Visualisation comes easily to children, and it can be a wonderful tool to complement and enhance their well-being. Kids’ imaginations run wild when they play and pretend. They can picture and imagine freely without questioning themselves or self-critiquing like we adults tend to do.
Kids are natural visualisers. With some clear guidance from you, your children can use their innate imagination to set goals, practice skills, increases their focus, boost their confidence, and enjoy greater peace of mind. But, what do they need to know and how should they practice visualizing for better mental health?
How your children can benefit from playing ‘mind movies’
Here are 3 great visualisation resources for you that have been extracted from the Wellbeing section of past issues (#11, #12, and #14) of the UK children’s magazine: Brilliant Brainz.
The Magic of the Mind’s Eye
First up, we have a great visualisation exercise to give your child, grandchild, niece/nephew, godchild, charge or pupil a quick mental boost! This one you can read aloud while they settle down, relax, and follow the instruction, picturing the scenes easily in their mind’s eye. It involves visiting a wonderful, safe, magical house where they can imagine and experience all of their favourite people, most loved things, and places they have loved going to.
You can check out this first children’s visualising practice, here:
Visualisation exercise for when you need a quick mental boost!
Off To The Beach – Anytime, Anywhere!
Our next guided visualisation exercise for your kids involves a beautiful mind trip to the tranquil shores of a beach. It’s a classic and useful visualisation ‘destination’ that can become a real favourite, some place they can easily go to when they need to take a mental break and calm down.
We’ve all been to (or at least seen on TV) a beautiful beach scene and can easily imagine the warmth of the sun, the quiet lapping of the waves, and the gently salty tang in the air, together with the languid peace and calm that relaxing in such a place brings to your body and mind. We guide your child into that scene, asking specific questions to help them flesh out the scenario in a multi-sensorial way so that it becomes as rich an experience as possible.
Fully engaging all the senses is a great way to stimulate the brain as well, so there are some great side benefits as well as the deep relaxation that comes from it.
This one really helps your child discover how their brain reacts to what they imagine. They’ll find they can actually change how they feel and get rid of negative feelings just by choosing what to visualise.
You can access this second visualisation exercise for your child here:
Visualisation for Children’s Well-Being
Dispelling Negativity & Lighting Up Within!
Our third children’s visualisation exercise recommendation for today is a doozy! It takes the kids to a super tranquil lake where they will imagine and use a giant magnet at the bottom of the lake to draw out all their negative thoughts and feelings. Once these are all magnetically pulled out of them, the negativity will explode into nothing.
After that, they will picture a big golden ball of light that fills them up with a wonderful, vibrant, healing and energizing positivity and presence. It’s a great way for them to handle negative thoughts and feelings in such a simple and effective way. Why not check it out and see what it might do for your special little person?
You can access the third visualizing exercise for kids here:
Relaxing Visualisation – The Lake and the Magnet
Harnessing the benefits of visualisation
Children can benefit from visualisation in many ways. Being able to picture different scenarios encourages flexible thinking and broadmindedness. The ability to see things from different angles and perspectives is an essential trait for creativity, insight, innovation, wisdom, and good mental health.
By encouraging your child to visualise, not only will it benefit their wellbeing, additionally you will help them develop a skill that will aid them in their personal , academic, and, eventually, professional lives. Some of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen — from Leonardo da Vinci to Albert Einstein to Jennifer Doudna — have had formidable abilities to entertain ideas visually in their mind’s eye. Shouldn’t your junior genius-in-the-making get that chance too?!
Brilliant Brainz is a dynamic monthly print magazine for children, ages 6-12, with a focus on arts and craft, health and wellbeing, science, music, and the environment. We are always featuring innovative games, exercises, and tips to help children cope and thrive with life’s challenges and opportunities.
You’ll find many more great guided visualisations within our Back Issues catalogue and we’ll be packing many more exciting ‘self-help for kids’ guides into our upcoming monthly issues.
