Kim Eng and Eckhart Tolle discuss rising anxiety in young children, especially in first and second grade. Tolle emphasizes that adults' own calmness and consciousness matter more than techniques, and that meditation and a peaceful environment help children find steadiness.
My question is about children, and it's a growing concern of mine that we have an increase of anxiety with children. And as an educator, what can we do to help them with this?
The anxiety in you or the anxiety in the children?
In the children. They're. They're labeling it. They're. And at 5 and 6 years old, they know that there's a label for it, and it's called they're anxious. And it's. You know, I've been teaching for a long time, and it just seems to be getting to be greater and greater. Young children and older children.
How old are the children that you teach?
The ones I have are primary, so they're grade one and two.
Grade one and two. Nice. Yeah. It's unfortunate, isn't it? They're experiencing that.
A lot of fear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you free to do meditation in your school?
That's a good question. It is something that we're starting to do in the Canadian schools, and it's growing in popularity. And certainly, yes, we are allowed to do it certainly in the public schools.
Okay. So they wouldn't be against you doing that? No. Okay. Do you do it with them?
I do my best to do it. It's something that I'm learning and evolving with. So they do like it. The ones that are anxious actually like it probably the most, and. But I'm not sure I'm doing it the right way. And I was wondering if there are any strategies to use with children to help them maintain a sense of calmness.
So it's important that you center yourself first and you remain calm and be calm. And that's sometimes hard to do in your job, I could imagine.
Right.
So it's going to be your practice first and foremost as well. You can bring that in with the children. Start the day, your day each. You get them all day, don't you, when they're grade one and two.
Most of the day.
Most of the day. So you can start the day with the meditation, just being quiet, just being still.
And. And do you have any understanding of why this is getting worse?
Oh, my goodness. Wow. You know, we've lost that connection to being. We make things, the world, more important than our own state of consciousness. So it's. And we teach that to our children right away. You know, we're happy when they say their first words. We reward them. We're like, yay. You know, so they'll. And it's not a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, not saying words are bad from the moment that they come into this world and they begin to. Then their brains start to form and they start to grow. They are constantly looking outside of ourselves. And that's a natural thing to do. As Eckhart mentioned, it's natural. You can't stop a child going through the stage of age two. Mine, mine. This is mine. Where did they learn that? Suddenly they know that it's mine and they don't want to share it. So they'll go through that process of developing an ego until it gets them in trouble. And they realize that, you know, they. They now have to now unlearn all that. So it. We can't stop that. Natural stages that human beings have to go through. However, we can be the light in which we can hold and help the child go through it. So with this anxiety that's starting in very young children, I mean, there is more entertainment in the world. There are more devices the world. I mean, now when we are out to dinner or lunch or something like that, and we see a family sitting at a table, they're not even connecting with each other. They each have their own devices. I kid you not. They are really on their devices as well. Parents now because they're so stressed out. It's easier to put your kid in front of a device than to have to really be with your child. So it's important that. And this is the part that you won't be able to control. Just as the parents cannot control what's happening at school. They can either best and do their best, but you can. There's. So they're getting little aspects here and a little aspect there. So whatever their home life is, okay. And whatever their school life is. And here you are awakened consciousness. Now you have an opportunity to have them for that, whatever, four, six hours a day. And you are creating this field of consciousness and they get to experience that. And this. It's vital. It's important. You can't control what's happening at home, but you can give them the gift of love and acceptance. Hey, this is a place where you can actually relax. You don't have to be stressed out. You don't have to be anxious. And then they get to experience that. Now when I had. My childhood was, you know, very dysfunctional. A lot of pain body in everybody. And my parents, Sam.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
