Blow big bubbles to practice slow, calm breaths. Then see how you can blow many small bubbles when you breathe faster!
While we are on the topic of breathing, here are some other breathing strategies that I recommend to my clients often:
Kira Willey’s Mindful Moments for Kids
Conscious Discipline breathing exercises for kids and parents (YouTube playlist)
While researching for this blog post, I also found this cute puffer fish that goes up and down as you breathe and I kind of love it!
Also I love to remind parents that blowing bubbles is an awesome way to practice breathing! Blow big bubbles to practice slow, calm breaths. Then see how you can blow many small bubbles when you breathe faster! Can you blow bubbles with belly breathing? Just know that shaking bubbles or waving the wand inside of the bubble solution will make the solution get foamy and stop working.
Reminder: Why practice breathing with your kids? It builds calm. It tells the brain that they are safe, which can help them to think more clearly and make better decisions. It can help to reduce cortisol, which can be helpful as part of a pre-sleep routine to help prepare the body for rest and shut off from a busy day. It also helps with gut health, according to Dr. Elisa Song of the book Healthy Kids, Happy Kids.
April additions: One of the things I love to do is to use the things that kids already know and love and build on it! So recently I found:
What would YOUR kids add to this list? Can you find some videos on YouTube? Share them with me!
