Mindfulness for Kids: Getting Good at Slowing Down

Kids are pretty good at going fast. 

In fact, speed is something that I find fascinates them quite a bit. When I am in session with a child, I hear stories about moving fast, winning races, or being the first to complete an assignment at school. When we play together, they create games or competitions and like to challenge me to keep up with them. 

Speed, to a child, is a demonstration of power and ability, both of which are developmentally appropriate to seek out, particularly (according to Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development) between the ages of 3-11. During this time, kids experiment more and more with limits and boundaries. They seek to learn what they are capable of and strive to feel competent. As a result, they are constantly wondering how fast something can go, how big something can get, and how strong something can be.

This exploratory sense of wonder is a beautiful thing! It can provide opportunities for kids to experience success and failure, pride and frustration. It teaches important lessons about boundaries and rules. 

As I tell kids and parents all the time, moving fast is a strength that allows us to adapt, react, think on our feet, and solve problems in real-time, all of which are important skills.

But what about slowness?

Ask any child and they will tell you that being fast is better than being slow. Slowness is seen as suboptimal, uncompetitive, and altogether disadvantageous. And while these things might be true in some contexts (a race, for example), this mindset leads kids to slow down less and less. Add onto that the constant reinforcement of instant gratification in the media, and the result is a generation of kids that have very little desire to slow down at all. It can feel frustrating, difficult to tolerate, and even unsafe.

Like speed, slowness has its strengths. It allows for greater reflection, thought-out decisions, enhanced empathy, and clearer understanding. Kids that are good at being fast and slow experience greater flexibility and improved emotional regulation. 

In session, I spend a lot of time working to help kids safely and intentionally slow down. This is mainly done by teaching and practicing mindfulness. My favorite way to talk about mindfulness is by starting with its opposite, mindlessness. Everyone, adults and kids alike, experiences moments of mindlessness: acting impulsively, running on autopilot, and essentially “shutting off” conscious processing. This is simply part of being human. The goal is not to eliminate mindlessness altogether, because that would not be realistic. The goal is to experience and practice mindfulness more frequently. This can be done by drawing attention to the present moment, paying attention to the senses, noticing (but not judging!) a thought or feeling, tuning into bodily sensations, and more. 

Mindfulness and slowness are skills. This means that they do not come naturally to everyone and require consistent practice. By learning these skills in therapy and applying them at home with parental support, your child can achieve greater self-awareness, flexibility, regulation, and balance.