If you are a busy parent of a young child (really who isn’t?), you likely find it challenging to find the time or space to meditate. I know I do. One solution is to have your child meditate with you. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking, but it with realistic expectations and little sense of humor, it is possible.
Meditating With Young Children
For children five and under it will be difficult for them to sit for any length of time. Even a few seconds might be the most you can expect. But the reality is, sometimes this is all you need. Just meditating or being in the present moment for 60 seconds can make a huge difference.
So, adjust your expectations and try to remain flexible with your approach. Kindergartners typically can be expected to sit for 5 minutes with sustained, high-quality attention. Results may vary 😂
Kids Will Be Kids
It’s important to be patient as you work on meditation exercises with your child. It’s normal for children to have difficulty sitting still. They may not be able to keep their eyes closed, they may fidget or wiggle as they sit, and they may laugh or try to be funny because it’s awkward or difficult for them to remain still and quiet. This is completely normal, so try to maintain a sense of humor and take challenges that arise in stride and temper your expectations. It will likely take time to teach your child to meditate. If you’re overly strict or discipline your child too much, you may end up turning this into negative interaction.
Meditation Exercise For Children
First, you’ll want to start with a brief session (1-2 minutes) and try to make it fun. A candle gazing meditation is an easy way to start. Sometimes guided meditations are a great way to teach children to meditate. There are many guided meditations available for free online that are specifically for children. A simple Google search or YouTube search will reveal many options.
I strongly recommend practicing mindful breathing exercises with them on a regular basis. There are opportunities everywhere with little ones. Temper tantrums or emotional outbursts are great opportunities. Rather than get frustrated (or even worse, tell them not to get frustrated), simply hold your child closely, tell them it’s ok, and breathe deeply. Within moments, they will likely follow your lead. Breathe deeply in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Verbalize this as you do it and encourage your child to do the same. The more often you do this with him the easier it will be for them to engage in this as a form of meditation.
There are also apps you can use on your phone or tablet that are completely free. One example is Breathe, Think, Do With Sesame, an app intended for children under five available on Android and iOS. Another example is Wellbeyond Meditation for kids for iOS.
You can also search for classes at meditation Center specifically for children. Simply do a Google search for “meditation center [city, state]” – then check if they have meditation classes for children.
James Killian, LPC is a couples counselor in Woodbridge, CT and the owner of Arcadian Counseling. They have openings for parents in need of mindfulness therapy. Contact them today to schedule a free consultation.
Hi r/smallbusiness,I recently started my own web development company and I've been going through local business websites. I noticed that a lot of websites are missing basic optimization. I decided to put together a short guide for optimization and additional tips based on common flaws. I am not affiliated with any links provided below.Most business owners don't have the technical knowledge to understand how to check if the website is properly optimized. I will share some tools and tips that will help you make sure your website is optimized properly. If you find something wrong with your website and don't have the technical knowledge, hire someone who does and make sure that they did it right with the help of tools provided.Why OptimizeIf you have a website, besides the design and functionality, you need to make sure that your website is properly optimized. Optimization is important in order to integrate your website with search engines, social networks, and apps. Most importantly, search engine crawlers won't be able to read through your website properly and use the information on your website for people searching for your services.Besides the content on your website, search engines like Google rank your website based on various criteria some of which are easily fixed with minimum technical knowledge. Now, it's important to note that I'm talking about basic optimization. I believe that if you are paying someone to develop a website they must deliver a website with basic optimization done right. I noticed some freelancers and web development startup portfolio websites are also not properly optimized, therefore I urge you to check how well your basic website optimization is done. You can get it checked for free on WooRank.Common things I noticed websites missing:SSL certificate. This is the first thing you need to get if you don't have one. This is a certificate that basically says that it's safe to do business on your website. It should cost you about $10. Unless you're using GoDaddy... and if you are doing business with GoDaddy, I strongly suggest you reconsider. Check with your domain or hosting provider - most provide SSL certificates.H1 tag. I can't believe that I have to include this in the list but yes, I noticed websites missing H1 tags. H1 is the header text and you should write your main keyword for the page. For example, if you're doing carpet cleaning, you can have something like "Carpet Cleaning Services in Sacramento" on your landing page. You must have only one H1 tag per page.Broken Links. Make sure you don't have broken links on your website. You don't have to manually check this. WooRank has a broken link checker or you can look up another checker online. Make sure you fix or remove links altogether.Sitemap. You can use a free sitemap generator, for example, this one. Enter your URL and download the sitemap file. Depending on your hosting provider, you should be able to access the root directory of your website through a file manager. Upload the sitemap file to the root directory. Note: if you're using a site builder refer to the documentation.Custom 404 page. You need a custom 404 page. It does affect SEO and it's another relatively easy thing to fix.Language tag. Make sure you have lang="en" inside opening tags on each page. It's an easy technical fix that will help bots easily determine the language on the page.Open Graph Protocol. This one requires a little more technical skill. A lot of websites missing this one and I believe that you need to fix this. Why do you need it? When someone shares a link on social networks or apps like Facebook WhatsApp or Telegram, description and image will be automatically assigned to the link. Here's an example.Responsive Website. Nowadays most websites are mobile-optimized but there are some websites out there that are still not properly optimized.Robots.txt. Open a text editor and paste the following:User-agent: *Disallow:Sitemap:Type in full address to your sitemap (with http://) next to "Sitemap: "Save the file and name it "robots.txt"Upload the file to the root directory.Additionally. You should look into schema.org, Robots.txt and tap tags. Some websites were missing those as wellBeyond BasicsAs we all know Google does a good job of providing searchers with valuable information. They continuously work on improving their algorithm and recently they came up with new ways of ranking websites. Besides the technical aspect of SEO, you need to also learn about EAT. Google came up with guidelines that help determine your Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It's especially important if you're in certain industries like health and finance.I'm not going to dive into this because it's a big subject to cover and I suggest you do more research. I am going to tell you this though - think about adding more useful and credible content on your website. Besides the general information about your company and services, think about creating more shareable content which will help your brand establish EAT. Creating a blog, podcast or youtube channel is a long term consistent effort which if done right will bring a lot of benefits to your brand overall.Keep an eye on SEO updates. The latest update Google made to their algorithm is called BERT. You will have better chance at ranking higher if you keep up with the updates and implement additions accordingly. This should help you stand out among others because unlike basic optimization, this will take more time, effort and resources.Beyond OptimizationGoogle Analytics. You must have this in order to be able to track traffic on your website. It's easy to integrate and provides valuable information. Make sure you have it and if you're running ads on Google, make sure Analytics is properly integrated with Google Ads. You will be able to track how well your ads are performing, set various goals and better understand where you need to improve.Stock Footage. Consider buying stock photos/videos for your website. Most websites consist of photos, not illustrations and visual elements make the feel of the website. If you don't have a budget to hire a photographer, consider spending money on stock footage. You can also use free stock footage websites like this one, but they normally don't have a big selection.Consider WordPress. I mentioned WordPress above, and if you're using site builders like Wix, you might want to consider rebuilding your website on WordPress. There are various reasons why I strongly suggest changing the CMS, but the main reason is that I believe if you're an established business, you need to have full control over your website. With site builders, you're basically renting the website and you won't be able to move the website to another hosting or fully optimize it. They don't provide you the access to the code which might make it hard to optimize the website for certain needs.Google Console. This is another tool by Google that will help you track the performance of your website. Make sure you upload your sitemap. Bing also has a similar tool called Bing Webmaster tools. I highly suggest you upload the sitemap there as well.If you have WordPress as your CMS, you can install a plugin that will analyze your website for SEO flaws and help you fix them. I've been using SEO Framework lately and I'm pretty satisfied.P.S. I feel like I have a lot to share and I'd love to put together a blog with useful resources and articles for business owners. I hope you found this useful. Feel free to ask questions.Edit: Wording
Well Beyond HIV participant, Wanda, shared her incredible story of surviving and thriving after an HIV diagnosis with Sixty and Me. Read more about her journey and the importance of never giving up on yourself here
"Today, I smile when I think of aging with HIV and growing older. "
I was diagnosed with HIV in early 1986. I was a newcomer to the U.S. with no friends or family and barely spoke English. When I learned I was HIV positive, the words echoed in my head for days. I didn’t believe it and took the test not just once but five more times, hoping it was a mistake or an error.
Like many others, I passed through the different stages of emotion—fear, sadness, denial. But never once did I feel angry. I wasn’t mad at the man who gave it to me and I wasn’t mad at anyone else. I just placed the diagnosis in the back of my head and kept going on with my life. I accepted it as part of my life, but for a long time I internalized it and never opened up to anyone. The first person I told was my mom. We have always been close and when I told her in person, I wanted to assure her that I was going to survive this.
Now I am open about living with HIV because I’ve learned that being open about my status allows me to help others who are also living with HIV or going through a difficult time. With this in mind, I founded the Facebook group HIV Long Term Survivors, a global network connecting fellow long-term survivors for support during difficult times.
I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve overcome. Over 20 years ago, I was an immigrant, alone with no health insurance and struggling to make a living. Today, I am a citizen of this country with many good friends to enjoy life with. I’m grateful for the support of my friends, family, social workers and doctors; I wouldn’t be here without them.
Today, I smile when I think of aging with HIV and growing older. Being a survivor has taught me to have hope and to make long-term plans. I want to grow old with a partner in my own home, have the support of agencies and organizations, and I want to always have a seat at the table of my community as a gay Latino and long-term survivor. It gives me so much pride because most of us were told over and over again that we weren’t going to make it. But here we are, and I’m happy to be here telling my story and showing others that even though we have hard times or difficult moments, it is possible to age and live well with HIV.
- Jesus, age 56/Diagnosed in 1986/ 2015 POZ 100 Honoree/ Last Men Standing Participant
Well Beyond HIV participant, Vickie Lynn, was recently featured in Sixty and Me’s piece on life lessons from older adults living with HIV. Read the inspiring advice she shared with the community: http://bit.ly/2auYE9P