Lately, our house has been a Conscious Kids factory! We've been so busy preparing our free online mindfulness course for kids that starts October 5th, 2015. Emma has been doing the illustrations for each story I write -that gets reviewed by my ex-journalist husband Rob. Emma (who has loved to draw since she was a baby) illustrates the pictures inside mandalas that she also creates from scratch. All the children who are signed up for the course will be able to colour these, so that's pretty exciting for an 11 year old!
We have families signed up from all over, from Australia, to the UK, the US, across Canada, Bulgaria and more. The world is ready for mindfulness on a big scale, I have been feeling this for some time now. I feel extremely motivated and grateful to be able to share what I have learned about consciousness / mindfulness over the past few decades with others. I know how these essential skills can better the lives of children and their families, I see it with my own children. As they grow older, Emma and Theo increasingly need a roadmap to help them navigate the unpredictable waters of their emotions, thoughts and perceptions. Writing this course has given me the opportunity to really think about the best order in which to teach the basic skills to kids. The funny thing is, the majority of adults would also benefit from learning these! For example, here are some of the questions that are answered in the course:
-What creates your emotions?
-How can you tell if your thinking has been predominantly negative or positive?
-What can you do when you feel intense, overwhelming emotions?
-What are your emotions telling you?
-When you're stuck in a negative mood, what can you do about it?
Theo, Emma (and our cat Precious) participate in brief videos we make that explain what each weekly lesson will be about. I'm already pleasantly surprised to see how simply participating in the making of these videos has helped Theo and Emma deal with bursts of emotions and moodiness! It's one thing to teach them about emotional self-regulation with words, but it's an entirely different thing to teach them with real-life examples.
When Theo and Emma act out a scene for the videos, then watch themselves back and are asked "what would be a better way of dealing with this situation?" they really get it. When a daily drama outbreak happens in our home, as it inevitably does, I simply remind the kids of what they did in the videos, and they instantly calm down and remember what they can do to make themselves feel better! I honestly didn't foresee how these little videos we are making are probably going to teach Emma and Theo more about mindfulness than the weekly stories from the course! I read each story I've written to the kids and I carefully notice if they are looking bored, not paying attention, or loving every bit of it. They are my quality control process! So far so good!
Anyway, I won't be blogging quite as much for the next little while, there's just too much to do with Conscious Kids. You can still register for the course for FREE up until October 1st, 2015. We'll see you in virtual class! Thanks for sharing, the more the merrier!
Warmly,
Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com
