Three Ways to Introduce Spirituality to Your Children

Every parent I know wants to give their child the things that weren’t afforded to them. It’s only right that we try to instill our children with the gems we wish we known when we were their age.
Who knows what we could have avoided had we known then what we know now, but that’s a conversation for another post. It’s never too early, however, to teach your children the values and morals that will make their lives easier and just bring them true happiness. Spirituality is, of course, one of those things that is needed for our happiness and just makes life flow so much better. Our little ones can benefit from practicing spirituality at a young age as well.
Here are three ways to introduce and practice spirituality with your child that will have your little ones reaching self –actualization well before we did.

Teach your child gratitude

We have all heard the saying that “Children are sponges”. Well, it’s so true! And we really should start using this to our advantage. Gratitude is a major concept in spirituality and we can teach this to our children in many ways. One way is simply modeling the behavior; saying out loud the things you are grateful for throughout the day and showing your gratitude with affection, or rewards. You could also pick a day out of the week and name that day “Gratitude day”. My family has Gratitude Sunday, we make an extra effort to show how much we appreciate each other, thank each other for small or big things that were done during the week, and are extra affectionate all day.
Although my sixteen-month-old might not totally understand what is happening right now; she will one day and you will be thankful on a day that is particularly tough for you, when your child looks at you and says “Mom (or Dad) I appreciate everything that you do”.

Examine your emotions

As an adult, this is something that I must do every day and it saves me from possibly bad consequences.
We know that a lot of people act on impulse, but the ability to stop and analyze your emotions is an art that not everyone has mastered.
Children especially need to be taught this because if they can learn to examine how they feel in the moment, they will also learn how to be less impulsive and how to follow their intuition. This will carry over as they grow up and you will have teens that for the most part make sound and rational decisions and that trust themselves.

Meditate

Yes, we should totally mediate with our children! Yes, they will mock you and think that it’s a fun game at first, but eventually, your child will get into the habit of meditating with Mommy or Daddy. They will sit down and really focus on trying to be still for as long as they can, and eventually, the time frame will get longer and longer until they can mediate just as long as you can! Just make sure to explain the purpose of meditation, and possibly do some reflection afterward so they can process the things that their little minds were thinking about.

There are many more habits that we can teach our children to help them learn about spirituality. This list doesn’t even scratch the surface, but if we can teach our children these three habits then maybe, just maybe we haven’t failed as parents (it’s a joke) HA. And maybe we helped their journey through life be a teensy bit smoother. Hey! I can live with that.





#spirituality
#parenting
#children

%selfavenue