Children derive enormous benefits from yoga. Physically, it enhances
their flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness. In addition,
their concentration and sense of calmness and relaxation improves. Doing yoga,
children exercise, play, connect more deeply with the inner self, and develop
an intimate relationship with the natural world that surrounds them. Yoga
brings that marvelous inner light that all children have to the surface.
Yoga with children offers many possibilities to exchange wisdom, share good
times, and lay the foundation for a lifelong practice that will continue to deepen.
All that’s needed is a little flexibility on the adult’s part because, as I
quickly found out when I first started teaching the practice to preschoolers,
yoga for children is quite different than yoga for adults.
The greatest challenge with children is to hold their attention long enough
to teach them the benefits of yoga: stillness, balance, flexibility, focus,
peace, grace, connection, health, and well-being. Luckily, most children love
to talk, and they love to move—both of which can happen in yoga. Children will
jump at the chance to assume the role of animals, trees, flowers, warriors. Your
role is to step back and allow them to bark in the dog pose, hiss in the cobra,
and meow in cat stretch. They can also recite the ABCs or 123s as they are
holding poses. Sound is a great release for children and adds an auditory
dimension to the physical experience of yoga.
Yoga is a low-cost, helpful tool that can have a positive impact on
children.
Here are some of the many benefits of teaching yoga to kids:
Yoga helps
kids to:
- Develop body awareness
- Learn how to use their bodies in a healthy way
- Manage stress through breathing, awareness, meditation and healthy movement
- Build concentration
- Increase their confidence and positive self-image
- Feel part of a healthy, non-competitive group
- Have an alternative to tuning out through constant attachment to electronic devices
Here's what your kids can
expect to learn in yoga class:
·
1. Awareness of the breath
Breathing exercises can
energize kids or encourage relaxation, depending on what you teach. Different
games and techniques help kids connect to how their bodies feel as a result of
deep breathing. Focus increases, as does their breathing and lung capacity.
Stress is naturally reduced and healthy hormones are released.
·
2. Strengthening and
energizing
Kids think that yoga is great
for stretching, but doesn't build strength. It's important for a teacher to
include conversations, as well as exercises around how helpful yoga is for
building strength. Talking about the different muscles used in poses and
incorporating games and sequences will help build strength as well as body
awareness and coordination. Bodies that are strong digest food better, maintain
a healthy weight and can support the stress of carrying heavy loads, like a
backpack. Bodies will also breathe better, work more efficiently and protect
the more fragile joints.
·
3. Balancing
Balancing poses teach children
that with increased focus, you can increase attention naturally, even in kids
who struggle with different attention challenges. Poses and games focused on
balancing skills, develop an intrinsic strength, evoke a meditative feeling,
and promote stillness and quieting of the mind. This can help kids deal with
the stress of living in a chaotic world where constant stimulation is a regular
part of life.
·
4. Stretching and lengthening
It's great for kids to be
strong, but a body that's only based on strength has no way to yield under
pressure. Strong muscles without accompanying flexibility can't move quickly,
pulling on bones and joints. Yoga poses stretch muscles and through integrating
breathing and movement, muscles become warm and become more flexible. They can
yield when they need to, and support tender joints in a more functional way.
·
5. Awareness and focus
Yoga helps create awareness in
the body through deep breathing and movement. It gives kids a way to express
themselves, build a strong connection between what they hear and what they do.
Children that have healthy body awareness are more confident and strong, have
better posture, breathe better and have a sense of quiet strength.
·
6. Flowing, connecting and integrating
When we string poses together,
we give kids a taste of what it means to move with ease. It also helps them
build the awareness that all our movements are a series of coordinated efforts
between muscles, bones, joints and nerves. Older kids are more able to isolate
different muscle groups and get more sophisticated about movements; things like
keeping the arms lifted in Warrior 1, while at the same time, dropping the
shoulders to relax them. All these things together increase a child's sense
feeling integrated.
·
7. Meditation and relaxation
Yoga is meditative by nature.
So whether a child is holding a balancing posture, sitting in meditation or
moving through a series of poses, there's going to be a calming, soothing
quality. Giving younger kids something to do as they rest on their mats will
help with their attention, such as suggesting they think of a favorite color or
toy. Older kids will find it easier to rest longer with less structure.
