Meditation offers children the opportunity to unplug, calm their mind and just be. They learn to slow down, breathe deeply, clear their minds, and practice mindfulness. It gives them coping mechanisms for dealing with stressful situations and has been shown to improve sleep, concentration, focus and regulate emotions. This makes it a useful tool to have in your arsenal if your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, ADD, is Autistic or just has trouble letting go of the day and falling to sleep. If your little one is getting a good night’s sleep and has lower stress levels, their overall wellbeing and immune system are also likely to improve. Sounds great right?!
The best times to mediate are when you wake up and as you go to sleep – preparing you to sleep better and wake, well rested, ready to hit the day at 100%! The good news is, even just a few minutes spent meditating can have amazing benefits for children. If you are new to meditation, the perfect way to get started on your family’s journey is to listen to guided meditations and the even better news is there are quite a few children’s meditation apps for you to choose from on the app store or Google play.
We’ve picked 4 of our favourite meditation apps for bedtime sleep to help get you started:
Headspace
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/headspace-meditation-sleep/id493145008
This app can be used by the entire family. The children’s section of the app explores 5 themes – Calm, Focus, Kindness, Sleep, Wake up.
‘..enjoy fun, engaging activities that teach kids the basics of mindfulness. They’ll practice breathing exercises, visualizations.’
Headspace offers a free trial, then there is a monthly or annual subscription starting at $19.99.
Stop, Breathe Think for Kids
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/stop-breathe-think-kids/id1215758068
Aimed at 5–10-year-olds. This app offers a fun and easy way for children to process their emotions, calm down and sleep better.
‘..meditation and mindfulness made easy for kids, to help them discover and develop their superpowers of sleep, being, calm, learning to breathe or to resolve conflict.’
Available as a monthly or yearly subscription, starting at $14.49.
Smiling Mind
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/smiling-mind/id560442518
You know we love this one! A free, simple, easy to use meditation app for all ages.
‘ ..Smiling Mind is a FREE mindfulness meditation app developed by psychologists and educators to help bring balance to your life.’
Sleep meditations for kids
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/sleep-meditations-for-kids/id549414156
Created for children of all ages, this highly regarded meditation app is from leading yoga teacher and Montessori teacher Christiane Kerr.
’..Christiane skilfully guides children to the creative part of their mind through a number of carefully scripted story meditations. These deeply relaxing recordings can help your children with sleep issues, insomnia, stress, anxiety and with feelings of confidence and well being.’
The app is free with limited content and then there is a cost of $4.49 per optional meditation track.
If you want to combine your night light needs and stream a guided meditation track, we recommend connecting your Duski Dream Guardian to your device to stream your track of choice and then disconnect it. Now switch your Dream Guardian to a low red light and leave it on until your child is asleep. You can also set the timer to do this if you prefer. It can be left on all night if this is part of your nighttime routine. Please remember to charge your Duski Sleep Aid in the morning so that it is ready for the next night.
