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Anthony Cupo is a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator (TMF) from the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He is a co-owner of Stepping Forward Counseling Center, LLC and has been meditating for over 30 years.

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Bucket List of Summer Mindfulness

Mindfulness means children can concentrate without anything else distracting them. Everyday life stress can overwhelm and make it difficult for children to reflect and observe what is happening around them. Mindfulness can be lost in a world that continues to move faster than ever and wherein children are constantly engaged with screens and digital media.

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5 Tips for Emotional Regulation

Help your child regulate emotions with these simple mindfulness tips.

Teaching children emotional regulation is essential for ensuring that they can move through life without emotional outbursts that leave them feeling out of control. Emotional regulation is fundamental to developing autonomy, building healthy relationships and achieving goals. It is an important skill to build as it is also essential for mental and emotional health. Developing healthy emotional regulation takes time and effort.

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Guide to a Healthy Mind

Learn some insightful tips for keeping the mind in an optimal state.

There are many approaches to mental health, and finding the one that fits you is a journey. By deliberately reappraising and recalibrating our thinking, we can change the way we feel and create an optimistic view of our world. Our lives are complex, fast-paced and filled with burdens, and we should not be surprised if we need to ask for help with our minds at some point. 

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Metta Love

Metta meditation offers a boost of love for you, the kids and the world. 

Loving-kindness meditation, or Metta meditation, is an ultimate form of generosity, selflessness and love toward ourselves and others. In fact, Metta is a Pali word for benevolence, friendship, affection and kindness. The Dhammapada says, “Hatred cannot co-exist with love and kindness. It dissipates when supplanted with thoughts of love and compassion.” Try a Metta meditation.

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Holiday Mindfulness

With the festive season fast approaching, it’s incredibly important for parents to give themselves the time and space to prepare for the upcoming challenges.

For adults, the holiday season can be incredibly overwhelming. We are exposed to a constant stream of advertising, our communities and homes are dressed up in the brightest, boldest colors and the palpable sense of excitement can be exhausting to manage. Add in the self-imposed pressure to produce a perfect, memorable holiday for our family and friends, it’s easy to see why the festive season can be extremely challenging to navigate.

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Teaching Gratitude

Learn some research-backed tips for fostering a thankful child. 

Wanting to raise a thankful child has its challenges. The entitlement cultural narrative can be a significant challenge in your quest. 

Are you raising an ungrateful child? The situation is common. Gratefulness is a critical component of kids’ social-emotional development. Studies have shown that gratitude is a significant predictor of happiness even with the younger generation and increases their chances of being happy kids and adults.

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Tricks and Treats of Mindfulness

How mindful parenting can help develop a healthier parent-child relationship.

It can be very challenging to raise a young family. If you have found yourself losing your patience and overreacting when your child says or does something unacceptable, you are not alone. Fortunately, there are ways to modify your parenting style and create a loving, secure bond with your child. 

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All About Mindful Parenting

Why you should consider parenting mindfully.

If you have ever found yourself reacting more harshly than necessary when dealing with your child only to feel remorseful later on, you are not alone. Mindful parenting is a parenting strategy that focuses on stopping a negative interaction in its tracks before it occurs and reframing the interaction in a more balanced manner.

Mindful parenting helps us model healthier emotional reactions and shows our children a more positive and helpful way of managing their emotions, as well. 

Here are some tips you can use to incorporate mindful parenting into your parenting style.

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Goal-Setting for the School Year

How to help your kids achieve goals in the new school year with a sensory vision board.

Does your child have ADHD, autism, anger problems or other issues that get in the way of effective learning? If so, you’re not alone. Many parents struggle with helping their kids succeed academically.

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6 Mindfulness Exercises for Traveling with Kids

Family vacations can be magical, creating memories that last for a lifetime. Unfortunately, traveling with children can be challenging too. Your children may experience new places and new people while also trying novel things. Occasionally, this induces anxiety, which can complicate the adventure, especially if one or more of your children has ADHD, autism, or other mental health concerns.

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Never Underestimate the Influence of Kindness

Is the word kindness overused? The truth is that it is easy to dismiss kindness as a catchphrase in this busy world we live in. However, kindness can never be an overdone idea! The best way to ensure that kindness does not get evaporated down to a catchphrase with our kids is to show them how to live kindness.

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The Basics of Mindful Brain Fitness for Kids

Are you wondering how to help your child flex their mental-health muscles? The brain is the ultimate mindfulness muscle! Play is the default brain workout for children. Most children effortlessly fall into play that allows them to explore thoughts, express feelings, and process the world around them. However, some gentle guidance from parents can help them optimize their brainpower by using some simple elements of "brain fitness."

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