When I was having trouble getting three of my children to go to bed and sleep I thought I would introduce them to the experience of meditation. This is my story of that experience:-

The children had been in their bedroom for more than a 1/2 hour and still hadn't settled down to sleep. The three of them share the same room so often if one of them cannot sleep they often decided the other two should not be able to sleep either but tonight all of them were very excited and noisey and my previous attempts at settling them down had all failed. I stomped back up the stairs and decided I would have to try something different to make this my last trip to their room tonight. 

Having heard me stomp up the stairs they had already rushed to get back into their own beds so at least I didn't have to worry about that but what could I do to calm them down? Knowing that they like to try to copy the things that I do and seeing that they knew that I had recently begun meditating I decided perhaps they could give that a go whilst I thought of something else to try. I asked them if they wanted to give meditation a go and I received three excited squeels of approval. I put on the softest most mysterious voice that I could manage and asked each of them to sit up straight and close their eyes so that we could begin. The reaction was pleasantly surprising as each of them complied with my request. Talking slowly I told them to close their mouths and breath through their noses. If they concentrated on their breath I said they should be able to hear the air going in... and out... as they breathed in.... and out.... I asked them to breathe with me.....

Breathe in........ and out.... in...... and out.....

The silence didn't last long before I heard a little voice

Daughter 1: "Dad!"

Me: "Yes"

Daughter 1: "This is boring and I'm tired. Can we go to sleep now?"

Daughter 2: "Yes. Me too!"

Daughter 3: "and me!"

Me: "But we haven't finished yet. Breathe in..... breathe out....."

Daughter 1: "Dad. I'm really tired"

Me: "OK, if you are all sure. Go to sleep then"

And you know what they all did go to sleep and I didn't hear a thing from them after that. Wow! This meditation is really powerful stuff ;)