Ideas and techniques to help
Helping Autistic children with Mindfulness – over 20 years ago, I found myself teaching Autistic children how to meditate.
It wasn’t planned. I knew very little about Autism, and I didn’t realise that in my class of 12 children, some of them were Autistic.
Awareness of Autism wasn’t as advanced as it is today. I sat in the class and guided these children on how to focus on their breath, their bodies, and took them into a safe place in their imaginations.
It was so successful that I was repeatedly asked to return, and this led to the publication of my first book, ‘Calm Kids’.
Fortunately, we have a more compassionate understanding in society about the experiences of Autistic children. We aren’t home and dry yet; there is still a long journey ahead for more sections of society to have compassion and awareness of Autistic children. But what strikes me most about this important section of our society, is that they have so much to teach us.
Widening the Lens
Anyone who practises meditation may already know that a personal practice can help us reframe thoughts and experiences. We can process questions and challenges in new ways that helps us gain a bigger perspective and therefore compassion for self and others.
That happened to me when I meditated on the very idea of Autism. I was curious to know more, and I wanted to combine my enthusiasm for sharing mindfulness meditation techniques with Autistic children.
I started to explore this intuitively, offering suggestions to parents who were lost in their children’s world. These suggestions seemed to bring more calm into their lives, so we continued.
I wanted to teach meditation skills to them, not to change them, but to help them be the best version of themselves. To give them tools to reduce the stress of being an Autistic child. Our society and lifestyles don’t support the sensitive nature of these wonderful children so I know how stressful and anxious life can be for them.
I just wanted to give them something simple that might help. And it did.
Helping autistic children with mindfulness led to me helping parents and professionals (who were highly sceptical at first that their child could ‘meditate’ but didn’t know what else to do. Then it inspired my 2nd book ‘Connected Kids’. From this point we established our teaching program Connected Kids, where we have helped thousands of adults around Autistic children learn how to help them co-regulate and empower them with the skills to self regulate.
Sensory Overload
Take a moment to imagine that the noises you can hear around you were amplified 1000 percent. A simple hum of a handdryer could sound like a pneumatic drill.
This is what life is like for some Autistic children. Their highly attuned sensitivity to the world makes it a tough place to exist.
While it helps if we teach them to use simple breath meditations to help them cope with the sensory overload they experience, there is much more we can do if we take a step into the world of energy.
The Impact of Energy Centers
Drawing from my expertise in teaching healing and meditation, I frequently help people explore and understand the concept of energy centers, or chakras.
For Autistic children this constant fight/flight response in energy terms means they get stuck in routines to gain control and feel grounded in life.
Feeling grounded instills a sense of safety and security while being ungrounded can result in an overactive mind, poor sleep, fidgeting, excessive physical energy, clumsiness, and an inability to complete tasks. Being aware of this through the root energy chakra offers us a different gateway using mindful awareness and meditations designed to help ground our energy that can be extremely helpful.
It also means that the adults around Autistic children need to be grounded in order to help them co-regulate. I’ve spoken to many parents and carers who confirm that when they are ungrounded, their Autistic child feels and strongly reflects this back to them.
Mirror Effect: Reflecting Energy
This is why part of our Connected Kids program is dedicated to helping parents, educators and professsionals use mindful approaches and energy awareness to ‘hold the space’ which helps with coregulation. Maintaining a centered, calm, and grounded state can positively influence the behaviour of children, acting as mirrors to our own mental and emotional states.
The Big Picture of Autism
While it can be challenging to parent or support an Autistic child, once there are simple practices in place that can help both with anxiety and stress, there is the opportunity to observe with wonder, the gift of Autistic children. They don’t see the world as we do, and they were never meant to. Their gift is to help us practice our presence in their presence so that we can connect to the world in a way that offers a profound insight – we are all connected. Not just by the air we breath, but by the energy of this planet (and beyond). This is a profound reframing of how most of us live our life.
Real people, Real stories
A mother (who follows our facebook page shared a remarkable story of using mindfulness practices to connect with her children, particularly her son with Asperger’s.
“I had to begin to put into use what I was reading years ago when I was a tired, stressed-out mother of two young boys. My oldest was two and my youngest was a newborn. I began by bringing myself to be present at the sink whenever I was hand washing dishes, using all my senses to connect deeply with myself and my immediate experience of hot soapy water. I found over the first few weeks that every time I calmed my mind, my son would become just as calm. I realized we were linked, bonded, energetically, and that on some level my babies could sense and feel everything that I was feeling. This served as motivation to keep up my practice.
The most important way this has helped my son with Asperger’s is that it gave me the ability to look at him more deeply and to look beyond the immediate hysteria he was experiencing, and into what was behind his fear, or anger. It taught me to take the time to center myself, breathe deeply, and ask myself what it was that I could not see that he could see (or feel). It taught me compassion and equanimity.”
(MR, USA)
Curious but don’t know where to begin?
Start by reading our first book, Connected Kids which is ideal if you are familiar with meditation. If not, then try the Calm Kids book which is perfect for beginners.
These books will give you insights into what we do and why it works time and time again.
If you prefer to learn directly from me and my 20+ years experience, then explore our Connected Kids program.
Discover the Connected Kids program…
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