We’ve all had those moments and we’ve all seen our boys dealing with tough emotional situations. We become stressed, worried and find it difficult to manage our cool. For a person with a higher level of social and emotional regulation, it is easy to redirect your thoughts and bring balance back into your emotions. For someone that may not have a high level of social and emotional regulation it is not an easy task. If this is you, or you know someone like this, the next few paragraphs could be very helpful.

This month at Newington you may have noticed various publication about mindfulness. We have learnt over time that teaching our students about being mindful and providing them strategies to help with mindfulness allows for greater emotional regulation.

How can the eLearning person at Wyvern help me with being mindful?

Your phone or your iPad can offer you the best three minutes of your day sometimes. By using these self-guided meditation apps you can stop, breathe and reconnect for just a moment. That small moment might equip you or your son with the skills to balance your emotions and begin to feel less stressed and able to tackle the problem at hand, or even better, the rest of the day.

Mind Yeti – Mindfulness for Kids and their Adults

As the name suggests, this is an app for kids primarily, however, it has a place for adults as well. These short guided meditation sessions provide guided breathing exercises and have a student friendly interface that is easily accessed. When downloading the application, a free subscription offers you access to 15 guided audio sessions.

Smiling Minds

Smiling minds offers a free service tailored to various age groups. You can select from 7-9 year olds, 10-12 year olds to Mindfulness in the Classroom and Mindfulness in the Workplace. This application aims to provide lifelong tools to assist with stress and the challenges of daily life.

Headspace – One for the adults

Headspace is an application I have used for several years. It provides short meditation sessions that allow you to stop, breathe and relax. The program aims to improve focus, exercise mindfulness awareness, relive anxiety and reduce stress. It sounds too good to be true but it really does work. 

If you have used these three applications before and are on the hunt for more apps to help your son or yourself gain some balance and decrease stress then head on over to https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/meditation-apps-for-kids and see the comprehensive list offered.

As always, if you want to find out more about the applications mentioned above, please do not hesitate to contact me or pop in to see me at school. 

Tony Cross
eLearning – Wyvern House and Lindfield Preparatory School