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World Community for Christian Meditation

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World Community for Christian Meditation

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WCCM | The World Community for Christian Meditation

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WCCM is a global contemplative family in the Christian tradition committed to serving the unity of all. Founded by John Main and Laurence Freeman.

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** Best of 2018 Award Winner ** - Apple

** 2017 App of the Year ** - Apple

** Happiest App in the World ** - Center for Humane Technology

Calm is the #1 app for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation. Join the millions experiencing better sleep, lower stress, and less anxiety with our guided meditations, Sleep Stories, breathing programs, stretching exercises, and relaxing music. Calm is recommended by top psychologists, therapists, and mental health experts.

Calm is the perfect mindfulness app for beginners, but also includes hundreds of programs for intermediate and advanced users. Guided meditation sessions are available in lengths of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes so you can choose the perfect length to fit with your schedule.

Sleep Stories are bedtime stories that are guaranteed to lull you into a deep and restful slumber. Calm has 100+ exclusive Sleep Stories for adults and children alike, featuring well-known talent such as Stephen Fry, Matthew McConaughey, Leona Lewis, and Jerome Flynn. Drift off to dreamland and wake up refreshed.

Sleep Stories include:
* Wonder - Join Matthew McConaughey on a dreamy story about the mysteries of the universe.
* Blue Gold - Let master storyteller Stephen Fry take you on a calming journey through the lavender fields and sleepy village of Provence
* The Nordland Night Train - Travel up the scenic coast of Norway aboard one of Europe's most breathtaking and remote railways.
* Happy Little Zzzs with Bob Ross - Drift off to the soothing brush strokes of beloved painter and TV host Bob Ross.
* And many more...

Mindfulness Topics include:
* Deep Sleep
* Calming Anxiety
* Managing Stress
* Focus and Concentration
* Relationships
* Breaking Habits
* Happiness
* Gratitude
* Self-Esteem
* Body Scan
* Loving-Kindness
* Forgiveness
* Non-judgement
* Mindfulness at Work
* Mindful Walking
* Calm Kids
* And so much more...

Also Featuring:
* An original Daily Calm every day: a 10-minute program added daily to help ease you into the day or unwind with before bed
* 7 and 21 day mindfulness programs for both beginner and advanced users
* Calm Masterclass: Life changing audio classes featuring world-renowned experts
* Calm Body: Mindful stretching and movement to relax your body during the day
* Music: Exclusive music engineered to help you focus, relax or sleep
* Soundscapes: Ocean waves, Heavy Rain, Camp Fire, Babbling Brook, and other sounds to help you sleep
* Breathing exercises to help you relax
* Unguided timed meditation
* 30+ soothing nature sounds and scenes to use during meditation, yoga or to help you sleep

Track your progress with:
* Daily Streaks
* Mindful Minutes

Calm saves your meditation and sleep sessions to your Apple Health app.

Subscription pricing and terms:
Calm offers an auto-renewing monthly subscription at $12.99/month and an auto-renewing yearly subscription at $69.99/year to provide you with unlimited access to the Calm Collection while you maintain an active subscription. Calm also offers a Lifetime subscription for $399.99 which is paid for by a one-off upfront payment with unlimited access to the Calm Collection forever.

Payment will be charged to the credit card connected to your iTunes Account when you confirm the initial subscription purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current subscription period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period, and the cost of the renewal will be identified. You may manage your subscription and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to your Account Settings after the purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription, where applicable.

Read more about our terms and conditions here:
Terms of service: https://www.calm.com/terms
Privacy policy: https://www.calm.com/privacy

Calm is the #1 app for sleep and meditation. Discover a happier, healthier you through our meditations, Sleep Stories, music, and more.

Calm is for anyone, whether you're brand new to meditation or a seasoned expert. It's also for anyone who needs a mental break, a soothing sound, or a peaceful night's rest. Our guided meditations are available in lengths of 3 to 25 minutes, so you can choose the perfect length to fit your schedule.

We offer a new 10-minute Daily Calm every day, Sleep Stories narrated by well-known voices like Matthew McConaughey, a music library with exclusive tracks from top artists like Keith Urban and Disney, short videos with mindful movement and gentle stretching for every body type, Masterclasses taught by world-renowned experts in the field of mindfulness, soundscapes and nature sounds to use during meditation or to help you sleep, breathing exercises to help you relax, and more.

With over 100 million users worldwide, we're having a positive effect on more and more people each day. Take a moment to prioritize yourself today, and enjoy the app.

Editors' Notes

Take a deep breath. That phrase greets you whenever you open Calm. It's both a call to action and a defining feature of the app's approach to meditation: You're going to get through this, and all you need to start is a moment. In the increasingly crowded field of apps for meditation and mindfulness, Calm stands out for its ease of use and attention to (soothing) detail.

Calm great for Early Childhood settings

We use the Calm app each day as part of our Early Childhood setting. We have been listening to the audio stories at rest time for children aged 3 years up. We engage the children by asking them what story the would like to listen to. Over the next 4-6 weeks (4 year olds) we are listening to "The Big Bad Wolf Learns Anger Management". We have been practising deep slow breathing before rest time each day. We follow up with group discussions on what steps to take when our bodies start to feel angry. I ask "how does it feel when you start to get angry? Each child role models how their body tenses in various areas. We talk about walking away and calming down by either drinking some water first then deep breathing or just deep breathing if able. We discuss the fact that people cannot talk or communicate when angry, only when calm. Calms Soundscape and other sleep music have been utilised for babies and toddlers sleep times. As an Educator I have used the masterclasses as professional development and my own self improvement and wellbeing. I highly recommend utilising the Calm app in every Early Childhood setting so as to assist with rest, relaxation and teaching emotional intelligence.

Learning by letting go

I love the Daily Calm 10 minute sessions which I start with every day, then follow up with one of the '7 days of ...' series. The best at the beginning was the 21 days of calm. Also useful were 'self-esteem', 'focus', 'gratitude', 'happiness', 'calming anxiety' and other guided meditations. All can be repeated, as often as you like. Also on offer are various timed and unguided meditations with bells etc as prompts to return to the present moment. I have developed a habit of using the Calm app to do about 30 mins of sitting practice each morning, and keeping notes of my thoughts. Together with reading and networking with new friends from Mindful in May and now Mind Life Project, (Elise Lew, Melbourne, Australia), I have been calmer, happier and more sociable in everyday life. The wise quotes from contemporary Buddhist thinkers are also useful signposts on this new trail.
I have just subscribed to this app for a second year, as a promise to myself to continue this highly beneficial and wonderful practice. Thanks Tamara Levitt for lending your soothing, reassuring voice to the excellent directions in this program. Many thanks, Calm people for this app.
Christina Perrett, Melbourne, Australia

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‎** Best of 2018 Award Winner ** - Apple ** 2017 App of the Year ** - Apple ** Happiest App in the World ** - Center for Humane Technology Calm is the #1 app for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation. Join the millions experiencing better sleep, lower stress, and less anxiety with our guided meditation...

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What does your stress look like?

Our bodies and brains are wired to react to high stress situations as a safety net. If our brain perceives a threat, it signals the amygdala, the body's "alarm" system, which tells our body to act without thinking. The amygdala responds to situations with the fight, flight, or freeze response. This is to protect us, but our stress receptors cannot distinguish between real dangers or false dangers. In everyday parenting, our stress response often gets triggered unnecessarily by events that are not actually life threatening. Our bodies are reacting to our kid spilling cereal all over the floor in the same way we would react if we were being chased by a bear.

Depending on your childhood experiences and memories, your stress response may be triggered more easily than another person. When our stress receptors are triggered, we have difficulty thinking clearly and being attentive to people around us. We are unable to be thoughtful in our responses, and have trouble staying focused, and our ability to solve problems is diminished.

Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical psychologist who studies the brain, explains that during stressful parenting moments we may "lose control" or "flip our lid" and let our emotions control our reactions. When we "fly off the handle," it happens so quickly and we aren't thinking about how our children are perceiving us. Our reactions can be very scary to kids. Also, we are modeling that this is how grown ups react to stress. If we choose to be more mindful by pausing before responding, we can teach kids that they, too, can pause and choose to respond instead of react.

What does mindfulness mean in parenting?

Managing our own emotions and behaviors is the key to teaching kids how to manage theirs. It is the reason airlines tell us to put our oxygen masks on before you can put on your child's mask. You need to be regulated before you can model regulation for your child. Unfortunately, when you're stressed out, exhausted, and overwhelmed, you can't be available for your child.

Mindful parenting does not mean being a "perfect parent" and is not something you can fail at. It is not easy and it takes practice, but like many aspects of parenting, some days are good and some are bad and you can always try again. You may forget to be mindful, but the second you realize you are distracted, it is an opportunity to make a different choice - the choice to be present.

Mindful parenting means that you bring your conscious attention to what's happening, instead of getting hijacked by your emotions. Mindfulness is about letting go of guilt and shame about the past and focusing on right now. It's about accepting whatever is going on, rather than trying to change it or ignore it.

Being a mindful parent means that you pay attention to what you're feeling. It does not mean that you will not get angry or upset. Of course you will feel difficult emotions, but acting on them mindlessly is what compromises our parenting.

Benefits of mindful parenting

You become more aware of your feelings and thoughts

You become more aware and responsive of your child's needs, thoughts, and feelings

You become better at regulating your emotions

You become less critical of yourself and your child

You become better at standing back from situations and avoiding impulsive reactions

Your relationship with your child will improve

How to practice mindful parenting

Think about a situation where you got upset or angry at your child - one where you reacted automatically because that is what most of us do when difficult thoughts, feelings, or judgments arise. In stressful situations when our emotions are easily triggered, it's hard to be the best version of ourselves. You can expect that your child will find those triggers.

In order to make the choice to change your behaviors, you first have to become familiar with your "hot spots" and emotional triggers. Hot spots are certain times of our days when we are more vulnerable and less emotionally available. We may be feeling stressed, tired, overwhelmed or helpless, or we feel preoccupied with work or marriage.

Emotional triggers are feelings or judgments from your own childhood which may arise when your child does a specific action:

Your child behaves in a way that clashes with your beliefs. Example: Your kid throwing food in a restaurant or grabbing all the toys in a store, which makes you feel embarrassed or shameful.

Your child's behavior may evoke a childhood memory and response. Example: Your child not being on the academic level you think they should be and you feeling like you failed as a parent because when you got a bad grade, your parents said it wasn't good enough.

Your child's behavior may evoke a traumatic state or event. Example: If you broke your arm climbing a jungle gym as a kid and you are scared every time your kid goes to the playground.

Your child's behavior activates the lens of fears and desires. Example: if one of my kids wakes up the other kid during the night, no one is sleeping and everyone is crying and I fear I have no adult time and I've completely lost the old me now that I'm a parent.

In order to feel a sense of control over your emotions, you first have to be able to recognize and anticipate what types of situations are likely to trigger hot spots and emotional responses in you.

Kristin Race, Ph.D. and author of Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today's Hectic World states that there are key factors to mindful parents.

Three key factors to mindful parenting

1. Notice your own feelings when you're in conflict with your child
Think about your most recent argument or a frustrating situation with your child. What feelings are triggered? Are you angry, ashamed, embarrassed? Try to experience your emotion or trigger as a wave - coming and going. Try not to block or stop the emotion. Don't push it away. Don't judge or reject it. Don't try to keep the emotion around. Don't cling to it. Don't make it bigger than it already is. You are not your emotion and you don't have to act on the emotion. Just be there, fully mindful of it. Remind yourself that you don't need to blame yourself or your child for what happened.

Next, try to see the conflict through your child's eyes. If you can't see goodness in your child during a tantrum or argument, think of a time when you felt connected with your child and responded with kindness. Try to remember that version of your child when you are triggered.

As you go throughout your day, make an effort to notice when you start to feel anxious or annoyed. That may be a signal that you are being triggered. Once you figure out your triggers, you can move to the next step.

2. Learn to pause before responding in anger
The most challenging and most important part of mindfulness is being able to find that calm space in the heat of the moment. We practice finding this space by focusing our attention on our body and breath because emotions show themselves as changes in body or breath. When we slow down and focus on our body and breath, there is a physiological change that decreases our reflexive responses and increases the abilities of our prefrontal cortex.

All of this leads to a calmer mind where you can find the space to sit with the emotion. When we are able to pause, we can experience the emotions as sensations in our body without fueling them by focusing on the trigger. In that space, we can remind ourselves to breathe and bring our thoughts back to the present moment, and then choose to respond how we want to and not react because we are out of control.

3. Listen carefully to a child's viewpoint even when disagreeing with it
Your child is going to act like a child! This means they won't always be able to manage their feelings. Kids are still learning how to regulate (actually, so are most adults) and have different priorities than you do. Their behavior will push your button at times, and that is okay.

The problem is when adults begin acting like kids, too. If, instead, we can stay mindful - meaning we notice our emotions and let them pass without acting on them - we model emotional regulation, and our children learn from watching us.

Learning to pause before responding takes practice and our ability to control our emotions changes depending on what's going on each day. That is why self-care is so important. We can't pour out all of ourselves every day and never take the time to fill back up. Many parents feel guilty for taking care of their own needs. That is not selfish - it's necessary. Make yourself a priority, because the better you feel, the better you will be able to manage the frustrations that arise.

It is important to learn how to help yourself and how to meet your emotional needs. Examples of self-care can range from things like taking a time-out by hiding in the bathroom when you can't handle your kids (which I did last night), taking a few minutes of deep breathing, or putting the television so you and your kid get a break to writing in a journal, taking a shower, going for a walk, or talking to your partner or a friend.

And, sometimes, we can't catch ourselves in time and we do react in ways we regret. In those moments, we can apologize to our kids after we yell at them because we are still learning and parents make mistakes, too.

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Mindful Parenting: How to Respond Instead of React

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Mindful parenting means that you bring your conscious attention to what's happening, instead of getting hijacked by your emotions.

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Live a happier, healthier life with just a few minutes of meditation a day on the Headspace app.

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Every parent knows that having children is a field ripe with emotions. Frustration, anger, boredom, joy, love, or fear-name an emotion, and it's probably there on the wild ride of parenting. But this can also feel like the tipping point into insanity. When parenting becomes difficult, it is important to see that these challenges can be turned into opportunities for working with your inner reactivity. As your child (or you) begin to slip into the fifth meltdown of the day, or as you watch your mind check-out from reading the same book for the millionth time, mindfulness can help bring you back to a more spacious and vital sense of the present. In this interview from 10% Happier, mindfulness teacher Alexis Santos offers four tips to cultivate a practice of mindful parenting.

Breathe Interest into Your Routine

Our attention is habitually attracted to "peak moments," moments that seem pleasant, fun, or exciting. You'll certainty be in the moment when your kid falls and scuffs her knee, but what about the times things are less attention-grabbing and more routine? In instances where you want to zone out, bring mindfulness to the breath. The breath is a reliable companion, and it's also always fresh. When you use attention to experience each breath as a unique and interesting event, you can ripen seemingly repetitive moments of parenting into ones that bring your attention fully back to the present-moment interactions you're having with your kids.

You'll certainty be in the moment when your kid falls and scuffs her knee, but what about the times things are less attention-grabbing and more routine?

Be Bored

When breath practice is not riveting and you find yourself 100% bored, simply commit to the experience of being bored. Boredom can be a fascinating exploration when you are willing to feel it. How does the texture of your boredom feel? Where does it arise in your body? Using boredom as an exploration of present experience can add more zest to those moments, while simultaneously strengthening your mindfulness practice. Mundane moments can be useful times to step back and find a sense of ease, regardless of the monotonous circumstances.

Feel When You've Lost Your Cool

If you find yourself at the brink of unproductive anger, you are not a bad parent for losing your patience. This is a perfect time to check back with your internal experience and not act out. Don't get lost in the drama in front of you-instead, pause and feel into your body's reactions. Even if the pause is only a millisecond long, giving yourself space is a chance to see the emotion bubbling up and work with it with more awareness. Seeing and feeling the emotion helps avoid the situation from escalating, and it will support you to stay composed in challenging times.

Relax into the Imperfection

Most people feel that their sphere of responsibility has grown exponentially upon becoming a parent. You are the lifeline for the health and well-being of your child. While making sure they are safe, secure, and loved is absolutely paramount, it is also important to know your limits. Ultimately, there are many things that you won't be able to control, no matter how hard you try. It is important to remember that life is not always predictable. Plates will break, tears will be shed, and difficulties will inevitably occur-this is the reality of being a parent and being alive. In these situations, don't overextend your responsibility. When appropriate, practice letting go, and relax into the imperfection. You can find satisfaction and even gratitude in those moments if you give yourself a break to embrace life as it unfolds.

For more from Alexis Santos and Dan Harris, check out some free guided meditations from 10% Happier.

Let Go of Being the Ideal Role Model

Raising the Mindful Family

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Every parent knows that having children is a field ripe with emotions. Frustration, anger, boredom, joy, love, or fear-name an emotion, and it's probably there on the wild ride of parenting. But this can also feel like the tipping point into insanity.

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Busy schedules, digital devices, long commutes-all of this leads to family members who are disconnected from each other as never before. Psychologists Stefanie and Elisha Goldstein show us ways to strengthen relationships, increase everyone's well-being, and bring the family back together.

An unsettling shift is happening in our culture today: there's less and less intimate connection in modern families, as the bonds between partners, and between parents and children, weaken through distraction and busyness. Too many family members spend dinner hour (if it lasts that long) looking at their phones and tablets instead of connecting with each other. We convey our love on the fly, in sound bites and cursory text messages like "luv u." That's no substitute for looking into one another's eyes, feeling each other's touch, taking time for a real conversation, and saying "I love you" with meaning. It's easy to imagine a future in which disconnected families are the norm, as habitual routines blind us to the connections, choices, and wonders that make family life so rich.

Through our therapeutic work with hundreds of children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families, we have seen how deep and heartbreaking the growing disconnection in families can be. We've watched family after family give up trying to reconnect because it feels too hard and painful to try to reverse the direction of something that has been eroding for too long.

Seeing the depth of these challenges has inspired us to develop some principles and guidelines that might be helpful in raising a mindful family. We have done this not only to work with disconnected families-and help others not end up that way-but also because we wanted to discover how to raise our own children with love, understanding, playfulness, humor, and trust, and maintain a strong relationship in the midst of it all.

All of us start out with such high aspirations, but we run into difficulties along the way. When the inevitable challenges arise, we have learned over and over again (sometimes the hard way) that looking first to what others need to do to change is not the most effective place to start.

That's why our first principle is "raising the mindful self," which doesn't mean cultivating any special "self." It simply means that each of us has to do our own work first. The next natural place to put our attention is on our relationship with our partner, which will not do well on autopilot. We need to nurture and tend to it regularly. If that's happening, we're well on our way to giving our children what they need, because they will take their lead from us. How they see us live is more powerful than anything we say to them about mindfulness.

Raising the Mindful Self

Years ago we were invited to a private talk by the famous pediatrician and author Berry Brazelton. There were lots of questions from parents and professionals, including us, who were searching for "how to" answers to everyday parenting quandaries. Toward the end of his talk Brazelton said, "You know, it may be that the enormous field of child development and parenting has actually done parents a disservice. It has sent them the message that they need to look to experts to find the answers, when oftentimes the answers lie within. They always have."

Looking within is where we believe raising a mindful family starts-with each of us learning how to pause, listen deeply to ourselves, and trust our own wisdom. Finding spaces in our day to slow down, take a breath, and check in trains our minds to shift to a larger perspective in the midst of emotional reactions and see more clearly what we and others need in any given moment.

Raising a family is anything but simple. It offers multiple inputs coming at us from multiple directions, and if we get overwhelmed, our brain will operate on default. We will draw on our childhood emotional history to make quick judgments about how to react to our own children and our partner. In our best moments, we can find the breathing space to see the bigger picture and consider healthy ways to respond. But as life becomes increasingly stressful and hectic, it's easy to fall into a routine of unhealthy, impulsive patterns that we may have inherited from our parents- despite the fact that we swore we would do it differently with our own family. Now we feel bad. Ashamed, we label ourselves "bad parent" or maybe "not good enough parent." Learning how to pause more frequently through the day can help you notice these patterns and provide insight into how you can reconnect to yourself, your partner (if you have one), and your children.

As parents, we're all imperfect. One of the most important practices we've found for raising a mindful family is applying self-compassion during the stressful moments: being aware of our own moments of struggling, with an inclination to help ourselves with kindness.

We recommend any of the many short mindfulness practices that teach you how to stop and quickly shift your perspective. We also encourage using practices that help you trust your inner wisdom as a parent-something we so often tend to doubt. Here's one practice that we've found particularly helpful.

As parents, we're all imperfect. Remember that, and be kind to yourself during the stressful moments.

Practice: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion

When you recognize you're in a stressful moment, acknowledge the difficulty by saying, "This is hard right now." Then ask yourself, "What do I need?"

Acknowledging and querying allow you to open up to wisdom you have within and build self-trust. Maybe you find that you want to have more patience or be free from the stress that's hitting you in the moment. Try placing your hand on your heart as a gesture of caring and say to yourself, "May I be at ease, have more patience, and be free from this stress."

If you want, you can take this deeper. You can imagine all of the other parents out there who have experienced this struggle and wish them the same. We're all connected on this imperfect journey of parenting. Recognizing that helps us drop the burden of self-judgment, feel more connected, and open up to what really matters.

Raising the Mindful Couple

Like most parents, we've experienced times when the quantity and quality of our connection has waned. In those periods we felt irritable, restless, and hungry to connect. But rather than find refuge in each other's companionship, we would numb the longing with distractions like television, work, or pouring an extra glass of wine- none of which quench the longing for loving connection. Whether you're in a partnership, recently out of one, or looking to be in one, setting the intention to nurture loving connections in your life is paramount for your own health and happiness.

A partnership is its own entity, almost like a person. It needs attention and nourishment in the same way your own body and mind do. But what's the best way to give it the kind of attention it needs?

Researcher and author Barbara Fredrickson recently defined love in a more subtle way than most of us tend to view it. "Love, as your body experiences it," she says, "is a micro-moment of connection shared with another."

That accords with our experience. Each day gives us many opportunities to create and share micro-moments of connection with each other, yet we often fall into the trap of brushing past our loved one, seeing them as a static object. We miss the opportunity to see the person, with all their strengths, beauty, joys, and triumphs, and also their perceived failures and accumulated sufferings. Ultimately, when we see the person, we feel our shared humanity, in all its complexity. Creating micro-moments of connection can counteract the disconnection that so often creeps into a relationship and can help sustain our love. In fact, these moments are love.

According to many researchers, when we attend to these moments, we're not as activated by life's inevitable stressors. Because of that, old unhealthy patterns are not triggered so often by chaos and disruption-and we become a happier and more resilient person, partner, and parent. It may be hard to believe that moments of positive connection can actually sustain us during the disconnected times, but they can and they do. Love is a renewable energy source and can be found in the tiniest of moments.

Practice: Cultivating Mindful Micro-Moments

Decide to create at least one micro-moment of connection this week, both verbally and physically. If judgments or fears arise, just notice them and recommit to your intention. Notice how you feel when you hold hands or give a gentle caress on the arm or cheek. Let a hug last until you both feel your bodies relax, indicating that the nervous systems have been connected and calmed. See if you can linger a bit longer than normal, taking in the feeling of each moment.

Raising the Mindful Child (and Parent)

Small children are so present with their experience that they usually don't need help connecting to the moment. As children grow older, though, the complexities of social engagement, the pressures of school, and the distractions of technology play a significant role in their daily lives. They, like us, need all the help they can get coming home to themselves with awareness and compassion. What they've learned from their parents over the years can make a significant contribution to their ability to do so.

It is difficult to separate raising a mindful child from raising a mindful parent, since we are often, without even realizing it, passively teaching our kids to be mindful or mindless. We can be so focused on "teaching" our kids how to be responsible and compassionate adults that we forget that they're learning the most by watching how we are being in the world.

If you're staring at your phone while answering your child's questions, you're teaching them that fully listening isn't that important. If you're hyper-stressed and snap at the driver who just cut you off, you're teaching them that acting out aggression is a healthy response to perceived slights. On the other hand, when you stop to help someone who dropped something on the street, you're teaching them to give thought to others, the root of compassion. When you're willing to talk openly about emotions-both yours and theirs-and you treat yourself with kindness in difficult times, you inspire emotional intelligence and self-compassion. When you rebound from your mistakes instead of spiraling into shame, you're modeling resilience.

There are also more active ways we can teach our children mindfulness. We can find creative ways to inspire it in them-not trying to impose it but simply planting the seeds. You can start by working with mindfulness of emotions. Even when children as young as two are upset or happy, you can nurture self-reflection and emotional intelligence in them. You can help them identify and label their emotions and where they feel them in the body. That will lay the foundation for doing this on their own. That may take a while, so just remember-you are simply planting seeds. Be sure to take it slow and check in: How are you feeling right now? How do you imagine your child is feeling?

"Breathing Buddy" is a practice used by many people who work with children and mindfulness. In our CALM (Connecting Adolescents to Learning Mindfulness) program, we have had success using it with young children, tweens, and teens. It's very easy to do with your own children.

Practice: Breathing Buddy

This is a fun practice you can do together as a family. To begin, get a small weighted stuffed animal for your toddler or school-age child, or a smooth river rock for a tween or teen. This is their "breathing buddy." Then, everyone lies down, places a breathing buddy on their belly, and tries to make it rise and fall with every inhalation and exhalation. It's helpful to encourage everyone to slow their breathing by counting to three on the inhale and back down to one on the exhale.

This is a tool your children can use to calm themselves in stressful moments, such as when they are feeling anxious before a test or after a tension-filled spat with a friend. For smaller children it can be helpful to create a story incorporating the breathing buddy to get them more engaged.

Our most meaningful moments occur when we slow down and tune in to the simple things in life. That's not always easy to do-other things in life can seem so important-but when you do stop and regain your perspective, it benefits you, your partner, and your children. It helps family members regulate emotions during trying times, creates flexibility and creativity, and cultivates gratitude, empathy, and compassion.

When we learn to be grateful for the good times and graceful during the tough times, it opens us up to real life, not a distracted and automatic version of it. Remember, raising a mindful family that includes yourself, your partnership, and your children is a practice: you will not be perfect. When you stray from your intention, forgive yourself. In that moment you can discover something vital: you can always choose to begin again.

Subscribe to learn more about the best mindfulness practices.

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Busy schedules, digital devices, long commutes-all of this leads to family members who are disconnected from each other as never before. Psychologists Stefanie and Elisha Goldstein show us ways to strengthen relationships, increase everyone's well-being, and bring the family back together.

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The Benefits of Meditation ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

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An evidence-based approach to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children in the classroom, school and home environments. Choose the implementation option to suit your school.

For a limited time, Australian primary schools can apply for a funded place and receive the Primary School Program at no direct cost to the school.

Smiling Mind is Australia's leading digital-led, prevention focussed mental health not-for-profit. Smiling Mind has been helping minds thrive for over 10 years and are the innovators behind Australia's most trusted mental wellbeing app. Our evidence-based tools support people to learn the skills to maintain their mental health in fun and interactive ways.

If you'd like to support our work, you can make a donation. Every contribution, however large or small makes a difference and we're so grateful for your support.

The Australian Mental Wellbeing Index provides a snapshot insight into the everyday mental wellbeing of Australia. It explores the factors that contribute to mental wellbeing and aims to generate a national conversation about how Australians can take a proactive approach to support mental wellbeing.

We've recently released the second annual report exploring the data collected across 2022-2023. The latest report shows young Australians aged 18-24, are experiencing poorer mental wellbeing than older age groups and poorer levels of focus and concentration may be a key driver of this.

A daily mindfulness and meditation guide at your fingertips

#1 Apple Health & Wellbeing App 2018 - Australia

Trusted by over 7.8M people

100% evidence based

FREE Programs for children and adults

We suggest 10 minutes a day

What are you waiting for?

DOWNLOAD THE APP NOW AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!

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Smiling Mind is a non-for-profit web and app-based meditation program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring mindfulness into your life.

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When we teach mindfulness to kids, we equip them with tools to build self-esteem, manage stress, and skillfully approach challenges. Explore our guide on how to introduce mindfulness and meditation to your children—at any age.

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Great guided meditations!

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​ ​Welcome to the Peaceful Kids guided meditations for children, teens and parents. We have listeners from Australia and more recently the US, UK, Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and South...