Ready, Set, Breathe: Practicing Mindfulness with Your Children for Fewer Meltdowns and a More Peaceful Family

by Carla Naumburg PhD

Overview

How can you prepare for and prevent your kids’ inevitable meltdowns? Ready, Set, Breathe will show you andyour child how to focus, calm down, and live in the present moment.

Being a parent is stressful, and when your child has a meltdown, it can be difficult to keep cool—let alone help your child to calm down. Ready, Set, Breathe offers real solutions to help you both deal with stress using everyday mindfulness games, activities, rituals, and habits. Designed for children ages 2-10 years old, this book is fun, engaging, and effective.

As any parent knows, children aren’t always receptive to what you say. Parental advice is often ignored or perceived as intrusive; and trying to get your kid to calm down and breathe can turn into an unpleasant power struggle in which you feel powerless and frustrated; and your child can feel nagged or bullied. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. In this book, you’ll learn to teach mindfulness to your child in the most enjoyable and realistic way possible. You’ll also learn skills to help yourself stay calm when your child does act up—especially in public.

This is a must-read for all parents!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626252929
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	412 KB

About the Author

Carla Naumburg, PhD, is a clinical social worker, writer, and mother. Her first book, Parenting in the Present Moment, was published by Parallax Press in 2014. Naumburg is the Mindful Parenting blogger for psychcentral.com, and a contributing editor at kveller.com. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post, as well as in a number of academic journals and online magazines. Naumburg holds an MSW and a PhD in social work, and she has an advanced certificate in mindfulness and psychotherapy. She currently lives outside of Boston, MA, with her husband and two young daughters. Connect with Carla and read all of her writing at www.carlanaumburg.com.
Carla Naumburg, PhD, is a clinical social worker and author of three parenting books; including Ready, Set, Breathe and How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Getting Into a Mindful Mind-Set

1 How Mindfulness Can Help Your Child 25

2 It All Starts with You 53

Part 2 Sharing Mindfulness with Your Child

3 Helping Your Child Find His Inner Zen Master 79

4 Making Space in Your Lives for Mindfulness 103

5 Talking About Mindfulness with Kids 121

6 Your Mindfulness Toy Box 137

Acknowledgments 165

Resources 167

References 177

Parent Contributors 181

Interviews

Carla Naumburg resides in Newton, MA.

Editorial Reviews

Full of wise, playful, and effective strategies…if every parent picked up this book, we’d have a lot happier families.”
—Elisha Goldstein, PhD, cofounder of the Center for Mindful Living and author of Uncovering Happiness


“This book is a great introduction to mindfulness, and it has a wealth of simple but effective practices that parents can do with their children. Carla shows us how to help our kids pay attention, regulate their emotions, develop empathy, and ultimately understand themselves. Carla’s writing is honest, relatable, and funny—this book will be a blessing for parents (and their kids)!”
—Sarah Rudell Beach, MEd, mindfulness instructor, executive director of Brilliant Mindfulness, LLC, and creator of the website leftbrainbuddha.com


“Carla Naumburg always keeps it real—with wisdom, humor, humility, and profound compassion. In Ready, Set, Breathe, she offers simple, practical tools for parents and kids to be more mindful, starting today.”
—Deborah Sosin, LICSW, MFA, author of Charlotte and the Quiet Place


“Ready, Set, Breathe fulfills on its promise, providing simple, doable practices to support parents in bringing mindfulness into the sweet chaos of family life. The writing is honest and engaging, with healthy doses of the humor and compassion all parents need.”
—Amy Saltzman, MD, author A Still Quiet Place


“Multitasking parents can take more than a page from this simple, sweet, and straightforward guide to mindfully preventing meltdowns not just in our kids, but in ourselves as well.”
—Christopher Willard, PsyD, Harvard Medical School, author of Growing Up Mindful and other books


“Clear, thoughtful, and funny. This wonderful and candid book gives us ways to bring the miracle of mindfulness to our families. For all the parents out there who have been wondering how to bring mindfulness to their children, Carla has written the comprehensive guide. I will be recommending and referencing this book for a long time to come! Carla gives so many simple and varied ways to share mindfulness and have more peaceful families. Plus, she’s the clearest, most down-to-earth writer about mindfulness that I’ve ever read (and I’ve read many). A book that may change your life!”
—Hunter Clarke-Fields, MSAE, RYT, founder of Hunter Yoga


“This book gives parents a wealth of tools, activities, and explorations that can make parenting more joyful and engaging, while supporting the well-being of the entire family. Carla shares these ideas in a loving, humor-filled, realistic way that will immediately put you at ease—you’ll feel like you’re talking with a good friend.”
—Jennifer Cohen Harper, MA, E-RCYT, founder of Little Flower Yoga and the School Yoga Project, author of Little Flower Yoga for Kids, and mom of Isabelle May


“Carla Naumburg’s book Ready, Set, Breathe is a wonderfully engaging and easy-to-understand gift to parents, offering simple yet meaningful ways to practice mindfulness themselves and with their children.”
—Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child and cofounder of Inner Kids

From the Publisher