Mindfulness for my kid was a reminder of how much I learn through teaching

I have a kid with some major anxiety issues. He comes by them naturally, I officially have the diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which is just about as much fun as it sounds. It’s coupled with Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder, which first really exerted itself when I was around seven years old.

While I worry that his heightened anxiety is a harbinger of things to come for him, I also work on checking myself. Taking a breath, stepping back, remembering that he is not me. My experience was vastly different than his. Not the least of which is, we know that he has a family history of mental illness and are prepare to intervene. (also, it isn’t the early 80s, we aren’t living in Lusaka, and on and on)

To help him manage his anxiety I have been trying a variety of things, including mindfulness. I never push meditation on him, but I have been floating the idea with him since he was probably just over two years old.

When he went to junior kindergarten he had a lunchroom supervisor who meditated with the kids every day. I was elated, I thought this is my way in! But no dice. He loved the mediation at school, but I didn’t do them the same way, I didn’t sound the same as the lunchroom dude. So I backed off again.

It seems though that this summer was the magic time. It didn’t hurt that I was able to tell him that one of my best friends, who my son adores, practices mediation every day. So some confluation of events, or alignment of the stars, or just desire to be like that dude he admires so much, has meant that…

He was finally on board with mindfulness

We added several things into our routine. One was what I’ve started calling 5-point breathing, or just 5 mindful breaths, which I’ve seen done on the internet with kids by tracing stars and other shapes.

We do it by tracing our fingers — up the thumb, breathe in through the nose, pause for a second, then down the thumb to exhale through the nose, repeat for all the fingers. The idea came from a piece with some mindfulness exercises for children on a Left Brain Buddah that I have found quite useful. This ends up being a great mini-meditation that pulls him back into the moment and reminds his body that he’s not actually being chased by a lion or in some other immanent danger.

Also inspired by entries on Left Brain Buddah we have added a daily gratitude thing at dinner, which he took too like a fish to water. In fact, the second day we hadn’t even managed to get everyone around the table yet before he was asking me what I was thankful for.

Naming what you’re thankful for is not just a warm fuzzy exercise either. There’s research to show it’s also generally good for your health, physical as well as emotional. In fact, Berkeley has a whole initiative around it called The Expanding Gratitude Project: Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude.

Still more inspiration from Left Brain Buddah (I really connected with a lot of what she had to say apparently) we have also started a bedtime ritual. First is a sort of a mantra that I say one line at a time and he repeats: “May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I be strong. May I be calm. May I treat people with kindness.” If you do yoga you might recognize something like this from the final relaxation bit. Then we do “A Help, A Thanks, or a Wow” which is nicely explained in the blog post that I pulled it from. Then we read a chapter or a story. Then we do a short body scan meditation that I lead.

It has been amazing. When he is having a tough time he will sometimes ask if we can meditate together. It blows my mind. And I should clarify that we’ve only been doing this for about a month now. This isn’t some thing that we’ve been doing for ages now so it’s just drilled into him by now.

I’ve learned so much about Mindfulness

I have been trying to get into mindfulness since before he was born. I have taken courses, read books, tried and tried and tried to meditated, because I know I should. Because I know I’m supposed to. Because it is part of my prescribed treatment. But the truth is, I kind of hate it and I have a bit of trouble getting over myself.

Teaching my kid about it has started me on some new path though. Now I do the breathing, and not just with him. Now I am meditating more just on my own. Now I am finding my own way to mindfulness.

It was a reminder to me about how much more I can learn when I am teaching something. That’s the beauty of working through something with someone else, whether you are helping them with something or teaching it to them. That’s why, if you are trying to remember how something works, the best thing you can do is explain it to someone else.

The best way to learn new things is to start teaching someone something. You will learn something about them, you will learn something about you, you will learn something about how they learn. You will learn something about how you teach. You will learn so much. Take the time to work with someone, it’s pretty amazing.