How do you feel?
"How do you feel Sage?", I ask my four year old. She replies, almost always, "Good." Good is such a default answer for her that she would answer "good" if someone would ask her almost ANYTHING. "What's your favorite color Sage?” Sage saids assuredly," Good." While we always chuckle about it, I want her to be able to identify exactly what she feels in her body so she can decide what she feels comfortable to opt in or out of with people and with herself.
It made me think. How do we help her feel safe in her body and help her develop an awareness to the wide range of sensations and emotions potentially present in her body? Furthermore, how do we help her set boundaries for her own body and encourage her to respect other people's boundaries at the same time.
In an Embody Lab masterclass Dr. Rae Johnson, author of Embodied Activism, stated, "All of the sensory faculties inform us about the world and our engagement with it, in ways that really do increase our capacity to engage in our worlds with much more granularity much more sensitivity and awareness, and as a result a lot more choice."
When I heard this information it confirmed what had already become clear to me, after mothering, teaching, and taking multiple mindfulness and social emotional courses.
I decided to use art to achieve these goals.
Bring mindful attention to the fact that she has her own body.
Invite her to bring mindful attention to her body and her own body space.
Invite her to notice her body in relation to other people and things in the space.
Invite her to explore her senses and find out what she tastes or the way/ quality that her body feels i.e. heavy, bouncy, light, floating, hot, etc
Help her understand that she can choose who has access to her body.
Help her understand that other people also can choose who has access to their body.
As an easy way to get started, I use these songs from the children's sing along album Monroe Snow and I co-wrote and performed together. These songs are fun, simple, and age appropriate songs to start to instill awareness of young children's personal bodies' and their bodies in space.
We sing and dance to these songs.
"One under the sun"
In the bridge of this song, I invite the children to bring attention to their body and identify certain parts of their body if they are able.
"Feelings Face"
In this song I invite the children to become aware of the space around their body and also introduce emotional facial cues inviting them to make a face that is normally connected to an emotion. , saying "Jump up, down, turn around, shake your feelings to the ground. Make a feelings face"
"Who's the boss?"
In this song, we sing about consent. I invite the children to acknowledge their authority over their body and encourage them to set boundaries while respecting other people's boundaries.
