a meditating with six year olds

A meditating with kids

I work in afterschool programming, but since its summer, we do “summer camp”.

Anyway, the kids have a free hour during after lunch, in which I am in charge of monitoring the air hockey table. Generally, unless the kids are fighting, there isn’t anything to do.

So today I just sat back against a wall silently staring at nothing. Casual silent meditation.

One of my clingier kids (about 6 years old) was upset about something. She kept trying to get into the dangerous tools so I told her to sit next to me on some foam blocks. So she did.

So then there was two of us just sitting staring at nothing.

Then a boy also in my class was curious and about the foam blocks the girl was sitting on. So I gave him one and he sat on it.

Then there were three of us sitting against the wall.

Then another boy from my class saw us, walked up to us, and sat on the floor in a line next to us.

So the 4 of us (me + 3 six year olds) just sat there silently against a wall while other kids were running and shouting around us.

I guess kids will just copy anything an adult does. Strange. It felt like a very beautfiful moment though.

In general these days, I’ve noticed that the kids I work with can’t tolerate even a moment of boredom or “nothing to do”. Its extremely worrying. It was refreshing to have a moment with kids where they can be okay with silence.

I hope it sticks with them.