quick tips for teaching relaxation to kids

If you have a kid who you would benefit from learning some relaxation strategies, but are not sure where to start here are a few simple ideas: 

• The most important thing is to try to make relaxation fun! 
  
• You can teach deep breathing by telling a child to breathe in deeply like they are smelling flowers, and breathe out strong like they are blowing on a dandelion or blowing out candles on a cake.
• Use tools like bubbles and pinwheels so that the child can see how their breath is coming out. The speed of the pinwheel or the size of the bubbles can help a child monitor his or her own breath. Slow relaxing exhales make big bubbles, and short fast exhales make small bubbles.
• Muscle relaxation is another good strategy for helping a child relax. Have the child get tense like raw spaghetti and then loose like cooked spaghetti, or tense like a robot and then loose like a floppy stuffed animal (or any other creative idea you can come up with!)
• Relaxation is good for managing stress and just slowing down in a fast paced world.