How to introduce your children to mindfulness
I try to use mindfulness when I can, in a very simple form – literally, being in the present – and that has the effect of excluding painful memories from the past, preventing me from getting anxious over “what ifs” and worrying about things in the future that I have no control over. I see it as being my emotional armour.
Timing is important
Young children can benefit from practising mindfulness and can be really good at it. You could start with something very simple such as blowing and watching bubbles for no other purpose than to be present. There’s no preferred age to start mindfulness, you can begin at any time, but make sure the language you use is simple enough for your child to understand.
Be open and explain what mindfulness is
It can be hard for children to practise mindfulness as there are so many distractions and stimulation around. Talk to your kids about what to expect from mindfulness and prepare them for certain obstacles in approaching it.
You should practise it together so your child will feel comfortable sharing their own experiences.
Where/how to do it
Being outdoors surrounded by nature is a place to start. Spring and summer are great because there are so many things going on – flowers blooming, fruits and vegetables growing, birds chirping, bees buzzing, all great things to focus on.
The aim is to increase the length of time you and your child are experiencing it. The more you can reduce distractions or frustration, the longer you can go.
Don’t forget to discuss their experiences afterwards and talk about how they feel.
The Government announced with fanfare and flourish that we’d have a worldbeating test-tracktrace programme up and running by June 1. Well, that date came and went, yet again a deadline missed through over-promising.
The problem is no politician, and especially those who present themselves at the daily press briefings, has any idea how their strategies are put into practice.
None is familiar with what’s actually happening on the ground, how to solve problems and how to correct mistakes. A case in point is this test and trace programme.
In reality these government politicos deal in hot air. They have only a superficial idea of how to make the crucially important test-and-trace operation work.
Do they know for instance that two-thirds of traced people don’t fully cooperate with tracers?
A report about a pilot scheme in Sheffield by Elisabeth Mahase in the BMJ revealed the gory details. Even health and care workers didn’t properly play ball. Because of the
NHS’s centralised approach and minimum-wage employees at call centres, the pilot team is concerned the test-and-trace schemes launched in England and Scotland could come up against severe obstacles.
It was the result of frustration felt by a group of retired doctors and public health experts at the absence of government action on contact tracing that led them to form the Sheffield Community Contact Tracers team.
They uncovered some surprising problems among people who weren’t sticking to safety precautions like social distancing and self-isolation.
Disappointingly they reported just one in five people returned phone calls, and that was only after a letter was delivered by hand to them.
Joan Miller, a retired public health doctor and a member of the Sheffield team, said: “Successful contact tracing takes meticulous hard work.
“In Covid-19, this is also going to take tight liaison and cooperation between agencies.
“The voluntary and community sector have a very valuable role to play here alongside statutory bodies, because they reach communities others can’t reach.”
Bing Jones, also a member of the Sheffield team and a former associate specialist in haematology, said that the “call centre, minimum-wage based proposal is fraught with difficulties”.
He added: “We need to beef up the notion of civic duty. There needs to be protocols and messaging which emphasises the need for people to do this thoroughly.
“There is no point in doing this half-heartedly. It is very, very important that the Government has clear messaging and information.
“We must encourage people and enable them to stay off work.”
Politicians are not familiar with what happens on the ground