I often get the impression that most people do not enjoy their job. You can tell by looking at their faces on the way to work in the morning. So I know I've been so lucky. Being a professional children's entertainer for over ten years was a wonderful way to work and live. Perhaps one of life's deepest satisfactions is to entertain and bring lightness into the lives of others. Working with children also brought the child out in me and on so many occasions I was aware that I was entertaining myself. Unfortunately, during the last ten years, I've watched both the world and children change dramatically.
A few years ago, one particular event brought home to me that it was time for me to change, time for me to step out of my entertainer's comfort zone and begin to offer children a little more than fun and games. I was asked to entertain a group of children for two hour party. I arrived to find fifteen shouting, yelling, screaming seven-year-old boys. It was complete pandemonium, with absolutely no sign that they were going to sit down and pay attention to me. It was the children's entertainer's nightmare scenario - parents gone, a room full of hyperactive kids and two hours to fill. The only way I could get their interest was to promise to show them something they had never seen or done before. Slowly but surely I managed to get their attention long enough to get them to lie on the floor. Then I led them into a visualisation exercise. After twenty minutes every single one had calmed down. Two of them even fell asleep. The contrast with those first moments could not have been greater. The whole exercise was one big message about what I needed to do next with my life.
For some time, I had been noticing that it was becoming harder to connect with more and more children. Whether it's down to diet, lifestyle, lack of parental attention or too much TV and computer games, I became increasingly aware of children in need of specific help, and it wasn't entertainment. The main signs of a child not maturing as they should include not being able to concentrate at all, unable to sit still for a moment, nervousness disguised as hyperactivity, extreme insecurity, unable to be alone and constantly seeking some form of attention. But by far the most concerning behaviour is the almost constant reactivity. Increasingly rare is the child who acts after consciously thinking and deciding what they are going to do.
All these behaviours are simply a cry for help. So in response to this call from kids, I set up Relax Kids. It's my way of helping kids learn what no one ever teaches them, which is how to be peaceful wherever and whenever they want, how to concentrate their mind, how to use their imagination in a focussed and positive way and how to push the pause button and consider options before action.
Recently, one mother told me how she had created the habit of rushing everything. Her mantra in life had become, 'There's not enough time.' Everything she did was accompanied by this voice in her head, which would regularly emerge in her words as, 'There's not enough time.'
Then one day her five-year-old daughter, who was about to begin a simple non-urgent task, said, 'Mummy I think we don't have enough time.' It stopped her in her tracks as she realised what she was passing on. Another dimension to this illusion of time famine is parents using TV and computers to keep children occupied while they lose themselves in a flurry of their own activities. This trend is now coming home to roost, as many schools are now finding that children don't know how to talk to each other. Before any meaningful learning can begin, they have to teach children basic communication skills. E-mailing, texting and televisions are all threatening to create a new generation of adults who don't know how to really communicate. We already see the result of this in some communities. The inability to control oneself and to articulate one's thoughts and feelings means those thoughts and emotions come straight out at the level of behaviour. The price we pay is an increasingly violent society.
However, by far the most concerning trend is the number of children on anti-depressants or energy suppressants. Recent research has indicated that over 50,000 children in the UK are on anti-depressants. These are simply quick and violent ways to manage a child's energy. It all comes down to adults not being prepared to teach children how to manage themselves, which means how to manage their minds. But that's hard, because parents themselves have never been taught how to manage their own imagination, thoughts and feelings. They don't know how to use their own mind or control their emotions. Which means parents need to learn for themselves how to stay calm, maintain a positive attitude and be creative before they can teach their children. This is a massive challenge, especially when parents don't want to see themselves as teachers and tend to be dependent on the education system to do this work. But the system can't do this work because it's too busy helping children cram facts into their young memories.
So that's where Relax Kids comes in. It's for children and parents. Yes it is primarily to help children, but I know that to do that I also need to help parents. It's essential for a child to know how to relax their mind and body, but it doesn't help when they go home to a stressed parent always rushing and always worrying. That's why Relax Kids is for both parent and child. One of the most frequent kinds of feedback that I receive when people use any of the visualisations, stories or exercises I give them for their children, is when they say,'I enjoyed doing that exercise for my child so much. I felt so relaxed, so peaceful within myself. Actually I think that was for me just as much as them'.
I wrote most of the visualisations and meditations for the first Relax Kids book in March 2002, while I was sitting on top of a mountain in India. The air was pure, the atmosphere cool and silent and my mind was fresh and clear. With each word came a profound experience of peace and lightness. And, as I wrote the meditations, I seemed to travel into the fairyland I would like children and their parents to feel when reading the book.
Like every child, I was always deeply fascinated by fairy stories and, as an adult, they have played a major part in my work, both as a children's entertainer and a children's theatre director. I think the reason we are so attracted to fairy stories is that they touch something deep inside us. Within each story lies our deepest desire for ultimate love, happiness and truth. These are like the foundation stones of a contented and creative mind. They are the building blocks of a positive attitude and proactive behaviour.
So, these story- visualisations have been designed to encourage your child's imagination and creativity. In the process, I hope that they will lead them into the same positive and peaceful emotional state that I felt when I was seated on my mountain top in India.
Sometimes the last thing we feel like doing is reading a story to our child at bedtime - which is why the book is also designed to give parents space to relax alongside their child. There are affirmations at the bottom of each page to help parents to create a suitable mind set and atmosphere, so aiding their child's relaxation as well as their own.
I see a challenging time ahead for us all. It's obvious the world is not going to slow down, or that the external stimulants which prey on our senses and sensibilities will become any less. I also see the huge challenge facing every parent who must finds ways to help their child put down the right inner foundations for the growth and development of a strong mind and discerning intellect. But most of all, I feel for today's and tomorrows children. No other generation has come into the world and had to face such an onslaught of fast paced change, ruthless marketing and multitasking super busy parents. Relax Kids is first and foremost for them.
