Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness is incredibly empowering for children. It can help them better manage stress and anxiety when it does occur. It helps with self-regulation, promotes positive emotions and self-compassion.

We are very pleased to be announcing, ‘Mindful Monday’s’ at OOSH!

Why Mindful Mondays?

We have observed that Monday can be a challenging transition from ‘weekend life’ back to ‘school week life’ for many children. This has been observed through children’s individual and group behaviours, being; anxious, unkind, loud, aggressive, introverted, frustrated, and unwilling to share. From talking with a number of parents, grandparents, children, siblings, OOSH educators and school teaching staff we would like to actively make an environment that supports children regulating their emotions, self-esteem and self-image.

As an adult, when was the last time you reflected on our children’s daily lives, both as your child, but also as a person in our community? What expectations and desires do we naturally place on them? What peer group and academic expectations do they place on themselves? How does their individual temperament impact their regular thoughts? What part of their day are they always sharing with you? What part of their day, do they never talk about? Do they seem to share common interests with other children that you associate with? Are they in a happy place?

Transitioning back to a school week, can mean a lot of different emotions and thoughts for every child, including:

• Sadness and tension about not being on one’s electronic devise
• Anxiety about a planned project in class today
• Concern about rules and routines
• Over excitement or worry about seeing one’s peer group

To develop our Mindful Monday program, we are collaboratively working with a number of other local OOSH centres. We envision a program that provides stimulating experiences and resources which guide children’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours in a positive way. As a centre we would like to highlight 4 key goals of our program. Please have your say, which goals align with your parenting and family values?

• Encourage creativity
• Create healthy self esteem
• Balance one’s energy
• Assist with understanding one’s thoughts and feelings
• Positive social skills
• Positive body image
• Children feeling calmer, displaying an increased ability to better control their emotions
• Children have an increased emotional capacity to deal with stressful events such as tests or personal problems
• Behaviour is improved
• Lower levels of depression and anxiety
• School attendance improves
• Improved memory

If Parents have any suggestions in which they can suggest to facilitate our Mindfulness program, would be greatly encouraged.

To start of our Mindfulness Monday’s, we will be doing a 10 minute kids yoga/stretching exercise, we feel this will be a great way for the children to participate in a group experience, especially after sport, they will have the opportunity to stretch their muscles as well as providing a calm experience that will have a positive effect on their mood as well.