February 3, 2025

How do I teach meditation to a child?

00:00
00:00
El Shakar Ideh
Answered by El Shakar
Steward, HGA
Question

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

Block quote

Ordered list

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

Hello, Rabbi! Thank you so much for allowing God to have expression in and through you. I'm super elated to be here.

I’d love to know, my 3-year-old nephew stays with us and you’ve spoken a lot about how, because our minds have been so cultured to these things that it’s hard for us to focus and meditate on things, since he’s still young, are there any practices I can inculcate with him to make his journey with God a bit easier?

I already speak to him about God and teach him to pray because there are so many prophecies concerning him, so I just want him to have a good start. I want to engage him in practices that culture his mind to stay on God and the things of God. Any ideas, please? How do I go about it?

Transcript of answer

Of course, your question is very worthwhile. Well, for children, like I said, any kind of education of any kind, right? No matter how sophisticated it is, it has its manifestation in the different stages of a person's life.

If you want to teach a person medicine, there's a way you can begin to teach them medicine from childhood through care, compassion, love, and just, you know, fixing things like that, even though they never get to deal with a human being yet, but from young, they're already learning about care, healing, and all of that.

Meditation in the same vein takes unique forms when we're dealing with children. And around those ages of three and five, you know, first of all, well, I'll give you some simple examples. You want to, first of all, build rhythm.

For example, let the child eat at the same place. And if possible, the same time every day, so that the moment he sees his particular chair, automatically, that rhythm of food comes into his mind. That way, you're creating a kind of continuity within the mind of a child.

When you're giving him toys to play with, try not to put too many different toys in front of him. Also, let there be like a play, a proper play area to the best of your ability, even though it's a big warfare, but to the best of your abilities, let there be a proper play area, right? And limit the amount of toys that you allow the child to play with at a given time.

When the child has too many options from a young age, he starts to suffer from mental overload, fear of missing out, and struggle to select something out of worry of what he is going to lose in the process. As you want to create rhythm, you want to limit the child's options, okay?

When it's time to pick clothes, don't give the child too many clothes to choose from, right? Bring two and say, "Which one do you want, darling? Do you want the blue one or the red one?" Say, "Red one." You give him the red one; you give her the red one to wear, right?

Also, to even add a more religious take to it, you can begin to teach the child concentration and focus through songs, right? That's why a lot of children learn, first of all, through songs, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G." Notice the first time you play that song for a child, the child doesn't really know it. As a child, I don't remember when I learned my A's, B's, and C's. I just remember at one point, I could sing everything they were singing. Why? Because there was a kind of continuity.

So even you as a tutor, there has to be a kind of continuity in your energy and in your engagement with the child, alright? And use a lot of songs. The same song; let there be one or two major songs that you sing a lot that a child gets accustomed to and they learn.

You know, of course, age three is quite young, you know, so at that age, children don't have a very great long-term memory for a lot of things, just for a few things. So, use some words, some phrases, "Jesus loves you! Jesus loves you!" and you say that over and over again to create continuity in the child's mind, right?

And of course, as the child starts to get older, you have memory verses and things of the like. You can give them, like, games that require a great deal of concentration. Jigsaw puzzles are amazing for kids. Of course, you have to use the one that is for their age group, because jigsaw puzzles have different degrees of complexity, right? So, a game that would cause the child to put all his attention in one place is healthy.

As they start to get older too, get them involved in arts and crafts—things that are creative, right? Because children are very playful, they have a lot of energy. And so, whatever you want to use to educate them has to be fun and has to be creative in nature because, at that age, their creative force is at its peak, right?

So, when you have things like clay and Play-Doh, you say, "Okay, make this pot, make this kettle." You see, this same child who will run around the whole house for three hours will put all that focus on one thing for like three hours because there's an end goal in sight. So, you give them a jigsaw puzzle and say, "Look, this is the picture you want to put together," and you help them. You won't know when one hour will pass or two hours will pass. Already from such games, the child is building very heavy concentration. Do you get my point?

So, even this little game we played as children, "Concentration, 64, the non-repeat," or something like that. It sounds funny. But yes, these are little things that help children to build focus that are very educational but still quite fun in the process, right? So yeah, create rhythm, teach your child a lot of songs, teach memory verses, right? Use phrases over and over again: Jesus loves you, you're so beautiful, I'm so beautiful.

Limit the child's options, okay? Don't give them so much to have to choose from so that they're not mentally overwhelmed, right? And yeah, you know, well, the most important thing anyway is for you to learn how to meditate yourself because you can only give what you have. The Lord is on your side; God bless you.

Made in Webflow