I have two very young boys: William is coming up for three years old, while James was born eight weeks ago. I started practising mindfulness when William was about six months old, and he has been such a help to me in getting my practice going. He, like any other toddler is the paragon of mindfulness, for him the world barely exists outside of the present moment, so in many ways he has taught me - he leads and I follow. Spending time with William has given me enormous amounts of informal practice. I spend time playing with him and I give all of my attention to him - we both benefit massively.
I was tremendously lucky to receive James into my life recently, he will be the second Zen Master in my house after William.
At some point when we get older, we lose this instinctive ability for mindfulness. However, this is such a magnificently powerful tool that I simply must teach it to my children; I would feel like an irresponsible parent otherwise. I've not read much around this subject, but I kind of get the feeling that it will be possible to teach this to my children without them really knowing that they are being taught anything. At least until they are about age eight or something like that. I want to do some more reading about 'mindful parenting' and how to introduce this to my children. Anyone got any suggestions for a good place to start?
