Teaching Children to Connect with Their Animal Guides
I would approach animal guides quite differently with a child than I would with an adult.
And perhaps this difference is actually the most interesting part.
When we introduce children to the idea of animal guides, it can be tempting to explain what the different animals represent, how to find them, or what their particular qualities are. But I am increasingly convinced that this may not be the best place to begin.
Some children seem to have a very natural relationship with imagination, intuition, symbolism, and inner experience. They may already be familiar with the idea of animal guides, or simply accept the possibility that an animal might have something to tell them, without needing a great deal of explanation.
In these cases, perhaps we don't need to teach them very much at all.
It may be enough to take their experience seriously, to remain curious, and to give them opportunities to explore it. Children will often differentiate and ask what they need to know, just as they do when they are learning about any other subject that genuinely interests them.
This changes the role of the adult.
Rather than telling a child what their animal guide means, we can create a doorway into the experience and then allow the child to discover what is on the other side.
The child becomes the person who discovers the meaning. The adult accompanies rather than interprets.
And this raises a larger question for me: do we sometimes approach children as though we need to teach them capacities that they already possess in some form?
Perhaps our task is not to put something into the child, but to help them recognise, trust, and develop something that is already there.
Teaching Children to Connect with Their Animal Guides
I would approach the animal guides quite differently with a child than I would with an adult.
And perhaps this difference is actually the most interesting part: Children and adults enter inner experience differently.
As adults, particularly as highly analytical adults, we often need a conceptual framework before we can comfortably enter an experiential one.
It can help to know that an animal represents courage, patience, protection, playfulness, adaptability or wisdom. The concept gives us something to hold onto. It provides a bridge between our cognitive understanding and our actual experience.
With children, I would be much more cautious about beginning there.
If I tell a child: “Your animal represents courage.”
I may unintentionally tell the child what they are supposed to discover.
Instead, I would ask: “How does your animal help you?”
Or: “What do you notice about your animal?”
“What does your animal know?”
“What would your animal say to you if you were having a difficult day?”
The child becomes the person who discovers the meaning. The adult accompanies rather than interprets.
Animal guides as a language of strengths
This does not mean that the qualities associated with animals are unimportant. Quite the opposite.
Animal guides can be understood as representations of our strengths, qualities and potential. In that sense, they are somewhat like a personality inventory — except that they are symbolic, imaginative and relational rather than something that categorizes us.
They can help a child discover:
- What am I naturally good at?
- What qualities do I have?
- What kind of energy do I bring into the world?
- What helps me when things are difficult?
- What might I need to develop?
The difference is that the animal does not have to become a label.
It is not: “I am a wolf, therefore I am this kind of person.”
It can instead become: “There is something about the wolf that shows me something about myself.”
This leaves room for curiosity and development.
The deeper purpose is not knowing what an animal represents
For me, this is perhaps the most important point: The essential ability is not knowing that one animal represents courage and another represents patience. The deeper ability is learning that we can access a source of strength and guidance within ourselves.
Shamanic traditions have developed practices for entering altered states of consciousness and seeking guidance or healing. Meditation traditions, including approaches such as José Silva’s intuitive healing, have also explored the possibility of accessing different states of consciousness through relaxation, attention, imagery and intention.
The language and explanations differ enormously between traditions. But there is an interesting common thread: human beings can learn to move beyond their ordinary, everyday mode of consciousness and access different kinds of experience.
Psychologically, we might describe some of this as accessing resources, imagination, embodied knowing or different aspects of the self.
Spiritually, someone might describe it as connecting with a guide or a higher source of power.
We do not necessarily have to resolve that difference in order to recognize that the experience can be meaningful.
Learning to ask for help
One of the most valuable things a child can learn is: “When I am struggling, I can look for help.”
That help might come from another person. It might come from nature. It might come from prayer or spirituality. It might come from an imagined animal guide. And it might come from reconnecting with a part of themselves that they had temporarily lost contact with.
What matters is the development of a relationship with a source of strength.
A child might learn:
“I can stop.”
“I can listen.”
“I can ask.”
“I can notice what I need.”
“I have resources.”
“I don’t have to face everything only with my analytical thinking.”
In psychological language, we might understand this as resource activation. In a spiritual framework, it might be experienced as connecting with a higher power or source of guidance.
These descriptions don’t necessarily have to compete with each other.
Stillness isn’t the only way in
There is another important reason I would not simply teach children to sit quietly and meditate.
We often associate inner awareness with stillness. Adults are told to close their eyes, breathe slowly, sit quietly and meditate. And this can be wonderful. But many traditional practices for entering altered states of consciousness have involved movement and rhythm just as much as stillness.
Drumming. Singing. Dancing. Repetitive rhythm. Communal music. Movement. And imitating animals.
This may be particularly valuable for children who are naturally very active.
A child who finds it difficult to sit still may actually find their way into an inward, receptive state through movement.
Rather than asking: “Can you sit quietly and imagine your animal?”
we might ask: “How does your animal move?”
“Can you move like your animal?”
“How does it walk?”
“How does it breathe?”
“What does it feel like to be this animal?”
The child may discover something through the body that they could never have discovered by thinking about it. The movement itself becomes the doorway.
From movement into connection
This can be very simple: Put on music. Or use a drum. Let the child move. Perhaps invite them to imitate their animal. Then allow the movement to become quieter.
What does the animal do when it rests? Where does it go? What does it notice? Does it want to show the child something?
There is no need to force an answer.
The child might see an image. They might feel something in their body. They might hear words. They might simply have a sense of knowing.
Or nothing may happen at all. That is fine too.
The point is not to manufacture a spiritual experience. The point is to develop the capacity to listen.
Why practice matters as children grow
There is another reason I think it can be valuable to introduce these practices early.
Children often have a remarkably fluid relationship with imagination, play, intuition and inner experience. As they grow, they increasingly develop analytical and abstract thinking and become more oriented toward external expectations, achievement and social reality.
Those developments are important. We don’t want to prevent them.
But sometimes, in becoming increasingly skilled at thinking about ourselves and the world, we lose contact with other forms of knowing. This is why regular practices can be valuable. Not because children need to escape ordinary consciousness, but because they can learn that consciousness has different modes.
They can learn how to slow down. How to focus. How to become absorbed. How to listen inwardly. How to use rhythm and movement. How to imagine. How to connect with an inner resource.
And perhaps, as they grow older, they will be able to return to these states intentionally rather than having to rediscover them as adults.
There is some evidence that musical abilities and other forms of learning can be particularly influenced by early experience and training. I would not claim that the ability to enter altered states develops in exactly the same way as musical abilities such as perfect pitch. But the analogy is useful as a way of thinking about practice: capacities that are exercised and familiar can become easier to access.
The animal guide as a lifelong resource
Perhaps this is ultimately what I would want a child to take from the practice.
Not: “My animal is a wolf, and wolves mean courage.”
But: “I know how to connect with my wolf.”
And not even necessarily: “My wolf will always tell me what to do.”
Rather: “I know how to stop, listen, ask, imagine and connect with something that gives me strength.”
The animal becomes a companion in developing self-awareness.
A symbolic representation of strengths. A source of imagination. A way of understanding oneself. And potentially, a resource that can be returned to when life becomes difficult.
Let the child discover the relationship
Give the child the opportunity to discover their animal guides themselves. Tell the child about the traditional qualities if they are interested in them. Share your own experience. Give them music, drumming, movement, meditation, nature and opportunities for reflection.
But remain curious. Ask: “What does your animal mean to you?”
“How does it help you?”
“What do you notice when you connect with it?”
“What does it want you to know?”
And most importantly:
“What did you discover?”
Because perhaps the greatest gift of working with animal guides is not the particular animal a child finds. It is discovering, early in life, that there is an inner world worth listening to.