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AMOS organisation Sixtine Blandin Floris Groeneweg Mariska Lamiaud Lena Winterink Anthony Wu
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AMOS is a project which aims to integrate a moment of silence in the daily life of your child. Nowadays, children are considerably exposed to media stimulation which can cause attention problems or sleeplessness. Therefore it is important to give to your child quiet moments, time to reflect on himself and interaction with you, in order to prevent later age behavior problems. This booklet will explain you how to integrate a moment of silence with your child(ren) every day. This will help your child to focus on his daily activities and wishes, on what he wants to improve and do, on what he wants to learn and change or just give him a clear moment to say what is on his mind. It is a good opportunity to give him, as a parent, full attention. The concept is to create a daily ritual in which your child learns how to focus on what he does and how he feels.
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morning session
1mn of silence
1mn of silence goal of the day drawing the goal
drawing the goal
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1mn of sil
drawing t
The first moment of silence will take place in the morning. It is a reunion between all members of the family where they come together on the cushion-carpet. First you all will have one minute of silence, without speaking to each other, only feeling each other’s presence. The timer is there to time the minute, but you can always choose to have a longer moment of silence.
After this minute of silence, comes the time to talk with each other about the day that will start after the ritual. You will ask the children what their goal is for that day. Whether they have a certain activity they are really excited about or something they really want to learn or achieve. For example, to finish a school project or play with friends. It could be anything as long as they reflect on it.
In the note book, that is included in the package, there is space to write down the goal, by yourself, or by your child or/and to make a drawing that fits the goal. It also is important that you, as a parent, tell your kid what you are going to do this day. Make sure you give him space to ask questions and let him realize what you are talking about. When the session is over, the day will start as usual.
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The evening session takes place before the child goes to bed. It starts, as the morning session, with one minute of silence, or longer if you feel like. Then, you can discuss the goals you set up in the morning. Talking about the day in general is also a nice way to get connected: what did your child experienced today? Did he think about his goal during the day or did it just happen and without him being conscious from it? It is important that he reflects on his day and goal and therefore focus on his activities. You can point out what has been written or drawn in the notebook, and ask what he thought of when he wrote or drew and how he thinks about it now the day is over. When the goal is achieved or you came up with an alternative it is important to give your child a reward. As the reward is linked to the goal and the notebook, there is a space in the right bottom corner of every page of the notebook to put a sticker or make any other sign or drawing which shows your child that you are proud of him. After the session it is important that the child goes to bed without use of technological devices. It is of course possible to read him a story, but he should not get any more stimulations so his brain can rest before sleeping.
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Note: If you notice that your child starts sitting on the cushion-carpet by himself make sure that he is doing something that is related to the cushion-carpet, which means that he takes a moment of silence or continue drawing in his own notebook. Maybe it is also a good opportunity to sit with him, to talk or just to be together with a focus on each other and on nothing else.
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a mo
evening session
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a mo
give a reward give a reward
tips
a moment for themselves
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