Category Archives: AJ for Kids

awakening joy for kids

Michele Lilyanna on Awakening Joy for Kids – One Heart

Guest writer Michele Lilyanna has a new lesson in our Awakening Joy for Kids series. One Heart - Building Compassion and Empathy (Awakening Joy Step 9, Compassion) "This lesson helps us talk to the children about what can break our hearts and cause separation from our friends and family." "When I was a child in school in the 70s, I don’t ever remember being taught strategies for building compassion and empathy. I was told to be nice, and that was only if I was caught by the teacher doing something “bad.” However, for every child, “being nice” has a very different meaning and the act of “being nice” most often is a way a child stays out of trouble, which does not necessarily …

Introducing Awakening Joy for Kids

I'm happy to introduce a new feature - Awakening Joy for Kids! Michele Lilyanna, http://www.happinessandjoylessons.com, with 25 years of K-12 classroom teaching has brilliantly adapted the Awakening Joy lessons for children everywhere. I recently spoke with Michele by phone about the project, her approach in using the material and the kinds of transformations she's observed in her students. Michele will be a guest contributor for Awakening Joy and we’ll be collecting her lessons HERE. For those of you with children or working with kids, I hope you find the lessons rewarding to share with them and the material helps nourish seeds of joy that keep bearing fruit over the years.  Thank you, Michele! -- James   A partial transcript of our conversation: JB: I want to say how happy I am that you’re …