“What are these sensations going on inside my body!” This is the interoception system. Sensations such as hunger, thirst, heart and breathing rate, body temperature, bathroom needs, and regulating emotions all fall into this system. Kids whose interoception systems feel out of control may not feel cold or hot, don’t understand why their heart is racing causing fear or anxiety and meltdowns, or mix up feelings of hunger and thirst for being bored or feeling anxious. Helping kids understand the internal sensations they are feeling and putting it together with a proper social, emotional, or physical response will help regulate their bodies.
Yoga is a wonderful activity for adults and kids. Because yoga focuses on listening to your body, calming down, and regulating your heart, it is a wonderful exercise for kids to do as much as possible. It’s important to use types of yoga that is slow moving, not too difficult, and focuses on breathing and listening to your internal sensations. While doing yoga with your child, ask them what they are feeling, what is happening inside their bodies and match those feelings with an emotion. Have them pick out their own yoga mat to take ownership of the activity and feel involved. Depending on the age of the child, you may need to play a yoga game, read a yoga story, use yoga activity blocks, or watch a yoga video.
Mindfulness has been around a long time, but lately it’s all you hear and it’s because IT WORKS!! Adults could really be more mindful, so if you yourself are struggling with stress and anxiety, start doing some mindful activities with your kids. Yoga does play a part in mindfulness. Sitting still in a pose and focusing on breathing, heart rate, and sounds around you is what mindfulness is, so introducing yoga first could be a good stepping stone. Mindfulness is simply “Being in the moment”. Just sitting. Feeling the chair your resting on. Listening to the surrounding sounds. But also listening to what’s happening in your body. Are you scared? Nervous? Sleepy? Hungry? Helping kids pay attention to these sensations, talking about them, and discussing how they impact their emotions is a good start to regulating the interoception system. Our Occupation Therapist uses these Mindful Games Activity Cards
They offer wonderful mindful games that focus on different parts of the body, different sensations, and also give tips and how to vary the activity at the end.
Understanding emotions may sound strange to adults, but you would be amazed at how many kids think the feeling of being bored is associated with anger or anxiety. Or feeling scared is associated with shutting down or hyperactivity and laughter. When a child’s interoception system is mixed up, they need helping sorting out what emotion they are feeling and what that may look like. This takes a lot of time and practice and is best sorted out with a professional, but you can start at home with some basic emotional matching games and discussions. The Emotion-Oes is using the concept of Dominoes, but with emotions. If you kids like the game Memory, they may like Matching & Memory Card Game with emotions. In the game, Match Master, players have to use words to describe how they are feeling to make a match. Just remember, the most important piece of playing all the games is discussion.
Breathing and yoga go hand-in-hand, so again, starting with yoga as an activity can help with the stillness of a breathing exercise. If you go to Google and type breathe.gif, a wonderful gif image of a flower opening and closing and telling you when to breathe in and out is available. Use this when out and about with your kids (you’ll probably find yourself using it too :O) Breathing exercises are best started at night. Teaching kids how to breathe to calm themselves is extremely relaxing and if they feel rushed or wanting to get back playing, they may not listen as well. Books are the best resources for teaching kids how to breathe. Find a topic your child is interested in, like the ocean, or blowing bubbles, or whatever and I’m sure there is a breathing exercise about it. Because our family loves the ocean, our favorite is Sea Otter Cove. But if you search on Amazon, you will find lots of topics and wonderful breathing books for kids.
