If you want to help a child succeed in life give her the gift of developing her intuition.
Why is intuition important for kids?
Parents want what is best for their kids, and often teach the importance of being respectful and listening to adults. But how often do we teach kids to listen to their own guiding voice within?
Ultimately, we want our kids to grow up to be an authentic expression of who they are, and share it with everyone they meet. Celebrating a child’s intuition is a valuable gift all parents can give to their kids.
Imagination is KEY
Imagination is a gateway to opening one’s intuition. It helps open our ability to perceive beyond our physical senses. Children are so connected and naturally operate using imagination. Below are some tips and exercises to encourage building intuition through imagination:
Tips for Developing Children’s Intuition
Sight: Expanding Perception
Here are a few exercises to help your child expand their ability to see both seeing their physical surroundings, AND also the ability to see on the inner, which we often use during meditation or as part of the creative process.
- I spy – Play “I spy with my little eye” game. It’s an excellent way to get your child to explore her surroundings. It teaches children to expand their perception and observe more of what is right in front of us every day.
- Intuitive art – Show your child a picture and then have them close their eyes and draw it with their imagination, and then fill it in with colors. Then have them tell you what it looked like. Encourage them by being excited about what they are describing. You can even ask them to close their eyes again and now start to see this image come to life and do something silly. Ask them to tell you about it.
- Guided Imagery – guide your child on an epic journey. Have them close their eyes and imagine whatever you think they would enjoy. Perhaps playing with fairies and elves, swimming with mermaid or talking to a unicorn. Make it magical and fun. Then have them share their experience. Encourage them and affirm their experience!
Smell: Celebrating the Moment!
Kid’s sense of smell is part of their ability to perceive the world around them. Our 3-year-old son intuitively likes to engage his senses to find joy in the present moment. Whenever he washes his hands he likes to smell the soap before he rinses his hands. As always, I find another thing to admire about him. He is taking a moment to be present and appreciate something I don’t even think twice about – hand soap!
He surprised me this week when he washed his hands and said “Mommy this smells like rosemary!” I was shocked that he could identify the smell of rosemary at the age of three!
Later I found out his grandma took him to a plant store a week earlier and introduced him to various herbs. He picked out his favorite one – which was rosemary – and she bought the plant to have at her house. We call this “Grammy School”, and she is very good at it!
Scent Exercise
- Go to a plant store and line up the basil, rosemary, oregano and lavender plants. Have the child rub their hands together on the leaves and then smell their hands.
- Now encourage your child to talk to the plant! Ask it, “what is your name?” or “how can I work with you at home?” Next, tell the plant something that you like about it “hi I like the way you smell” Let the child tell you the answers they get. Encourage gratitude and kindness toward this new friend – the plant!
Hearing: Imaginative Storytelling
We all know how valuable reading to children is. Of course continue to read to your children, and add sound effects and intonation in your voice to capture the energy of the story. Kids love to add their own noises and voices to the story. Encouraging them to participate in story time is another way to engage their imagination – a most valuable and precious aspect of our creativity and intuition.
The ability to hear begins to open up the intuitive gift of clairaudience, which gives the child the ability to listen to one’s own inner guidance.
Tips:
- Wordless Picture Books – invite the child to “read” the book by making up a story to go with the images. This is actually how kids learn to read in Steiner Waldorf classrooms before they are taught how to sound out words. The value of imagination is KEY!
- Story telling without a book – fit storytelling into each day! You can do this when you’re driving, during play time or at bedtime. This encourages a child’s imagination. Choose topics your child would get excited about that involves their favorite people, animals and activities. Enhance the story by using your own imagination. This is modeling how they can do it on their own!
Taste: Mindful Snacking
Exploring the senses through food is a great way to teach kids mindfulness and connection to self. Ultimately a keen sense of taste is another way to be present and experience more joy in life!
Buy a variety of fruit/vegetable pouches like these organic blends such as a mango, banana, spinach pouch. Then have the child close their eyes and squeeze a little bit of the pouch into her mouth. She will love it! Then see if she can guess what flavor it is. This gives her a skill of being present in the moment and tapping into her taste buds to experience different flavors.
Feeling: Physical Connection
A physical feeling is connected to the intuitive gift of clairsentience, which is the ability to feel on the inner. It’s the gut feeling or inner knowing that our intuition provides. It’s important for us to affirm this gift with children and teach them to start trusting it.
- Draw pictures on their back with your fingertip. Try really light pressure – like a tickle- and move really slowly. Not only will it be soothing, but it becomes a fun guessing game for the child. She can use her imagination to come up with various guesses to what you are drawing on her back. It’s also a soothing thing to do before bedtime or to calm the child down throughout the day.
- Breathing exercises for kids – the breath is connected to chi, which is life force energy. My friend Kate Bartram-Brown is the creator of Mini Me Yoga and she offers excellent ways for kids to have fun while connecting to breathing. One is dragon breath and trampoline belly (pictured).
- Tip from MiniMe Yoga’s Trampoline Belly – place a stuffed animal on your child’s abdomen while they are lying down. When they take a deep breath, inhaling down to their belly, the animal will rise and fall with their breath. This encourages connecting to their chi.
- Teaching kids how to take slow, deep breaths, all the way down to their tummy, helps kids relax and perceive how their body physically feels.
Why intuition matters for kids
I hope all children can cultivate their intuition early in life and hold on to throughout their teen years and adulthood. This instinct can be taught! Intuition development exercises can help expand intuition. By engaging our senses we can perceive more of the world. This means we can live life more awake. We can have more zest and passion for life. This is a huge way to bring more joy into every day. When kids explore intuition through their imagination they can keep their intuition strong.
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About the Author:
Sarah Smriga is a Healer, Guide, and Universal Kabbalah Apprentice Instructor.
Sarah lives in the Minneapolis St. Paul area and is a mother of two boys. Sarah is an experienced healer and teacher with extensive training through the Modern Mystery School lineage of King Salomon. She’s passionate about the art of meditation, sacred geometry, Universal Hermetic Ray Kabbalah and Healers Academy. Her best advice is to find empowerment through these ancient wisdom teachings, because it works! Her favorite tools for empowerment are the Life Activation and the Empower Thyself Initiation. Find a certified Guide near you.