Mindfulness at Play

Mindfulness is widely used in personal development, healthcare, business and sports to improve wellbeing and performance.  Mindfulness at Play is for those it can potentially be of the greatest value to — young people — and the people who give them their primary support, their parents. It combines science and wisdom, theory and practice, strategies and activities. It also provides a combination of psychological knowledge and practical guiding principles which will help parents help themselves, as well as their children, to achieve mindfulness.  The authors know that the benefits of mindfulness are substantial and far-reaching. When young people can clearly focus on their internal world in the present moment, they are better able to: Know and communicate their experiences and needs — a critical component of emotional intelligence.  Discover that they can be curious rather than overwhelmed by emotions, leading to greater emotion regulation and resilience..  Increase self-acceptance and decrease shame, resulting in greater wellbeing, more effective healing from trauma, and an increase in pro-social behaviors towards others.   This book will greatly help young people’s learning development, social development and whole-person development. It is a comprehensive yet light, playful and play-based one-stop mindfulness resource for parents.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction Part 1: Understanding mindfulness 2. Mindfulness and mindfulness for young people 3. Heartfulness and heartfulness for young people 4. What is mindfulness at play? Part 2: The benefits of mindfulness for young people 5. Social and emotional benefits 6. Attention and learning benefits 7. Creativity and curiosity benefits Part 3: Mindfulness for parents 8. The science of mindful parenting 9. The art of mindful parenting 10. Building emotional intelligence in our children 11. Keystone messages for parents Part 4: Resources 12. Mindfulness for parents – programs and program examples 13. Mindful activities for younger children – games 14. Mindful activities for younger children – stories and myths 15. Mindful activities for adolescents – living experiments 16. Heartful activities for all children and adolescents – the art of the heart 17. Heartful activities for all children and adolescents – music of the heart

About the Author :
Dr Stephen McKenzie has taught and researched for over 30 years in many psychological areas, most recently mindfulness. He has the ability to present potentially complex information in a warm and engaging way. Angela North  is a psychologist who employs play therapy with young people their families to treat a range of emotional and behavioral problems.

Review :
“When practicing mindfulness - we can get better at it. Tapping into the tools that you know, can help you to get out of your head and back into your body, which can help to reduce the effect of stress hormones. Using self-compassion, you can learn to be less of the critic and more of a coach with the voice in your head, also teaching this to your children.” “This compilation will become a valuable resource for readers who want to develop and improve their intentional parenting skills.“ “interesting and timely ”The best gift we can give our children is our focus and our mindful attention." “ We can train ourselves to stay calmer when things around us are getting chaotic or when our children are getting upset”