Body Scan Meditation For Children

Invite your child to slow down, take a breath, and reconnect with their body through this gentle guided body scan, created especially for children ages 6 to 12. With age-appropriate language and soothing guidance, young meditators are encouraged to notice body sensations, release tension, and discover a moment of calm. This practice is wonderful at bedtime, when preparing for sleep, or anytime your child needs a mindful break during a busy day. Children can listen comfortably, follow along at their own pace, and explore the practice with curiosity.
Like any skill, mindfulness grows with practice. Return to this body scan whenever your child needs a little space to pause, relax, and reconnect with themselves. Each time offers a new opportunity to cultivate calm and body awareness.
Anne-Marie Emanuelli, (Mindful Frontiers), an experienced meditation guide & teacher, has been sharing mindfulness with young meditators for many years.

Transcript

Good morning young ones. I'm glad you're here today. We're going to do some mindful meditation together. Today's practice is about feeling our bodies without our hands, With our minds, With our thoughts. So we have feelings that are like sad, Angry, Happy, Excited. And then we have sensations. Sensations are things that we feel that don't have sad or happy about them. They're just something we feel. So for example, You might feel that your nose itches. That's a sensation. You might feel in your hands some tingling. That's called a sensation. When you rub your hands together and then feel what that feels like, That's maybe warmth from the rubbing. Sensation. It's a type of feeling that you feel without using your fingers. You're not touching to feel it. You just feel it inside. So that's what we're going to do with this body scan. So let's begin with the ringing of the bell. Because it's a soothing sound and it's like a signal to our body and our mind and our heart that we're going to do mindfulness. So let's begin in our mindful bodies. I'm sitting on a cushion. You might be sitting on a chair or you might be sitting on your bed or somewhere on the ground. If you have a cushion, It's more comfortable if you sit on a cushion, Something soft. I like to close my eyes because it helps me to pay attention. If I open my eyes, I get tempted to look around the room and see things and it takes my attention away from what I'm doing. But you decide what works best for you. The important thing is that you are able to sit still for just a little while. So let's start out however you want to have your eyes. You can also just look down on the ground in front of you. Your hands are in your lap or on your thighs. Just comfortable. And we will start by paying attention and listening to our breath. What are the sensations that you feel when you breathe? So I feel my chest and my belly filling up with air like a balloon. And when I breathe out, I can feel my shoulders kind of going down, You know, And my belly is coming in. So let's do a couple more breaths and you decide what you feel, What the sensation is of your breathing. So we're just noticing those sensations. We're not getting fixated or trying to analyze them. We just notice, Oh, I'm breathing in my belly, Something like that. Oh, My chest is expanding and contracting, Meaning getting bigger and then smaller. So now we're going to take a trip around the body. Hold your hands up in the air, Clasp them together. And bring them down on your lap. And with our mindful bodies on, We let our bodies be very still. We begin with our feet and we're feeling what is it, The sensation in our feet. We're sensing it with our mind, Not with our hands. We're not touching our feet. We're feeling it through our mind. What do you feel? What do you sense in your feet? Are the toes touching the ground? Do you feel any tingling? Maybe you don't feel anything. And that's OK, Too. Now notice your hands. What do you feel in your hands? Just pay attention to that part and see what you notice. Warm, Cool, Hot, Heavy, Light, Soft, Hard. Your fingers are twitching, So that's movement or something else. And sometimes we don't notice anything in particular at all, And that's OK. Let's now pay attention to our knees. My knees are bent. And I feel them against the ground. Now our legs. Upper part of the legs. Do we feel the clothing that's touching our skin? Is it warm? Soft? Our bellies. Let's be mindful of one breath cycle in our bellies. Breathing in and breathing out. What do we notice? Belly expands like a balloon when the air goes in. And it contracts. Gets smaller when the air comes out. Now your shoulders. Notice what they are sensing. Notice what's there. Clothing against the skin. The heaviness. Your arms. Notice your hands clasped together. The feeling of the skin on one hand, Feeling the skin on the other hand. Your fingertips. They're laced together. So you have fingers and fingers together. Let's notice our neck. Neck is sitting on our shoulders and it holds up our head. It's a very strong part of the body. Now our face. Let's bring our hands just in front of our eyes and let the eyelashes touch the skin. Flicker your eyelashes like the wings of a butterfly. Feel how soft they are. The little tickly feeling. You can bring your hands down. Let's now notice our head. The whole head with the hair on top. Your ears attached to the side. Your nose in the front of your face. Do you feel, Do you sense the hair on your head? Now let's notice our ears. Do you hear something with our ears right now? A couple more breaths on your own. Before we finish our little voyage through the body. And when you're ready you can flutter your eyes open. I'd like you to think for yourself, Answer your own question. Where did you notice the most sensations? Which part of your body? What kinds of sensations did you notice? Were there any sensations that were surprising? Like, Oh my God, I never knew that felt like that. Did you by any chance notice if the right side of your body felt different from the left side? Thank you for joining me in this body scan, Young ones. I hope to see you here again for another meditation. Take care.

Reviews

It was extremely helpful. I’ve been showing my son how to meditate and I was struggling to find a way to guide him through a body scan in a way he could understand. Thank you for what you do. I appreciate you!