and one of the benefits is that it teaches how to pay attention.

Mindfulness Exercises Improve Kid's Math Scores (Time Magazine)

Mindfulness Exercises Improve Kid's Math Scores (Time Magazine)

In adults, mindfulness has been shown to have all kinds of amazing effects throughout the body: it can combat stress, protect your heart, shorten migraines and possibly even extend life. But a new trial published in the journal Developmental Psychology suggests that the effects are also powerful in kids as young as 9—so much so that improving mindfulness showed to improve everything from social skills to math scores.