March 26, 2025 • 24 mins
Tara Segree, author of Bringing Mindfulness Into the Classroom, joins the MOB hosts to discuss mental health strategies for managing stress. Discover practical mindfulness techniques to help moms and children manage stress and build emotional resilience. From breathing exercises to guided meditations, this podcast discusses easy, effective strategies for parents to support their own children and teach their children positive mental health techniques for well-being.
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Episode Transcript
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“Mindful Mamma, Strong Son (00:00):
Helping Our Children to Reset Stress” with
guest Tara Segree. I'm Cheryl Bond and I'm here with Suzy Shaw,
author of the book, Mothers of Boys Survival Guide. Hey, Suz.
Okay. Hi, Cheryl. Yes, you know, I call our mothers of boys the MOB. And in today's podcast,
learn some strategies for teaching our boys mindfulness.
(00:24):
Our guest is Tara Segre, the author of Bringing Mindfulness Into the Classroom.
Tara is a special education English teacher with a Zen-like passion for teaching children how to
manage stress in and out of the classroom with techniques like meditation. Welcome, Tara. Hello.
Thank you ladies. Thank you so much for having me.
(00:47):
What you are doing is amazing.
What you both are doing, too, is so great because we need guidance. We need guidance as parents.
It’s part of the MOB is sharing our lessons learned. So, Tara,
what is mindfulness and how did you become interested in it?
(01:12):
So mindfulness is as simple as just being conscious and aware of being
in the present moment, not worrying about the past, not worrying about the future,
but just being and to bring your awareness to the present moment is being mindful.
(01:35):
So, I started this mindfulness journey when I was a child. Like, I don't remember not being
mindful. Some of my earliest memories are at my grandmother's house on Randall Street, downtown
in Annapolis, and just listening to the tick of the clock, of that old clock. And I still love
(02:01):
that sound when, like, nobody has a clock these days in their house that ticks. But whenever I am
somewhere and I hear it, it brings me back, and I remember being still and quiet and just listening.
I must disclose I do not have any boys, but I do have four daughters. And even in my parenting,
(02:26):
I really noticed how to just look deeply into their eyes or take that smile and just soak it
up. And then, of course, being a teacher, I taught preschool. I've taught kinder music,
art start, elementary, middle, and high school, and I've just carried mindfulness into all of
(02:54):
my classrooms as a form of not only classroom management, which just happens because students
are calmer, but in a way to build rapport with students and a way to teach them how to
just be conscious and present in that moment.And so, you seem like you were very naturally
(03:18):
mindful. So, as a parent, you probably could handle your stress fairly well because you had
this skill set. So, you were able to help your children. But if you don't have that, you know,
I think before we can help our children be mindful, we have to have our anxiety and our
stress level in check. So, do you have some advice for what the moms can do to help them?
(03:45):
Yes, absolutely. And we cannot pour from an empty cup. Meaning we need to
fill ourselves first before we can help our children. Because, yeah,
it comes naturally or it could come. It does come naturally to be conscious and present.
(04:10):
But society has embedded something else in us where we're on this rat race, and we are told
to be perfect. And we are comparing ourselves to other mothers. And that's all a fallacy.
But what is important before we can teach our children to be mindful,
(04:35):
we ourselves have to be mindful. And the only way you can start this practice is
really just by sitting still. Just sitting still and being and noticing. And once we
start that practice of doing that every single day, we find that we are calmer. We find that we
(05:01):
can respond to life's challenges with grace and with peace instead of reacting to them.
We find that we're more creative; that we have more clarity, decisiveness, empathy, patience,
better sleep, and heightened immune systems. All by giving ourselves some time each day.
(05:28):
If we can give ourselves 12 minutes in the morning, maybe before everybody has woken up,
just to have that cup of coffee or tea and even just to reflect on the gratitude we have for the
simple things in life, like a cup of tea, a chair, a warm blanket, our children, whatever it might
be. And it's then easier to go throughout your day and recognize when you need those times as well.
(05:57):
Maybe before your child gets in from soccer practice. Maybe before
going into the grocery store. Before going into a big meeting,
you can take a couple of moments just to feel your breath. And honestly,
that's the simplest way to just become mindful is just to feel your body breathe for you.
So, like, right now, you take a deep breath, and you let it out, and you’ll notice then allow
(06:26):
your body to breathe for you naturally without forcing your breath and notice how you breathe.
Are you breathing in and out of your nose, in and out of your mouth, or a combination of the
two? And when you just notice and feel your breath, that's being mindful and that's it.
(06:50):
And that's also the foundation of meditation, which has been scientifically proven
to shrink the amygdala, which is in the frontal lobe part of your brain, which is that reptilian
part of your brain that is fight or flight, holds depression, holds emotional regulation,
(07:16):
stress factors. But when we breathe, we're taking energy away from that part of the brain,
and it's going into our hippocampus part of the brain, which is retrieval of information, which is
retrieval of knowledge, your intelligence. So there are all sorts of scientific benefits for
(07:40):
spending time in meditation, spending time just going for a walk, looking at the beauty of nature,
journaling, painting, gardening, and cooking, if that is your way of being mindful.
Bringing it back to when I was raising my young daughters, it was pretty stressful, of course,
(08:05):
because I also had this in my mind, even though I had a mindful mindset, that I had to be perfect
in all the different categories of mothering and parenting, but being in the kitchen was a way for
me, chopping the vegetables, creating a meal was a way for me to be mindful. But I also was very much
(08:30):
aware of honoring myself, and that I need to take a moment and sit on a
chair and just breathe or say some positive affirmations, and then go back to parenting.
I like that you sort of gave us the framework at the beginning,
sort of even to just start with twleve minutes. That's helpful,
(08:51):
too, to hear how much time we should sort of set aside if we want to reset.
Well, and the thing is, it could be two minutes. Twelve minutes is the proven scientific amount
of time that heightens your immune system, reverses aging, and gives you optimum brain
(09:12):
performance. All the great things we want to hear as we age. We want to give ourselves the
best quality of life. Twelve minutes a day is scientifically proven that that's what
you need. If you just sit and just start to feel your breath, and if you fall asleep,
that's okay, because only three things can happen when you meditate: You can fall asleep,
(09:36):
you can sit in your stillness, or you can have thoughts because thinking is part of the process.
We have 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day, which we want to. We need
to be able to live and survive and feed the children and make sure we're eating
and all the other things, but we don't need to pay attention to every thought.
(09:59):
So thinking is what our brain does. It's like our heart beating, right? Our lungs taking in air.
So the other great thing about when you meditate, so if those are the three things that happen,
when you start to fall asleep, that's okay. You just bring yourself back to your breath
(10:22):
or to a positive mantra, like thank you, or I am aligned with love, or I am strong, I am peace.
Whatever your mantra is that you want to say, but when you do that and you have a thought,
you just let it pass by as if it's a cloud, and you come back to your breathing or your mantra.
(10:43):
When we teach our children this, we are helping them to get over those
attention issues. And whether you have been diagnosed with attention deficit or not,
we're all competing with TikTok, right, or an iPad, or whatever it is. But that's the
way society is. But when we teach our children to bring their awareness back to their breath,
(11:09):
to bring their awareness back to a positive mantra or a visualization, we're teaching
them to recognize those thoughts, but then bring it back to what it is in front of them.
So when they're in school, and they're distracted by the snow that's falling outside, great,
it's beautiful. That's snow, that's snow, you recognize it, and then you come back
(11:31):
to the math problems in front of you. And we're training and rewiring the brain to be
able to attend a task, which makes us be able to have confidence in ourselves academically,
then to be able to collaborate with others, create and solve problems.
So Tara, I am not a morning person, so the idea of sitting still in the morning is
(12:00):
not a great idea for me. But I will say that I remember sitting in my car before going into the
grocery store and just sitting in the quiet of my car where no one was going to bother me or when
I was waiting for kids to come off a field. And, you know, those were moments that I could become
(12:24):
mindful. And one of the things I talk about in my book is what I call “soul putty.” And I find
as a mother, just as a human, you know, there are life things that happen to you, which are
kind of little cracks in your soul. And so for me, I needed to find what's going to help me,
(12:46):
you know, putty my soul, fill the cracks in my soul. And music was that. And when I took back
as part of life balance, a piece of something that I love to do, you know, I found that it
helped me just feel better, be more mindful, be a better mom, and also teach my kids that
(13:14):
this is a positive thing to do. So can you sort of build on that and, you know, talk about that?
Yeah. And I think, and just like there are different things for us, like for you,
playing the guitar brought you peace. And Cheryl, maybe it was something else for you, painting or
(13:37):
reading. But our children are the exact same way. So not, it's not a one-size-fits-all. Children
are their own unique beings. Just like we all have our own unique thumbprint, fingerprint,
our children are like that as well. So we need to find what works for them. Maybe it is blowing
(14:05):
bubbles if they're younger. Maybe it is just sitting with them and spending time with them
after taking a walk, sitting on a park bench, especially if they're older kids. It's hard to
track down moments for them. But if we can kind of weasel our way into getting that time with them,
(14:26):
but to find out what makes them tick. What are their joys? Do they enjoy being outside? Do they,
you know, enjoy, hole-a-hooping? Whatever it might be, because we're all unique and all
different. And when we find out what that is for us, we definitely want to do more of it. And when
(14:52):
we find out what that is for our children, we definitely want to use that to help them
redirect their attention away from sometimes being emotionally wound, from all the challenges
of growing up to then coming back to themselves, to what helps them self-soothe in a healthy way.
(15:18):
The other thing I want to say real quick with our children, when they come home and,
I know that Suzy, you address this in your book of having tons of energy and bouncing off the
walls or being completely exhausted. We need to remember that our children have been in school
(15:42):
for seven hours and have been trying to do the right thing, saying just nice words to people,
and people are rude back to them. And they have to be like, am I going to be kind? Am I going to
ignore this? Or am I going to say something, and potentially get in trouble? Remember to
raise their hand and not shout out. remembering to follow all the rules. That is exhausting.
(16:03):
So when our children come home, and they start acting out, and maybe they're a little sassy
with us, they're trying out what they would say to, you know, the big mean kid who was
being mean to them. Or they're trying out what they would say to kind of try to fit into this
crowd. And they're trying out, you know, how to be sassy and maybe giving you a little bit
(16:30):
of attitude because they're exhausted and they just want to be left alone. And maybe listen to
their music or maybe build their Legos or draw, whatever it is that they want to do. And so we
need to grant them grace just as we need to grant ourselves grace. And instead of yelling at them,
(16:50):
that's it, go to timeout or give me your phone or whatever it might be, placing discipline on them,
we should turn it into a game, like laughing about it. Oh my gosh, like why are you saying that? You
know, like turn it into something that you both can laugh about and that then they realize, yeah,
(17:10):
I shouldn't have talked that way to my mom or whatever. But when you turn into a game,
you're creating a safe place for them to try out their independence and try out who they
are becoming or really like realizing like, no, that's really not what I should say to people. And
then maybe role play and talk about how they can respond to those challenges differently.
(17:33):
At what age can you start teaching meditation and mindfulness to a child?
Well, my youngest, besides teaching kinder music, well, there were babies who were six
months old and taught them different ways of hearing sounds by using egg shakers on
(17:58):
one side of their ear and then taking it over to the other side. And they start to
hear and become aware and conscious and noticing. That's a way of being mindful.
But I taught a preschool yoga class as young as two,
and teaching them how to sit and just breathe is something that's super powerful. And so,
(18:21):
really, and using my podcast, there's an animated version of my podcast.
Yeah, could you tell us what the name of the podcast is?
Yeah, so it's Mini Meditations for Kids, and it's on all podcast platforms. It's
award-winning. Common Sense Media named it one of the best podcasts
(18:45):
for children in 2022 and 2023. And it's been downloaded in over 50 countries. So
it is gaining traction. And then the animated version of the same podcast is on YouTube.
There are 29 mini-meditations that cross the spectrum from getting a shot,
(19:10):
taking a test, trying out for a team or play, dealing with a bully,
in times of hardships. There are 29 of these mini meditations for kids.
And so whether your kid or your child, your student wants to look at something visually or
(19:37):
just listen to the podcast, you have both of those options. And so for preschoolers and elementary
kids and even middle school kids who have grown up with a screen or TV in front of them,
it's real easy to be like, hey, I want you to see this. What do you think about this? When they get
(19:59):
home from school and they are a little wound and you want them to reset before they have to start
the homework. And then once they get used to the animated version or hearing my voice or knowing
what it is, and you can be like, look, you can listen to it. And then they could listen to it.
That's a real easy, tangible way to start. You just want to remember you always want
(20:22):
to be positive because we don't want them to ever be turned off by sitting still.
That's all wonderful and amazing advice that you've just given us. There's a lot there. So
we appreciate all your expertise in that area.So Tara, we ask all our guests to share a mantra
(20:46):
or motto or a little saying that could be helpful to moms as they're sort of stressed out and maybe
dealing with their boys and their kids. What would you say to yourself during those moments?
I would say to bring to mind a positive affirmation that you need at that moment.
One that I still say is (21:13):
I am peace. I am love. I am light.
And that's what our world needs, right? Our world needs peace, love,
and light. So if we can do that, that ripple effect will only go out to our homes, our family,
(21:41):
our community, and our world, which is what our world so desperately needs right now.
A little butterfly effect.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, as we wrap up, we want to mention that you had written a book, Bringing Mindfulness into the
Classroom (21:59):
Easy Ideas You Can Try Tomorrow. And you've also recorded several podcasts,
the mini-meditations for kids, and you can find these resources on the mothersofboys.life website.
But we also would just like to hear a little summary about your book, if you can share with us.
(22:21):
Absolutely, Cheryl. So the book is called Bringing Mindfulness into the Classroom, but it is not just
for teachers. It is for parents as well because these same tools you can use in your own home.
There's a seven-day mindfulness challenge for teachers that can be used for parents as well
(22:43):
that shows you the framework of how to be mindful every day. There's a meditation in there. There
is a challenge that you would do throughout the day. For instance, smiling. That's one of
the activities to do for one of the days (23:01):
just smile. Walk throughout your day and just smile.
And even if you don't feel like it, do it anyway. It releases endorphins and makes you feel better.
And actually, the next thing you know, you're just smiling. You're like, oh, I feel great.
And everything takes less than 10 minutes.
Wow. Well, I mean, we can't thank you enough for being here today and sharing all this wonderful
(23:27):
information that's just going to be so helpful to all our moms out there. And our MOB community.
Awesome. I love being a pseudo-MOB.
We'll send some boys over to your house. So I'm sure you have plenty
(23:48):
of what I call “man cubs” around your girls.
Well, thank you, ladies. This was such a treat to be able to be on here with both
of you and just have a conversation about something that is so necessary. And I'm so
excited for all the mothers who listen to this as it will be life-changing.
(24:12):
Absolutely. Thank you again. Well, Tara, thank you so much for taking the time to
talk with us today about mindfulness for our children. I think all the moms
out there and the MOB community will find all your recommendations very valuable.
And thank you all for joining us today. Follow the mob on Facebook, Instagram,
(24:34):
YouTube, and your favorite podcast platform. Be kind to yourselves, moms, and have a great week.
Helping Our Children to Reset Stress” with
guest Tara Segree. I'm Cheryl Bond and I'm here with Suzy Shaw,
author of the book, Mothers of Boys Survival Guide. Hey, Suz.
Okay. Hi, Cheryl. Yes, you know, I call our mothers of boys the MOB. And in today's podcast,
learn some strategies for teaching our boys mindfulness.
(00:24):
Our guest is Tara Segre, the author of Bringing Mindfulness Into the Classroom.
Tara is a special education English teacher with a Zen-like passion for teaching children how to
manage stress in and out of the classroom with techniques like meditation. Welcome, Tara. Hello.
Thank you ladies. Thank you so much for having me.
(00:47):
What you are doing is amazing.
What you both are doing, too, is so great because we need guidance. We need guidance as parents.
It’s part of the MOB is sharing our lessons learned. So, Tara,
what is mindfulness and how did you become interested in it?
(01:12):
So mindfulness is as simple as just being conscious and aware of being
in the present moment, not worrying about the past, not worrying about the future,
but just being and to bring your awareness to the present moment is being mindful.
(01:35):
So, I started this mindfulness journey when I was a child. Like, I don't remember not being
mindful. Some of my earliest memories are at my grandmother's house on Randall Street, downtown
in Annapolis, and just listening to the tick of the clock, of that old clock. And I still love
(02:01):
that sound when, like, nobody has a clock these days in their house that ticks. But whenever I am
somewhere and I hear it, it brings me back, and I remember being still and quiet and just listening.
I must disclose I do not have any boys, but I do have four daughters. And even in my parenting,
(02:26):
I really noticed how to just look deeply into their eyes or take that smile and just soak it
up. And then, of course, being a teacher, I taught preschool. I've taught kinder music,
art start, elementary, middle, and high school, and I've just carried mindfulness into all of
(02:54):
my classrooms as a form of not only classroom management, which just happens because students
are calmer, but in a way to build rapport with students and a way to teach them how to
just be conscious and present in that moment.And so, you seem like you were very naturally
(03:18):
mindful. So, as a parent, you probably could handle your stress fairly well because you had
this skill set. So, you were able to help your children. But if you don't have that, you know,
I think before we can help our children be mindful, we have to have our anxiety and our
stress level in check. So, do you have some advice for what the moms can do to help them?
(03:45):
Yes, absolutely. And we cannot pour from an empty cup. Meaning we need to
fill ourselves first before we can help our children. Because, yeah,
it comes naturally or it could come. It does come naturally to be conscious and present.
(04:10):
But society has embedded something else in us where we're on this rat race, and we are told
to be perfect. And we are comparing ourselves to other mothers. And that's all a fallacy.
But what is important before we can teach our children to be mindful,
(04:35):
we ourselves have to be mindful. And the only way you can start this practice is
really just by sitting still. Just sitting still and being and noticing. And once we
start that practice of doing that every single day, we find that we are calmer. We find that we
(05:01):
can respond to life's challenges with grace and with peace instead of reacting to them.
We find that we're more creative; that we have more clarity, decisiveness, empathy, patience,
better sleep, and heightened immune systems. All by giving ourselves some time each day.
(05:28):
If we can give ourselves 12 minutes in the morning, maybe before everybody has woken up,
just to have that cup of coffee or tea and even just to reflect on the gratitude we have for the
simple things in life, like a cup of tea, a chair, a warm blanket, our children, whatever it might
be. And it's then easier to go throughout your day and recognize when you need those times as well.
(05:57):
Maybe before your child gets in from soccer practice. Maybe before
going into the grocery store. Before going into a big meeting,
you can take a couple of moments just to feel your breath. And honestly,
that's the simplest way to just become mindful is just to feel your body breathe for you.
So, like, right now, you take a deep breath, and you let it out, and you’ll notice then allow
(06:26):
your body to breathe for you naturally without forcing your breath and notice how you breathe.
Are you breathing in and out of your nose, in and out of your mouth, or a combination of the
two? And when you just notice and feel your breath, that's being mindful and that's it.
(06:50):
And that's also the foundation of meditation, which has been scientifically proven
to shrink the amygdala, which is in the frontal lobe part of your brain, which is that reptilian
part of your brain that is fight or flight, holds depression, holds emotional regulation,
(07:16):
stress factors. But when we breathe, we're taking energy away from that part of the brain,
and it's going into our hippocampus part of the brain, which is retrieval of information, which is
retrieval of knowledge, your intelligence. So there are all sorts of scientific benefits for
(07:40):
spending time in meditation, spending time just going for a walk, looking at the beauty of nature,
journaling, painting, gardening, and cooking, if that is your way of being mindful.
Bringing it back to when I was raising my young daughters, it was pretty stressful, of course,
(08:05):
because I also had this in my mind, even though I had a mindful mindset, that I had to be perfect
in all the different categories of mothering and parenting, but being in the kitchen was a way for
me, chopping the vegetables, creating a meal was a way for me to be mindful. But I also was very much
(08:30):
aware of honoring myself, and that I need to take a moment and sit on a
chair and just breathe or say some positive affirmations, and then go back to parenting.
I like that you sort of gave us the framework at the beginning,
sort of even to just start with twleve minutes. That's helpful,
(08:51):
too, to hear how much time we should sort of set aside if we want to reset.
Well, and the thing is, it could be two minutes. Twelve minutes is the proven scientific amount
of time that heightens your immune system, reverses aging, and gives you optimum brain
(09:12):
performance. All the great things we want to hear as we age. We want to give ourselves the
best quality of life. Twelve minutes a day is scientifically proven that that's what
you need. If you just sit and just start to feel your breath, and if you fall asleep,
that's okay, because only three things can happen when you meditate: You can fall asleep,
(09:36):
you can sit in your stillness, or you can have thoughts because thinking is part of the process.
We have 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day, which we want to. We need
to be able to live and survive and feed the children and make sure we're eating
and all the other things, but we don't need to pay attention to every thought.
(09:59):
So thinking is what our brain does. It's like our heart beating, right? Our lungs taking in air.
So the other great thing about when you meditate, so if those are the three things that happen,
when you start to fall asleep, that's okay. You just bring yourself back to your breath
(10:22):
or to a positive mantra, like thank you, or I am aligned with love, or I am strong, I am peace.
Whatever your mantra is that you want to say, but when you do that and you have a thought,
you just let it pass by as if it's a cloud, and you come back to your breathing or your mantra.
(10:43):
When we teach our children this, we are helping them to get over those
attention issues. And whether you have been diagnosed with attention deficit or not,
we're all competing with TikTok, right, or an iPad, or whatever it is. But that's the
way society is. But when we teach our children to bring their awareness back to their breath,
(11:09):
to bring their awareness back to a positive mantra or a visualization, we're teaching
them to recognize those thoughts, but then bring it back to what it is in front of them.
So when they're in school, and they're distracted by the snow that's falling outside, great,
it's beautiful. That's snow, that's snow, you recognize it, and then you come back
(11:31):
to the math problems in front of you. And we're training and rewiring the brain to be
able to attend a task, which makes us be able to have confidence in ourselves academically,
then to be able to collaborate with others, create and solve problems.
So Tara, I am not a morning person, so the idea of sitting still in the morning is
(12:00):
not a great idea for me. But I will say that I remember sitting in my car before going into the
grocery store and just sitting in the quiet of my car where no one was going to bother me or when
I was waiting for kids to come off a field. And, you know, those were moments that I could become
(12:24):
mindful. And one of the things I talk about in my book is what I call “soul putty.” And I find
as a mother, just as a human, you know, there are life things that happen to you, which are
kind of little cracks in your soul. And so for me, I needed to find what's going to help me,
(12:46):
you know, putty my soul, fill the cracks in my soul. And music was that. And when I took back
as part of life balance, a piece of something that I love to do, you know, I found that it
helped me just feel better, be more mindful, be a better mom, and also teach my kids that
(13:14):
this is a positive thing to do. So can you sort of build on that and, you know, talk about that?
Yeah. And I think, and just like there are different things for us, like for you,
playing the guitar brought you peace. And Cheryl, maybe it was something else for you, painting or
(13:37):
reading. But our children are the exact same way. So not, it's not a one-size-fits-all. Children
are their own unique beings. Just like we all have our own unique thumbprint, fingerprint,
our children are like that as well. So we need to find what works for them. Maybe it is blowing
(14:05):
bubbles if they're younger. Maybe it is just sitting with them and spending time with them
after taking a walk, sitting on a park bench, especially if they're older kids. It's hard to
track down moments for them. But if we can kind of weasel our way into getting that time with them,
(14:26):
but to find out what makes them tick. What are their joys? Do they enjoy being outside? Do they,
you know, enjoy, hole-a-hooping? Whatever it might be, because we're all unique and all
different. And when we find out what that is for us, we definitely want to do more of it. And when
(14:52):
we find out what that is for our children, we definitely want to use that to help them
redirect their attention away from sometimes being emotionally wound, from all the challenges
of growing up to then coming back to themselves, to what helps them self-soothe in a healthy way.
(15:18):
The other thing I want to say real quick with our children, when they come home and,
I know that Suzy, you address this in your book of having tons of energy and bouncing off the
walls or being completely exhausted. We need to remember that our children have been in school
(15:42):
for seven hours and have been trying to do the right thing, saying just nice words to people,
and people are rude back to them. And they have to be like, am I going to be kind? Am I going to
ignore this? Or am I going to say something, and potentially get in trouble? Remember to
raise their hand and not shout out. remembering to follow all the rules. That is exhausting.
(16:03):
So when our children come home, and they start acting out, and maybe they're a little sassy
with us, they're trying out what they would say to, you know, the big mean kid who was
being mean to them. Or they're trying out what they would say to kind of try to fit into this
crowd. And they're trying out, you know, how to be sassy and maybe giving you a little bit
(16:30):
of attitude because they're exhausted and they just want to be left alone. And maybe listen to
their music or maybe build their Legos or draw, whatever it is that they want to do. And so we
need to grant them grace just as we need to grant ourselves grace. And instead of yelling at them,
(16:50):
that's it, go to timeout or give me your phone or whatever it might be, placing discipline on them,
we should turn it into a game, like laughing about it. Oh my gosh, like why are you saying that? You
know, like turn it into something that you both can laugh about and that then they realize, yeah,
(17:10):
I shouldn't have talked that way to my mom or whatever. But when you turn into a game,
you're creating a safe place for them to try out their independence and try out who they
are becoming or really like realizing like, no, that's really not what I should say to people. And
then maybe role play and talk about how they can respond to those challenges differently.
(17:33):
At what age can you start teaching meditation and mindfulness to a child?
Well, my youngest, besides teaching kinder music, well, there were babies who were six
months old and taught them different ways of hearing sounds by using egg shakers on
(17:58):
one side of their ear and then taking it over to the other side. And they start to
hear and become aware and conscious and noticing. That's a way of being mindful.
But I taught a preschool yoga class as young as two,
and teaching them how to sit and just breathe is something that's super powerful. And so,
(18:21):
really, and using my podcast, there's an animated version of my podcast.
Yeah, could you tell us what the name of the podcast is?
Yeah, so it's Mini Meditations for Kids, and it's on all podcast platforms. It's
award-winning. Common Sense Media named it one of the best podcasts
(18:45):
for children in 2022 and 2023. And it's been downloaded in over 50 countries. So
it is gaining traction. And then the animated version of the same podcast is on YouTube.
There are 29 mini-meditations that cross the spectrum from getting a shot,
(19:10):
taking a test, trying out for a team or play, dealing with a bully,
in times of hardships. There are 29 of these mini meditations for kids.
And so whether your kid or your child, your student wants to look at something visually or
(19:37):
just listen to the podcast, you have both of those options. And so for preschoolers and elementary
kids and even middle school kids who have grown up with a screen or TV in front of them,
it's real easy to be like, hey, I want you to see this. What do you think about this? When they get
(19:59):
home from school and they are a little wound and you want them to reset before they have to start
the homework. And then once they get used to the animated version or hearing my voice or knowing
what it is, and you can be like, look, you can listen to it. And then they could listen to it.
That's a real easy, tangible way to start. You just want to remember you always want
(20:22):
to be positive because we don't want them to ever be turned off by sitting still.
That's all wonderful and amazing advice that you've just given us. There's a lot there. So
we appreciate all your expertise in that area.So Tara, we ask all our guests to share a mantra
(20:46):
or motto or a little saying that could be helpful to moms as they're sort of stressed out and maybe
dealing with their boys and their kids. What would you say to yourself during those moments?
I would say to bring to mind a positive affirmation that you need at that moment.
One that I still say is (21:13):
I am peace. I am love. I am light.
And that's what our world needs, right? Our world needs peace, love,
and light. So if we can do that, that ripple effect will only go out to our homes, our family,
(21:41):
our community, and our world, which is what our world so desperately needs right now.
A little butterfly effect.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, as we wrap up, we want to mention that you had written a book, Bringing Mindfulness into the
Classroom (21:59):
Easy Ideas You Can Try Tomorrow. And you've also recorded several podcasts,
the mini-meditations for kids, and you can find these resources on the mothersofboys.life website.
But we also would just like to hear a little summary about your book, if you can share with us.
(22:21):
Absolutely, Cheryl. So the book is called Bringing Mindfulness into the Classroom, but it is not just
for teachers. It is for parents as well because these same tools you can use in your own home.
There's a seven-day mindfulness challenge for teachers that can be used for parents as well
(22:43):
that shows you the framework of how to be mindful every day. There's a meditation in there. There
is a challenge that you would do throughout the day. For instance, smiling. That's one of
the activities to do for one of the days (23:01):
just smile. Walk throughout your day and just smile.
And even if you don't feel like it, do it anyway. It releases endorphins and makes you feel better.
And actually, the next thing you know, you're just smiling. You're like, oh, I feel great.
And everything takes less than 10 minutes.
Wow. Well, I mean, we can't thank you enough for being here today and sharing all this wonderful
(23:27):
information that's just going to be so helpful to all our moms out there. And our MOB community.
Awesome. I love being a pseudo-MOB.
We'll send some boys over to your house. So I'm sure you have plenty
(23:48):
of what I call “man cubs” around your girls.
Well, thank you, ladies. This was such a treat to be able to be on here with both
of you and just have a conversation about something that is so necessary. And I'm so
excited for all the mothers who listen to this as it will be life-changing.
(24:12):
Absolutely. Thank you again. Well, Tara, thank you so much for taking the time to
talk with us today about mindfulness for our children. I think all the moms
out there and the MOB community will find all your recommendations very valuable.
And thank you all for joining us today. Follow the mob on Facebook, Instagram,
(24:34):
YouTube, and your favorite podcast platform. Be kind to yourselves, moms, and have a great week.
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