Mindfulness and Your Toddler

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Your calm loving presence is the biggest gift you can give your child. If you can relax into being present and loving with your little one—not worrying too much about tidiness, toys, enrichments, or schedules—life will flow more easily for you and your child. Does that sound impossible? It isn’t.

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness means bringing your attention to what’s happening in the present moment, without judgment. It means consciously attending to being here, in this moment, and finding the stillness at your center.

Why Is Mindfulness Important for Parenting Preschoolers?

There’s ample evidence that mindfulness reduces stress and anxiety, improves attention and memory, and promotes self-regulation and empathy. There are many reasons to be a mindful human being—you may be calmer, healthier, more reasonable, and nicer to spend time with—but the reasons to be a mindful parent of a young child are even more urgent.

• You can become more patient, less irritable, and more present to your child’s feelings, so you’re better able to listen, and to respond thoughtfully and well.
• You get to decide how to respond in the moment, instead of being overwhelmed by your feelings.
• You can still feel the normal reactions when your child pushes your buttons, but instead of getting upset, shouting at your child, or punishing them without thinking, you can take a few deep breaths, analyze what’s happening, and respond appropriately.

8 Mindfulness Ideas You Can Fit Into Your Very Busy Day

1. Pay attention to your breath. Breathe in, counting to five. Hold for five. Breathe out to the count of five. Repeat twice. Do this as needed, in challenging moments. It also works as preventative maintenance if you do it a few times during the day, whenever you think of it.
2. Do some stretches. Do a few stretches, paying attention to your body and the way it feels. Do this a few times a day. It will begin to feel like your time, and helps you focus on how you’re doing, working to prevent accumulating extra stress.
3. Count to 10. You can do this silently or out loud as appropriate. Stop to count to 10 before you respond to another mess, another "no," another tantrum.
4. Find an affirmation that works for you. An affirmation is a saying that helps you connect with your center, so you can act from a place of calm. Ideally, you repeat one or two affirmations every day, perhaps while you’re washing the dishes, giving the baby a bath, or having a shower, or any other time it works for you. One of my personal favorites is “Thank you for another day of loving.” It reminds me that being loving is the only thing that really matters.
5. Go deeper. If I have a bit more time before I explode or need to do something, I add, “Let me let your light through me. Let me see your light as it comes through ____ (the person who’s making me crazy right now).” That’s usually enough to slow me down so I can respond thoughtfully, instead of reacting and making things worse.
6. Find another affirmation. You might want to try this one, from the late Thich Nhat Hanh, a peace activist and much-loved meditation teacher: “Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment. I know this is a wonderful moment. Breathing in, calm. Breathing out, smile. Present moment. Wonderful moment.” You can shorten it when you only have a moment, and say any one of these lines on its own. I particularly like, “Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.”
7. Practice mindfulness in action, with gratitude. You can become mindful while you’re walking, listening to music, or cooking. What that means is attending to what you’re doing, moment by moment, feeling grateful for each of the muscles you’re using; the sounds of each instrument playing; the contribution of each pot, implement, and ingredient.
8. Bring yourself back to calm when you’re not. Practicing mindfulness doesn’t mean you’ll be calm and centered every moment of every day—in my experience, nobody achieves that—but rather learning to notice when you’re not calm, and then bringing yourself back to center before doing any real damage.

4 Ways a Parent Can Nurture Mindfulness in Their Young Child

1. Do some dragon breaths. When your toddler or child is veering out of control, ask them to stop and breathe out the bad feelings with you. Say, “Breathe in while we count to five. Now hold your breath while we count to five again. Now, breathe out loudly, like a dragon, while we count to five one more time.”
2. Pay attention to feelings. Help your child notice when they’re feeling hungry, cold, worried, angry, or something else they don’t like. Teach them to take one or more deep breaths to calm themself before reacting to the bad feelings.
3. Work on your own mindfulness. Start one of the mindfulness practices for yourself.
4. Share your mindfulness practice with your child. Tell them what you’re doing to become more mindful, and why.

Accept and be mindful. Smile. Breathe out. Breathe in. You really are enough.