Breathing Exercises for Kids: Guided Breathing They Can Follow

How to use it

1. Pick the exercise in the sentence at the top. Balloon breathing is a good first one, and you can change it any time.
2. Choose how many breaths, with the little minus and plus, and how fast. Start with the pace that feels easy. You can slow down later.
3. Press Start. A shape moves, a word says breathe in or breathe out, and the little dots at the bottom fill up as you go. Press Pause to stop, or Start over to go back to the first breath.
4. Want it bigger? Full screen turns the whole thing into the picture, which works well on a tablet propped up in front of your child.
5. Under the picture, Say it like this has the words to use, so you can do it with them. Print it or copy the steps if you’d rather have them on paper.

Why a moving shape helps

Little kids find it hard to breathe slowly on request. A shape that grows while they breathe in and shrinks while they breathe out gives their eyes something to follow, so the slow part is easier to do.

The Child Mind Institute says that slow belly breathing can help kids regulate their feelings. KidsHealth says that paying attention to your breathing can help calm the mind. The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages short breathing and meditation breaks for kids. These are all careful words for a reason: it helps many kids, it doesn’t help every kid every time, and it isn’t a treatment for anything.

The four exercises

• Balloon breathing is the one to start with. The picture grows as you breathe in and shrinks as you breathe out.
• Star breathing follows a hand. A dot climbs each finger as you breathe in and comes down as you breathe out. It gives little hands something to do.
• Square breathing has four equal sides: in, hold, out, hold. It’s the only one with a hold, so I’d try it after the others.
• Flower and candle is smell the flower, then blow out the candle. No candle is needed. A feather or bubbles work just as well.

How fast should it go?

The tool starts at the pace the Child Mind Institute suggests: breathe in for a count of 4, then out for a count of 5. There are two other speeds, a little faster and a little slower, in case 4 and 5 feel too long or too short. Square breathing keeps all four sides the same length, so the dot moves at a steady speed.

If your child gets lightheaded or upset, stop and let them breathe normally. Slow breathing should feel easy. It isn’t a contest.

Practice when it’s calm

The most useful tip I have is to practice when nobody needs it. A child in the middle of a big feeling can’t learn a new skill. A child who has done balloon breathing twenty times at bedtime has something familiar to reach for later.

If you’re building a place for those big feelings, my guide to setting up a calm down corner at home is where I’d start. This honest list of calming strategies shows which ones actually worked for us, and what to do when your child is in the red zone covers the moments when practice isn’t the answer yet.