5 Calming Practices for Kids to Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Saturdays are usually filled with activities with the kids and today was just about the same apart from one small thing – a thing that never happens, like ever! I had two hours for myself! I had booked into a breathwork class and managed to get the kids looked after while I was free for my own self-care.

Breathwork is something I practice almost daily but I thought it would be nice to join others in this practice and it would be nice to have someone else hold space and guide the session. I was right, it was lovely. One thing I noticed however was while a few had practiced breathwork before, there were quite a few who were completely new to it.

This made me realise just how important what we are doing here is. Supporting kids with these practices from such a young age so that they will have tools in their toolkit to manage stress and anxiety. They’ll have these practices to support them now and in their future. It really is quite special.

So, for this weeks post I thought I’d share some simple calming practices that you can start practicing easily with your child to help them to manage stress and anxiety. I have included a range of different practices including breathwork, yoga, mindfulness and meditation. Each practice can be practiced on it’s own, so even if you haven’t got much time, these practices can easily fit into your day to day.

Buddy Breathing

Buddy breathing is a great practice to get children to start practicing proper abdominal breathing, filling up their tummy as they inhale rather that taking short, shallow breaths into the chest like much of us do. When we breathe in this way, we bring more calm to our body and help reduce stress.

Simply ask your child to place a teddy or their favourite toy on their tummy as they lay down. Ask them to lift the teddy up as they breathe in and then bring teddy down as they breathe out. See if they can do this 10 times. Let the breath come back as normal and then ask them how they feel or if they can notice any changes.

Legs up the Wall Pose

For this pose you’ll need either a wall or a chair you can rest your legs up on. This is one of my favourite poses in my own practice and with my children.

It offers numerous benefits:

• Calms the Mind: This pose helps reduce anxiety and promotes relaxation, making it easier for children to manage stress.
• Improves Circulation* Elevating the legs encourages blood flow back to the heart, which can be soothing and energizing.
• Relieves Tired Legs: After a day of running and playing, this pose can help alleviate leg fatigue and muscle tension.
• Supports the Nervous System: By promoting relaxation, it helps balance the nervous system, making it easier for children to cope with daily challenges.

Simply sit as close to the wall as you can, facing left or right of the wall, then lay back while swinging your legs up to rest against the wall. Keep them reaching up for as long is comfortable ( 2 to 10 minutes). You can bend the knees and put the feet together to make a diamond shape anytime you need a break, or come out of the pose completely of course. If using a chair, your knees bend and you rest the calf muscles, ankles, foot on the chair.

Heart to Heart

Come into a comfortable seat facing each other. Put your hands on your own heart OR put one hand on your heart and one hand on each others heart (your hand resting on theirs). Close your eyes if that feels good, make eye contact or just relax in a way that’s comfortable for you both. Take a few slow breaths together here. Our breath is one of the key components to balancing this chakra.

Just stick with breath awareness for the younger children, breathing in and breathing out. For children over 7 start to practice 3 part breathing here.

3 part breath is our triangle breathing. There are 3 equal parts. The inhale, the pause between and the exhale. I usually use the count of 4 but this can be adjusted to suit individual needs and preferences. So this is what it looks like:

Inhale 2, 3, 4

Hold 2, 3, 4

Exhale 2, 3, 4

Repeat 6 to 8 times. (Notice I don’t say the count of one because I am saying the word on that beat instead. You can do the same or just count to three instead.

The Squeeze and Release

This is a great one for not just helping children with stress and anxiety but also helping them to get some much needed sleep. Sometimes stress can effect the way children sleep. They either don’t want to go to sleep as they don’t want to face the next day or their mind is simply too busy. They are feeling so much stress and tension int heir body their body doesn’t even know how to relax. This is where playing with opposites can really help.

Take a deep breath in and gently squeeze your hands into fists. Feel the tension in your hands. Now, as you exhale, release the tension and let your hands relax completely. Feel the warmth and calmness spreading through your fingers. Let’s do this again but this time with your whole body, squeezing everything as you breathe in, your face, your legs, your hands, everywhere and breathe out release, allowing your entire body to relax.

Magic Stone

For this practice you’ll need a crystal or a small smooth stone. If you don’t have anything like this, time to get creative! Use a pom pom or a small toy and share about it’s magic!

Put the small stone or crystals on the foreheads of your child/ children when they lie down (eyes can be closed if that feels comfortable for them or gazing up at the ceiling).

Ask them to imagine that this is special magic stone. As long as it stays balanced on their head, it keeps it’s magic. With this magic, they can see into the future. (This helps them lie down motionless and helps them to focus on the relaxation.)

Encourage them to relax their bodies completely and focus on the sensation of the stone resting gently on their forehead. Invite them to imagine themselves floating gently forward in time, exploring the wonders of the future. They may see flying cars, cities on the moon, or robots performing incredible feats of strength and agility.

Encourage them to embrace this sense of wonder and possibility, allowing their imaginations to soar as they envision all the amazing things that the future may hold.

After a few moments, guide them back to the present moment by asking them to notice their breathing, wiggle their toes and gently and slowly coming back to a sitting position.

Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these calming practices. If you want more ideas just like these ones you are going to LOVE my new course ‘The Calm Method!”

I’m not ready to share all the details yet but this is going to be THE course to help support your child with accessing their inner calm and really helping children to thrive.

You can be first to hear about this course AND get a massive discount when it launches by joining my VIP Waitlist, here!

World Meditation Day

This week we celebrated World Meditation Day. For this I made a video about fun and simple ways to practice meditation with children. Take a look here: