Calming the Kids: The Experiment

So I initially set out to do an asana practice with my children daily to try and work on their issues.  Well four children, school, homework, very different dosha’s, holiday, etc.  The daily asana sounded good, but wasn’t very practical right now.  So back to drawing board, which brought me back to bedtime.  It had become a very large ordeal at night, three of the kids went to bed fine but our spirited 6 year old not so much.  It reached a point to where it was keeping not only us up but the other children too.  I decided to use the Mahamrtanjaya Mantra with each child every night.  This mantra was simple, melodic, calming and healing.  Perfect! It fit what each child needed.  So my boyfriend and I set out to spend 5 to 10 min every night one on one with the kids individually. We started with our little one.  We had her lay down in a restorative yoga pose on her back with a blanket under her to help open up her chest.  Then we had to teach her how to breath slow and calmly.  That alone helped to slow down her energy.  Then we started the mantra on the Ipad ( i found a nice 5 min session of it on youtube ).  I held her feet and my boyfriend took her head and we just focused all of our energy and attention on her.  She lasted for about 3 min perfectly still, which for her was a tremendous feet! Then she just softly asked when she was done.  We told her in 2 min, and she quieted back down.  Her total energy was calm for the rest of the night.  We then proceeded to do this with each of the other children, giving them our full undivided attention for that 10 min.  The oldest finally started to take a full breath,  the 2 middle children fell asleep fully relaxed, and it helped to calm us down as well.  The little one still was awake when we finished with the other children but she was calm.