One day my five year old said “I’m going to take a deep breath and let it out slow so I can feel calmness.” Breath is the foundational step to all mindfulness or meditation practices. What you choose to do next can vary widely in terms of active or passive mindfulness practices, but it all starts with breathing. To begin, let your eyes gently close and observe the breath going in and out of your body – either through you nose of the expansion of your abdomen. You don’t have to slow down or speed up your breathing. Instead, simply observe. For children, linking the breath to an image can be helpful. For example, the stomach expands like a balloon filling up with air. You can lay on your back on the floor and feel that deep belly breathing even more. Children can see belly breathing in action by placing a small stuffed animal on the stomach and watching it move up and down. The effect of exhaling is also seen in a concrete may when if a child blows bubbles or blows a pinwheel. Connection with breath is the beginning of mindfulness, awareness of the present moment. Jon Kabat-Zinn, refers to the breath as calm under the surface of ocean waves. As my son said, take a deep breath and feel the calmness.