Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Kids: A Squeeze and Release Script to Read Aloud
Progressive muscle relaxation for kids turns Jacobson's tense-and-release method into pictures a child can act out: squeezing lemons, a turtle pulling into its shell, spaghetti going from stiff to floppy. Here is a script to read aloud, with age guidance and the cautions that matter.
Reviewed byMichael Callans, MSWBefore you start (for the adult)
- Pick a calm moment: before a bedtime story, after school, not mid-meltdown.
- Lie or sit beside your child and do every squeeze yourself. They copy your body, not your words.
- Hold each squeeze about five seconds, at a comfortable effort, firm but never painful and never maximal. Spend longer on the letting-go.
- Read slowly, in a low voice. The pauses (shown as ...) are part of the script.
- Skip any body part that hurts. Stop if your child says it feels odd or scary.
The script (read aloud, slowly)
- Settling in. "Lie down or sit back. Let your arms go heavy. Take one slow breath in through your nose ... and let it out through your mouth, like you are fogging up a window. Again. Good. If any part of this feels sore or strange, you can skip it, and we can stop any time you like."
- Lemons (hands and arms). "Imagine you are holding a whole lemon in each hand. Give them a good squeeze, firm but comfortable, to get some juice out. Feel your fists and your arms go a little tight. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze ... and drop the lemons. Let your hands go soft and floppy. Notice how warm and loose they feel." Repeat once.
- Cat stretch (arms and shoulders). "Now you are a lazy cat waking up from a nap. Stretch your arms up over your head, as far as feels comfortable, and reach toward the ceiling. Feel the stretch in your shoulders. Hold it ... and let your arms flop down. Cats love this. Do it once more."
- Turtle (shoulders and neck). "You are a turtle sitting in the sun. Something comes by, so pull your head into your shell: shoulders up to your ears, head tucked down. Hold it in there, nice and tight ... and the coast is clear. Slide out of your shell. Shoulders down, neck long. Feel how loose it is." Repeat once.
- Big yawn (face and jaw). "Open your mouth in a big comfortable yawn, and scrunch your eyes gently shut. Hold it ... and let your whole face go smooth and soft. Lips apart, jaw loose."
- Strong tummy (stomach). "Pretend a big soft beach ball is about to bounce on your tummy, so make your tummy firm and strong like a wall. Firm, firm ... and the ball has bounced away. Let your tummy go soft. Breathe all the way down into it."
- Warm sand (legs and feet). "You are standing on a warm sandy beach. Push your feet down into the sand a little way, toes spread, legs firm. Push, push ... and lift them out. Let your legs go loose and heavy." Repeat once.
- Spaghetti (whole body). "Now you are a piece of spaghetti before it is cooked: straight and stiff, every part of you, from your toes to your nose. Hold it ... and now you are cooked. Floppy, wobbly, soft all over. Let the floor hold you up."
- Finishing. "Let your whole body be loose and heavy. Take one more slow breath in ... and out. Notice how your body feels now, whatever that is. When you are ready, wiggle your fingers and toes, and open your eyes."
By age
Ages 3 to 4
Two or three scenes (lemons, turtle, spaghetti), under three minutes, lots of help and lots of laughing. Standing up is fine.
Ages 5 to 8
The full script, five to eight minutes. Let them choose the order or add a scene of their own.
Ages 9 to 12
Thin out the imagery toward plain 'tense, hold, let go'. Five to ten minutes. They can begin to run it alone at bedtime.
Cautions (for the adult)
- Never squeeze to the point of pain, and never hold longer than about five seconds; over-squeezing can cause a cramp.
- Skip any body part that is injured, recently operated on, or sore.
- Stop if your child says it feels strange, dizzy or frightening. Do not insist.
- Some children find deliberate tensing or lying still with eyes closed unsettling, especially after a frightening experience. Offer an eyes-open, moving version instead.
- Never use the script as a punishment or to force a child to be still.
- Fidgeting and giggling are normal, especially at first. They do not mean it is not working.
What to expect
The first few times are mostly about the game. With regular practice, some children start to notice the floppy feeling and ask for it, and some begin using a single scene on their own: a turtle at a desk, a lemon squeeze in the car. That is the goal, and there is no fixed timetable for it. Relaxation that a child can reach for without you is worth more than a perfect session with you. If tension, worry or sleep trouble persists despite regular practice, that is information for a pediatrician or child therapist, not a reason to practice harder.
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About this tool
Progressive muscle relaxation for kids is a version of a hundred-year-old technique, deliberately tensing one muscle group and then letting it go, rewritten as a set of pictures a child can act out. An adult reads the script aloud: squeeze a lemon in each fist, pull your head into your shell like a turtle, stand stiff like uncooked spaghetti and then go limp like cooked spaghetti, stretch like a cat. The child tenses, holds for a few seconds, and releases, and in the releasing learns what a relaxed muscle feels like. That contrast is the whole method. Most children (and most adults) carry tension without noticing it, and you cannot let go of something you cannot feel. The idea of giving each muscle group a picture comes from Arlene Koeppen's 1974 script for school counselors, which most children's versions descend from; the scenes and wording on this page are our own, written for an adult to read aloud.
The technique comes from Edmund Jacobson, a Chicago physician who published Progressive Relaxation in 1929 after observing that anxious patients could not simply be told to relax, but could learn to feel the difference between a tense muscle and a released one, group by group. His original method was long and demanding; Douglas Bernstein and Thomas Borkovec condensed it in 1973 into the sixteen-muscle-group version most therapists still use. The child-friendly imagery is usually traced to Arlene Koeppen, a school counselor who published a script in 1974 that replaced the instructions with scenes: lemons, turtles, cats, a fly landing on the nose, feet sinking into mud. Her idea was that a young child who is bored by a plain instruction to tense a muscle for five seconds may happily squeeze an imaginary lemon until every drop is out; imagery is one option for making the practice engaging, not a requirement.
Muscle tension and the stress response tend to travel together. When a child is anxious, angry or overtired, the body braces: jaw set, shoulders up, fists tight, breathing shallow. Releasing the muscles sends the opposite signal, and the slow exhale that naturally follows a release deepens it. There is also a learning effect. A child who has practiced the turtle twenty times at bedtime has a move available when the shoulders go up in the classroom, and can run it without an adult. The imagery does double duty: it makes the tensing playful, and it gives the child a word for the state ('I'm doing spaghetti') that is easier to reach for than 'I'm trying to relax'.
The adult evidence is solid for what it claims. Systematic reviews, including the 2008 meta-analysis by Gian Mauro Manzoni and colleagues, find that relaxation training, with progressive muscle relaxation the most studied form, reduces anxiety with medium effects, larger with practice and in programs lasting more than a few sessions. The child evidence is thinner and the studies smaller. Progressive relaxation is a standard component of child anxiety programs and of pediatric pain and sleep interventions, and children learn it readily, but a short script on its own has not been shown to treat anything. It is best thought of as a calming skill that a child can own, in the same family as slow breathing, and not as a treatment for a child who is seriously struggling.
Ages and timing matter. From about three, children can do a few squeezes with a lot of help and a lot of laughing; keep it to two or three scenes and under three minutes. From five or six, most children can follow the full script below in five to eight minutes. From about nine, the imagery can thin out and a plainer 'tense your hands, now let go' version works, which is also what they will use later as teenagers and adults. Bedtime is the natural slot, because the script ends with the body heavy and still; before an exam, after a hard school day, and in the car before something nerve-wracking are the other common uses. Classrooms use it after recess as a reset.
A few cautions are important, and they belong in the adult's hands. Squeezes should be firm, never painful, and never held longer than about five seconds; a child who over-squeezes can cramp. Skip any part of the body that is injured, recently operated on, or hurts. Stop if the child says it feels strange, dizzy or frightening, and do not insist; some children, particularly those who have been through something frightening, find deliberate tensing or lying still with their eyes closed unsettling, and for them a moving, eyes-open version is kinder. Never use the script as a punishment or a way to enforce stillness. And expect fidgeting, especially early; it is not a sign the exercise has failed.
The common mistakes are reading too fast, skipping the release, and narrating from a distance. The release is the point, so spend at least twice as long on the letting-go as on the squeeze, and describe it: heavy, warm, loose. Do the squeezes yourself, visibly, because your child copies your body more than your words. Keep your voice low and slower than feels natural. Resist the urge to ask 'are you relaxed yet?', which hands the child a test to fail. If attention drifts, name it lightly and move to the next scene. Four imperfect minutes done most nights beat a perfect session done once.
If your child's tension is part of something bigger, such as persistent worry, frequent stomachaches or headaches without a medical cause, sleep problems that last for weeks, or anger that is frightening to them or to you, a pediatrician or a child therapist can help find the cause and build a plan in which relaxation is one tool among several. Psychology.com's therapist directory lets you search for child and family therapists at no cost. The adult Progressive Muscle Relaxation tool on this site has the full sixteen-group version for you, and the Emotional Regulation Activities for Kids page covers the companion skills.
References
- Jacobson E. Progressive Relaxation. University of Chicago Press; 1929.
- Bernstein DA, Borkovec TD. Progressive Relaxation Training: A Manual for the Helping Professions. Research Press; 1973.
- Koeppen AS. Relaxation training for children. Elementary School Guidance & Counseling. 1974;9(1):14-21.
- Manzoni GM, Pagnini F, Castelnuovo G, Molinari E. Relaxation training for anxiety: a ten-years systematic review with meta-analysis. BMC Psychiatry. 2008;8:41.
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, October 19). Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Kids. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tools/progressive-muscle-relaxation-for-kids
Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Kids FAQ
What age can children start progressive muscle relaxation?
From about three, with an adult doing it alongside and only two or three scenes: lemons, turtle, spaghetti. At that age it is a movement game that happens to teach the tense-and-release contrast. From five or six most children can follow the full script, and from about nine the imagery can give way to plainer instructions. The deciding factor is not age but whether the child can copy you, hold a squeeze for a few seconds, and let it go on cue.
How long should the script take?
Five to eight minutes for the full script at a slow pace, with pauses. Under three minutes for the youngest children, using only a few scenes. Read more slowly than feels natural and spend at least twice as long on each release as on the squeeze, because the release is where the learning happens. If attention runs out, finish with the spaghetti scene and the closing breath rather than pushing through every muscle group. Short and regular beats long and occasional.
What if my child will not lie still or keeps laughing?
Let them. Laughing during the lemons or the spaghetti is normal and does not undo the exercise; the tensing and releasing still happen. Standing or sitting works as well as lying down, and a child who cannot be still can do the whole script on their feet. Keep your own voice slow and your own body doing the squeezes, and the child usually drifts into the rhythm by the third or fourth scene. If they are too wound up to join at all, this is not the moment; try again at a calmer time.
Does progressive muscle relaxation help kids with anxiety?
It can help a child notice and release the bodily side of anxiety, and it is a standard component of children's anxiety programs, pediatric pain management and sleep interventions. The adult evidence shows medium reductions in anxiety with regular practice; the child studies are smaller and less conclusive. On its own, a script is a calming skill rather than a treatment. If a child's anxiety is persistent or interfering with school, sleep or friendships, use the script as one tool within a plan made with a pediatrician or child therapist.
Can I use this at bedtime?
Bedtime is the best slot for most families. The script ends with the body heavy and still, which flows naturally into a story or lights out, and the fixed routine makes practice automatic. Read it after teeth and pajamas, in a dim room, with your child already lying down. Over a few weeks many children begin to ask for a favorite scene, and some start running it themselves when they wake at night, which is exactly the skill you are hoping to hand them.
Are there children who should not do it?
A child with an injury, a recent operation or a muscle or joint condition should skip the affected body parts, and it is worth asking their doctor first. Children who have been through something frightening sometimes find deliberate tensing, closed eyes or lying still unsettling; offer a moving, eyes-open version and never insist. Stop if a child reports dizziness, strange sensations or fear. The script is never a punishment or a tool to enforce stillness, and a child who refuses should be allowed to.