Lucy Beney Hello, my name is Lucy  Beney, and I’m an Integrative Counsellor,   working mainly with children and young  people. Today, I’m going to be talking   about a way in which we can help children to  be mindful in their daily activities and also,   to use physical objects to help bring  them back into the moment at times of   high anxiety or when their thoughts  are tangled up and elsewhere [pause]. Mindfulness is about being in  the present. Mindfulness is about   noticing what is going on around  us, what is going on inside us,   and not focusing on the past or on the  future. So, we are here, right now,   in the moment. Traditionally, people have thought  to do this, we needed to be still, quiet, alone,   and focusing on what is going on inside us,  and that can be very helpful for some people. There are, however, quite a lot of children and  young people who find it very difficult to be   still, to sit quietly, and actually, when they  start to focus on what is going on inside them,   it can be negative. They can think about bad  experiences. They can think about the tangle   in their mind and how difficult it is to deal  with. So, there is an alternative way, which   is to focus your attention outside, externally,  what is going on around you or what you are doing,   and that’s really going to be the focus of this  series of questions and activities [pause]. For many people, being still, being quiet, is  a struggle. We see this often with children   and young people who are used to having a lot  of noise and commotion going on around them,   who are used to being active a lot of the time.  And so, what we’re going to look at now are   various ways in which we can use that activity,  that energy, that external focus, to help a child   to be present in the moment, where they are now  and not focus inwardly, at all, maybe, on the   problems or the issues that they are facing.  And particularly with situations like a very   anxious child or a child with a low mood, having  that external focus can be very helpful [pause]. The way that I like to look at it  is we need to engage our whole body,   and the shorthand I use for this is head, hand,  heart. If we can find something that we need to   think about in the moment, that’s the head part.  Something that require physical activity, and   that’s the hand part, although it could be  your feet, it could be a sporting activity,   it could be walking. Hand is a good shorthand  for that. And heart, we need to enjoy what   we’re doing, and the idea is we engage in some  kind of activity that we need to think about,   so our thinking brain is activated and leaves our  emotional brain to one side, we are enjoying it,   and we are physically doing something. We get  out of our head and into our body. Our hands are   making something, pulling something, pushing  something. We can’t just stay in our head. And in doing that, we hope to get to  a situation where we are, effectively,   focusing only on that. We’re in the  zone. We’re in a state of ‘flow’,   as some people call it. And that’s the sort  of situation where you don’t realise that time   is passing and you think, oh, you know, two  hours have passed since I started doing this,   and you haven’t been thinking about anything else.  You haven’t been thinking about what happened this   morning. You’re not thinking about what you’re  going to do tonight or next week. You’re not   thinking about other people in your life.  You are literally focused on that activity. It can be a solitary activity, such  as drawing, crafting, woodwork,   something like that. It could be a group  activity where you are actually doing   something with other people and enjoying their  company as part of the experience. But the idea   is your focus is external and you are physically  engaged. You’re using your body – mind, body and   spirit, using your physicality, as well as your  emotions and your intelligence, as well [pause]. This is quite a useful question because often, we  can’t just drop everything and do our preferred   activity or go off and do something that we might  otherwise do if we’re feeling unduly anxious or   worried about anything in particular. So,  sometimes it’s useful to have an object,   or objects, to bring you back into that  state of external focus. So, for example,   to pick up a stone, to pick up something  that has a particular texture, a, you know,   a rubber ball or something that’s soft and  furry, like a furry toy, to pick that up and   become curious about it. Which sounds a little  bit strange, but how does it feel? Is it warm? Is   it cold? Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it soft?  Can you squash it or mould it, as some fidget   toys can do? What does it feel – do you like the  texture? What does it feel like in your hands?   And remind yourself to keep  asking questions. And again,   that serves the purpose to get you out of  your head and your worries and your low mood,   or anything else that you may be suffering with  at the time, and focus on something outside. And this also has an advantage in that if  it’s a small object, it’s perhaps something   that you could take with you, in your pocket,  in your schoolbag, to remind you that you can   bring your focus outwards and you have got  something to remind you that you have some   degree of control over where your mind is going.  And some children will have a particular object   that they always take to school. Some people  just use objects when they need to do that. Sometimes it’s good to have a contrast. You  could have something that is small and hard,   like a pebble. You could have something  that’s soft, like a mini soft toy. You can   use those in different ways at different times,  bearing in mind that every child is different,   every person is different and what works for  one person may not work for another. But again,   it comes back to the basic requirement  to try to take your focus outside,   away from your racing thoughts and  focus it on something else. And if   that’s something you can carry around with  you, that can be very helpful [pause]. I have an integrative training, as a Therapist,  which means that I have experience in a variety   of different modalities for working with  children, young people and indeed, adults.   Mindfulness is just one part of the toolkit that  I use when working with people. It can be very   effective on its own in certain circumstances,  but it is also something that can be integrated   with other approaches, when appropriate. For example, one thing that I’ve found quite  effective, when working with children and young   people who self-harm, is to find that  external distraction. So, for example,   you have a child who has been self-harming,  all their thinking is directed inwardly,   at themselves. They are thinking about how much  they dislike themself. They’re thinking about   perhaps how they need to punish themself, and  self-harm is the physical manifestation of that.  If we can find something else for the child to  use, to focus on, so they’re not thinking about   what’s going on in their head, and also, use  that perhaps to overcome that impulse to harm,   that can be a very useful way for a child  to move away from harming themselves. So,   when a child wants to harm themselves, maybe  to cut themselves, having a cold, flat stone   in the palm of their hand, that’s providing  a physical alternative. Perhaps they could   even press that stone onto their skin where they  would otherwise harm themselves. They’re having   a physical sensation from this. They are also  thinking about what they’re doing, which again,   is activating the thinking part of their brain,  rather than the emotional part of their brain. Sometimes something a little bit more extreme can  be useful. One of the things some of the children   I work with use is cold water. You have that  impulse to harm yourself. Go and put your hand,   or the inside of your wrist, under a cold  running tap. That provides a physical outlet.   It also re-engages your thinking brain, the  alert part of your brain, which is thinking,   “Why is my hand under cold water? Perhaps  something’s going on here.” So, immediately,   your attention is being deflected away from  the harmful or the dark thoughts in your head. Just having an object, holding it in your hand,  perhaps pressing it onto your skin where you   would use something harmful, but this time it’s,  as I say, a smooth stone, something like a furry   ball or something like that, can be very helpful  and stop that impulse in its tracks. This isn’t   going to overcome all that child’s problems  just with that strategy. It is certainly a   good halfway house towards working towards an  alternative altogether from harming yourself.