A new video channel offering down-to-earth guided mindfulness meditations for children

As a primary school teacher and meditator I spent hours hunting through the internet for meditations suitable for the children in my class. Their lives were so busy and it always struck me that developing a mindfulness practice would be both a good habit long term and a chance to take a break during a full-on school day.

Whenever I found one I liked I’d play it, often at the end of a day or in those transitional moments between lessons. Invariably the pupils would crack up laughing, and it soon became obvious that many of the resources online are just too cheesy (their word, not mine) for children of eight and above, who in this day and age are both kids and budding teenagers.

They don’t want to be spoken to in overly-soft tones overlaid on to generic electronic chillout music. Some of them already have a built-in prejudice against and cynicism about such things. What they are willing to give a chance, however, are straightforward guided mindfulness practices that offer some headspace while offering food for thought and invoking a curiosity to know more.

With this as motivation, I’ve started up a video channel with the aim of producing just that. Go Well Kids is very much in its infancy and I intend to grow it regularly and steadily. So far it’s focused on providing short videos, each with a particular focus, for example sound, loving kindness and body scan.

The latest video, above, is a practice in acknowledging the similarities between ourselves as human beings. Often we focus on the differences between us, but realising that even a person who seems very different to you is in a fundamental way just like you can become the basis of real connection.

It aims to guide young people through the idea that there are universal common human feelings, hopes and wishes and to show that it’s possible to develop a sense of compassion and understanding by coming to feel our shared sense of experience as human beings.