Meditation is a magical practice that can change your life positively. While adults can lookout for ways to deal with the stress, kids cannot. Being a child is not easy anymore. Kids have to go through various challenges and academic pressures, which create a lot of stress in their life. Meditation, if introduced into the daily routine at an early age, can improve the mindfulness of your little one. Here are the benefits of inculcating meditation in your kid’s life at an early age and the challenges it will help to cope with:
Channelizes their energy: Kids are the most energetic creatures on this planet. But if not appropriately channelized, their energy gets wasted on non-essential activities. Guided meditation apps help kids channel their energy into productive work. With these apps, kids inculcate meditation into their lifestyle easily. It improves their memory power, and as a result, they perform better at school, making their life stress-free.Makes meditation fun: In the 21st century, technology is a child’s second teacher, and you cannot deny intricately connected we are to technology. In such times, guided meditation apps can help them understand meditation as a fun activity. It will make it easier for them to practice meditation. For parents, it may be a difficult task to get their kids to practice meditation. But meditation apps can make them happen in a fun and light way.Kids get better at handling stress: Today, kids’ lives have become more competitive and stressful. As kids grow older, the level of stress also increases. But if they are exposed to meditation at an early age, they can easily prepare themselves to handle the stress and prepare themselves better to handle the future challenges. No one can do this task better than the meditation apps.Makes them emotionally intelligent: One of the significant benefits of meditation is that it helps improve emotional intelligence. People who practice meditation for a longer period are more emotionally stable. It helps them maintain their relationships in a better way. An emotionally intelligent person can handle their emotions in a better way. But the major challenge is to teach meditation to a kid. So, meditation apps come into the scene to make this task less challenging. In short, these apps can make kids’ life stress-free and more peaceful.Improves their learning capacity: Meditation apps improve the learning capacity of kids. It ultimately leads to better retention power. Hence, they can perform better at school. With this, their exam stress reduces.
It is not simple to get kids to meditate because their minds are always roaming. Since this generation is more glued to technology, it is an ideal approach to use this technology to teach kids about meditation. Numerous meditation applications are available to make it easier. Let’s take a look at them one by one.
HeadSpace
Founded in 2010, Headspace is one of the first meditation apps that offer kids-specific guided meditation activities. While a few basic courses and tutorials are available during the trial period, you need to purchase a paid subscription to access the complete library of meditation guides after the two-week trial period ends. The time duration for the video content ranges from one to nine minutes, unlike the long duration videos suitable for teenagers and adults. The content is classified into different areas such as walk, sleep, calm, wake up, kindness, and focus. For motivating the kids to continue the meditation regime, there is an option to invite your friends, earn rewards and get reminders. HeadSpace app is available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Moreover, the app is also compatible with Apple Watch and can integrate with the Apple Health App. HeadSpace is listed as Editor’s Choice in the App Store owing to its breathing exercises, visualizations, and focus-based meditation activities for kids. The app is sleek and straightforward and uses interesting animated videos to teach meditation to kids.
Mindful Power
Mindful Power is another award-winning meditation app based on a holistic approach for kids in their early and middle childhood years. It is dedicated to helping innocent minds grasp and implement mindfulness in their lives. This way, they learn how to use the power of play to respond calmly in critical situations. Mindful Power utilizes the skills-based approach to guide young minds to thrive in a healthy relationship with life, stress, and anxiety. The app is crafted in a way that it can easily mingle with your kids’ daily regime. Loaded with fun-filled activities, the app is straightforward so that kids can access and use the app themselves without needing any guidance. The app is divided into two modules. They are Mindful Play and Focus Time. Mindful play is a collection of 10 interactive voice-guided sessions aimed at teaching the kids to master the powers of mindfulness and control the thoughts in their heads without getting carried away in the moment. Kids have to calm a Flibbertigibbet who is agitated by touching him with their fingers. This sensory-based response helps the kids focus. Focus time is a self-timer that enables the kids to mentally build time-based parameters when they are about to do a task. When the focus timer is enabled, it restricts the kids from using any app or device which can distract them until they complete the task. You can download and install the Mindful Power app from both; Google Play Store and App Store. While the app is free, it contains in-app purchases.
Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame
Enjoy, Relax and Learn with the Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame, a research-based meditation app for kids in two languages (English and Spanish). The app is designed along with a storyline where the kids need to assist a Sesame Street monster friend to relax and cool down while they progress through the app by solving the daily challenges. This app teaches the popular Sesame strategy- Breathe, Think, Do that goes a long way to developing problem-solving skills in kids. The app is full of quirky animations and playful interactions that will surely interest your child. Your kids need to use their sense of touch to help the monster take deep breaths, chalk out the plans and try them with the street monster friend. They will get plenty of exposure to emotional vocabularies, learn the calm breathing technique, and can even develop their personalized encouraging words. The notable features are as follows:
Kids will be presented with a unique everyday challenge as they explore the world of five interactive activities.Help the monster friend breathe and think by tapping the screen and popping the bubbles. Make him feel better by solving the problems presented to you.Set up personalized words that should encourage your child as they help their monster friend to come up with a plan.Children learn the art of deep breathing as they help the monster calm down in the Breathe with the Monster activity.
The Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame app is suitable for kids aged 2 to 5. Apart from the Google Play Store, the app is also available for download on the App Store.
Piku Calm Kids
A brilliant meditation app, Piku Calm Kids, features guided mindfulness and meditation activities to help kids aged 3 to 12 years set on the path to living a calm, focused, and happy life. These tutorials help your children become more attentive and focused by instilling positive thoughts and emotions to maintain mental tranquility and well-being. Piku Clam Kids is also available on App Store and offers a slew of breathing and relaxing exercises and lovely imaginative stories. These contents describe magical trips to places, making friends with animals, riding through the city on a flying carpet, visiting castles made on clouds, befriending fairies, or simply having fun by blowing bubbles.
All these meditation activities are designed in such a way that they are suitable for a specific time of the day or when performing a task:Bedtime meditations teach kids to relax their bodies and minds and slowly introduce them to a restful state by inducing a healthy night routine.Let your kids take a break from the stressful day by going on an imaginative journey to an inspiring world.Piku-Calm Kids offers stories that beautifully reduce the worries and stress of your kids so that they can have peaceful moments for themselves in overwhelming situations.Tutorials based on mindfulness and determination help your kids focus on the task assigned in school or at home.
Piku Calm Kids offers five free meditations, while to access the others, you need to sign up for a paid plan.
Meditation for Kids
Meditation for Kids is a fun and easy-to-use meditation app to nurture calm and happy kids. It features more than a hundred kid-friendly meditations, hypnosis, bedtime, and sleep stories. This app is available for both; Android and iOS devices and is a decent platform for learning about mindfulness through stories and soothing music. The success stories suggest that the app content successfully calms the kids at any time of the day- Calming Meditations for Kids; Sleep Stories, Bigger Kid Meditations, Deep Relaxations, Sleep Music, Hypnosis for Kids. Meditation app for Kids helps the children unwind after a hectic school day and access a peaceful state of mind. This way, kids feel safer and learn the ability to remain calm and relaxed in a crisis. Through this kid-friendly app, parents can make their infants understand the importance of deep breathing, feeling confident about themselves, having a peaceful mind, and improving their focus and concentration. This way, your little ones will develop emotional intelligence and much-needed mindfulness skills, making you see a reduction in their anxiety. The Meditation for Kids app for the iOS platform also syncs with Apple’s HealthKit to track your mindful minutes right the Health app. Thus, parents can keep tabs on the number of hours kids spend meditating. Meditation for Kids offers a 7-day free trial run, after which you have to purchase either a monthly or yearly subscription.
Aumio: Sleep & Meditation App
Aumio: Sleep & Meditation App offers a dedicated section for kids where you will find playful meditations, beautiful sleep stories & relaxing music, which helps the children learn emotional intelligence. Here is the list of features that Aumio: Sleep & Meditation App has to offer:
Meditation-related tutorials, short stories, and music enable kids to sleep better and practice mindfulness in daily life.Kids will have access to beginner courses that teach them the basics of meditation and mindfulness.Fun games and tools will help them relax during the day and enjoy a healthy sleep during nighttime.You will find many mindfulness games and exercises specially designed for hyperactive kids.SOS Exercises offer quick relief during anxiety-provoking sceneries like challenging homework or other stressful family situation.Daily missions which keep the child interested in meditation.The ever-growing list of premium stories and meditations available here address the important topics of sleep, restlessness, anxiety, and concentration.The app narrates the story of Aumio and his friends, who are on a journey to visit planets. Your little ones join them and collect badges and stars throughout the adventure.
Aumio: Sleep & Meditation App content has been proven to be safe scientifically since it was developed under the guidance of experts. The app offers a 7-days trial run, after which you need to avail of their subscription.
Ninja Focus
Ninja Focus is another medication app that helps your child have a better sleep at night, improves their concentration, and also induces emotional intelligence. Its content is contributed by child development experts, behavioral pediatricians, yoga instructors, mindfulness experts, parents, and school leaders. Leveraging its treasure of guided meditations, bedtime stories, yoga flows, and healthy music, this child meditation app positively impacts the behavior of kids aged 3 to 12. Here are the benefits you will enjoy with the Ninja Focus app:
The easy-to-use interface is interesting enough to engage the kids aged 3-12.The dreamscapes and lullabies, which are part of the app, will have your kids off to sleep in no time.The mindfulness practice will help your child maintain a positive approach to life.Your kid will have access to meditations that improve breathing practice, sleep and focus while reducing stress and regulating emotions.A unique feature of Ninja Focus is its pep talks feature that successfully lifts the spirit and guides your child to cope with difficult life scenarios.The curation of carefully chosen music will improve your little ones’ focus and concentration like never before.You can also access yoga flows, yoga pose cards, and affirmation cards, which will go a long way in improving your kids’ lifestyle.
The free version of Ninja Focus offers only two tracks under each category. You will have to sign up for the premium plan costing to unlock the entire content.
Moshi
Designed by experts to introduce young minds to mindfulness, Moshi is a fantastic meditation app packed with creative and kid-friendly content capable of seizing their imagination, improving their focus, and helping them relax after a stressful day. Moshi provides a safe world to your kids where they can drift off in challenging situations. Here are the features that Moshi relies on to prevail a calmer day and peaceful bedtimes for your little ones:
Release beautiful and imaginative bedtime stories every week to attract the kids’ attention.The audio-only mode eliminates the need to stare at the screen before bedtime.Mini meditation and deep breathing tutorials to fit your daily schedule.Collection of relaxing sleep-inducing sounds and white sounds to help unwind and go relaxed.Loop and replay options let you listen to the classic white tones repeatedly if need be.Option to create personalized playlists to suit the mood of your little one.Find your kids’ favorite stories, sleep sounds, meditations, music, and white noise tracks quickly using the tag option.You will find several default playlists curated by the experts, and they are suitable for different scenarios such as nap time, tense situations, bedtime, calm down, and more.
Moshi is free to download and use on both iOS and Android devices. Some of its basic content is available for the free plan, and you need to purchase an annual subscription to access the premium content.
New Horizon
New Horizon is a collection of relaxing stories and guided sleep-inducing tutorials specially designed to let your little ones enjoy a good night’s sleep. The meditation and stories improve the sleeping schedule, relax your kids, and reduce stress and anxiety levels by building a calm and peaceful atmosphere around them. Key Features of the New Horizon app are as follows:
Kid-Friendly content without any advertisementsAp designed under the guidance of expertsMore than 100 original audio content and countingSeparate categories for sleep, meditation & bedtime stories with a personalized messageOption to create playlists of your favorite meditations.Option to access the content offline.
The app content is divided into three separate sections. They are Sleep, Guided Meditations, and Stories.
The sleep section contains audio that exclusively contains bedtime meditation exercises and stories. These stories are calm and relaxing and trigger imagination in your child’s brain as they go off to sleep.The guided meditation tutorials use mindfulness and similar techniques that target subjects like anxiety, confidence, gratitude, and others.Lastly, the stories section can be a source of entertainment and relaxation that will be a great addition to the bedtime routine. All the beautiful stories featured here are capable of taking your kid to any far-off land they can imagine.
The New Horizon app is compatible with both iPhone and Android devices, and you need to purchase the subscription to access its contents after the free trial period.
Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind is a free mindfulness app suitable for older kids who want to practice meditation and mindfulness exercises. Available on all the popular platforms, this app is popular among counselors and teachers to bring balance to the life of grown-up kids. The app also contains lesson plans addressed for teachers that go along well with the meditations provided for the students. You will find a vast collection of meditation tutorials classified based on situations you encounter in your daily life. Besides this, it also features grounding body scans, breathing-related meditations, and activities involving sensory organs such as food tasting and listening to music. Its content varies largely from short meditation activities to larger ones with less guidance. Since the app has mindfulness tutorials for all age groups, you can create individual accounts for each family member. So, it is possible to access the kid- content and track the program, exercise, and progress on an individual basis. The smiling mind app is intuitive, thanks to its user-friendly interface. Your kids can directly practice the meditation exercises right from the dashboard itself. There is also an option to download the activities to practice offline. The content featured in the app is age-appropriate, and the visual content fascinates the kids.
Conclusion
So these are all the best meditation apps for kids that will allow them to take some time off their busy schedule to practice mindfulness. Practicing meditation in their daily routine will help relax and reduce anxiety, improve their focus and sharpen their memory. You can sign up for the trial version of these apps and purchase a subscription to the app which interests your little one. Here are some meditation devices and apps for adults.
