Having good ways of managing stress has never been more important. Science, and my own personal experience, has demonstrated that meditation is an effective and accessible stress management tool for children and adults.

If we teach our children to meditate now, we give them a powerful tool for managing the strains of our current life. And, if it sticks, we are also providing them with a healthy means of coping that will benefit them throughout their lives — even after the pandemic ends.

There’s one catch. Kids often resist meditation. Challenging children — the ones who need it the most — can resist meditation the hardest.

Here are five steps you can use to encourage your challenging child to meditate.

1.   Start your own meditation practice.

You might already be a regular meditator and you want to share the benefits with your child. If you aren’t, now is the time to start. One of the most powerful ways that our children learn from us is by watching what we do. If we meditate — especially, if we meditate where our children can see us meditating — we teach by example. Starting your own practice will also give you firsthand experience of what meditation is like and what it does for you. This knowledge will provide a foundation from which you can more effectively speak with your child about meditating.

If you aren’t meditating already, how do you begin? I’d suggest downloading a meditation app. There are many of them — Calm, 10% Happier, and Headspace are among the most popular. I recommend Headspace because it’s a very good beginning app to use and it’s great to use with kids.

Once you’ve picked your app and gotten a roll on your own meditation practice, take a moment and see how you feel. Do you feel any different? Calmer, less stressed, less reactive?

2.   Introduce meditation when things are calm.

The temptation is to try to get a child to meditate in the middle of, or right after a meltdown. We feel desperate in those moments to help and we want to use any tool at hand. Unfortunately, this is the worst time to introduce meditation. The best time is when stress is low and things are happy and calm. We’re all more open to new things when we are feeling good. Also, it’s much easier to start learning a new skill (and meditation is a skill) when we are in a relaxed, comfortable state of mind.
Bedtime can be a terrific time to introduce meditation. It can be a great time to talk to children gently about how their days were and how they are feeling. If your child is more open at bedtime, try suggesting that you do a simple meditation together as a way to prepare for sleep.

3.   Meditate together

When starting meditating with your child you’ll want to keep it short (no more than 5 minutes). Even so, children generally need an adult’s presence to be able to sit through it. Plan on meditation being a joint activity for the foreseeable future. Even if you manage to interest your child in meditation, it will probably be a very long time before he or she will choose to do it on his or her own. See if you can make a ritual of meditating together at a particular time each day.

4.   Connect meditation to things your child cares about.

Parents usually try to teach their kids to meditate because they want the children to learn skills for calming down when they are caught up in strong emotions. While this might be logical to grown ups, kids rarely want tools for calming down. They are emotional creatures. An anxious child usually wants to feel safe. An angry child wants justice. An upset child wants comfort. An excited child wants to feel the joy. Don’t get me wrong. Kids benefit from being less reactive and less anxious — we all do — and meditation can help. It’s just that these benefits are not selling points for kids.

Instead, you are much more likely to interest a child in meditation if you connect the practice to something they care about. Tell your child about the celebrities that they idealize who regularly meditate: Katie Perry, Lebron James, Steph Curry. Let them know that these celebrities meditate in order to be better musicians, better athletes, or better video game players (like Overwatch star and meditation practitioner JJonak).

5.   Be patient and persistent.

Persuading a child to meditate is a challenging task. If you manage to start and sustain your own meditation practice, your child will be much better off. Kids benefit when their parents are less stressed and more calm. Your meditation practice will help you get there.

Even if you don’t succeed at first, be patient and stick with it. In my experience, if you listen to why a child doesn’t want to meditate and keep looking for ways to make it enjoyable you’ll eventually succeed.