Kids n Yoga

 

As yoga’s popularity grows, more and more avenues of this ancient practice are being explored. Yoga for kids, quite a modern concept, grew out of parents thinking their children could enjoy some of the same benefits of yoga that adult do, such as improved body awareness, coordination, and stress relief.

Traditional yoga practice is definitely a grown-up activity, but yoga is flexible enough to accommodate young students as well when the teaching is approached in the right way.

Although children are naturally flexible, they probably will not do the poses “correctly” in the adult sense of the word, so it’s important to keep things simple. More than learning the poses, the yoga experience will encourage kids to explore the unfamiliar with open minds and be comfortable in their bodies.

For kids who are not good at (or don’t enjoy) conventional sports, yoga may provide a much-needed physical outlet in a noncompetitive environment. As they reach the teenage years, yoga can help young adults deal with their changing bodies and give them ways to combat stress in academic and social situations.

Yoga Classes for Kids

Your child’s first exposure can come as early as infancy, if you bring them to a mom and baby yoga class. While this may not make much of an impression on a young child, by the age of three they will probably be ready to do simple poses.

Many yoga studios now offer age-appropriate classes for toddlers and school-aged kids, which may include singing, movement, and lots of talking. Kids have a lot of questions, after all, so the mood will be much lighter than an adult class.

Make sure that your child’s teacher is certified to teach yoga to kids (when in doubt, ask the studio or the teacher herself). If you are considering a drop-off class (one in which parents do not participate), ask to sit in and observe before your child begins or during his first class.

Yoga at Home for Kids

If you want to do some yoga at home with your kids, here are some ideas:

1. Put out mats for yourself and your child(ren).
2. Let the kids choose some music, but make it parent’s choice during final relaxation.
3. Introduce simple poses your kids will feel a connection to, such as those that relate to the natural world or represent shapes.
4. Basic breath work, such as three-part breath can also be introduced to older children. Just learning to take deep breaths and clear the mind can be helpful to kids.

Poses for Kids:

• Cat- cow stretch – Encourage them to meow and moo
• Downward facing dog – Can also be described as making a triangle or a mountain
• Cobra – With hissing and slithering, of course
• Tree – Rooting into the earth, swaying in the breeze
• Butterfly (aka cobbler’s pose) – Fluttering their wings
• Corpse pose – Lying still can be the most challenging!

Recommended Poses For Kids

Yoga indeed has become a popular, mainstream alternative for exercise and fitness.

In Los Angeles, hardly a day goes by without seeing people walking by with their Yoga Mats rolled up underneath their arms coming from or going to their Yoga class.

Most stay-home moms have picked up Yoga as their method of keeping fit and maintaining physical, mental and emotional balance and wonder how their children might be able to benefit form using Yoga for kids.

This article will be helpful in choosing the yoga poses that could be incorporated into your child’s recreational endeavors.

Yoga for Kids: Recommended Poses.

1. Sun Salutations: These are a group of poses that serve as a warm up to a yoga session or class. For staying fit, keeping obesity at bay and fun (especially when performed at a high speed), the Sun Salutations will be an immense source of enjoyment for kids getting introduced to Yoga. Do you know in India, they actually hold contests of how many rounds of Sun Salutations kids can do in one go? Yeah, they are that much fun.

2. The Shoulder Stand: Trust me, behind your back, kids already try this pose. You probably did as a kid without knowing you were actually doing Yoga. So in your use of yoga for kids, make sure the inclusion of this pose is of priority. Executed with the bridge pose and fish-poses as counter poses, for kids doing yoga, the shoulder-stand will reap many benefits.

3. The Forward Bend Pose: This teaches your kids self-dependence and aids immensely at curbing digestive disturbances as an added bonus. I’ll have you know, some authorities of Yoga have said that these three poses mentioned thus far are enough for humans-although this may be slightly erroneous or incomplete as the execution of their counter-poses for a specified amount of time is also of great importance as well.

4. The Wheel Pose: Okay, I was walking through the park the other day and saw a kid who couldn’t have been more than 8 years of age executing this pose for literally 90 seconds. Yes, I counted this out of amazement and intrigue. It’s been hailed as the “forever young pose”, consequently when using yoga for kids; this has got to be included. Co-incidentally it is the counter-pose to the third pose above.

5.The Relaxation Pose: Of course this is a must-do for everyone. When introducing your kids to yoga, this will be a good time to show them how to relax with its use as a secret for relief from school stress and the little challenges they may face in their young lives. Yes, they do have some demands placed on them parents. Moreover showing this to them now will go a long way with laying the foundation on how to deal with the daily demands of life.

Other great poses to consider are the Bow, Triangle, Spinal-Twist, Inclined and Diamond Poses. Kids should also be shown proper breathing exercises with emphasis on Abdominal Breathing.

Other factors to be included when using yoga for kids are the use of a proper, nourishing diet of Fresh Fruits and vegetables-(emphasis on leafy ones) and positive thinking techniques.

On the subject of diets, you can add some celery juice to their fresh fruit juices if you have one of those popular juicers such as the juiceman. This is one way of sneaking in a good source of powerful minerals into their bodies, tastefully.

Yoga for kids is best begun around the age of seven, however, kids-being-kids, they of course will emulate what they see you doing, so as long as you know they are not in harm’s way, it’s okay to let them dabble a bit into Yoga.

Indeed using Yoga is both fun for kids and beneficial for as the book of Prov. 22. 6 states, it is one effective method of “Training your child in the way he should go…” as the discipline and confidence that comes from Yoga (and Martial Arts too-just a hint) may only be attainable from this ancient form of physical culture.

So Moms and Dads, go on and get your kids started on yoga. You’ll be glad you did.

Yoga For Kids

Children are exposed to a lot of stress factors nowadays.

There is homework that they do daily…
the competition with other children…
TV and computer games…
and even over-scheduling.

And just like adults these kids need something relaxing to turn into and that could be: Yoga.

Yoga for kids helps then develop better body awareness, it also delivers to them a total self control, flexibility and coordination.

All of these they could carry not just on their class but this exercises can help them with their daily routines.

Yoga for kids has shown to help children who are hyper active to tone down and to brighten up those attention deficit ones. Children today crave movement and sensory motor stimuli that can help then balance out their inner souls flow.

Yoga for kids helps them channel out this impulses in a positive way.

The main Yoga for kids poses that seem to work perfectly with kids are the warrior pose and the tree pose. These two yoga for kids poses helps instill in them calm, confidence and balance.

The trick to get them to do Yoga for kids is to go beyond just doing the proper poses, you should have to get them think about what the real posture means.

Let them think that they are really what the poses are symbolizing, let them be the postures – strong and confident like a warrior.

Yoga for kids with partners is also a good way to build up trust with you children. It develops their team skills and fosters a closer bonding.

Some kids when it comes to relaxation have a big trouble closing their eyes and having them focus on their exercises. One thing that encourages a child to relax is visualization. Let them think of something that they really like and let them imagine being like these things.

You may also have them focus out on belly breathing first and have them listen to soothing and relaxing music.

Then ask them to imagine their favorite spot in the house or let them think that they are in outer space floating, or let them visualize that they are at the beach, playing their favorite sport or doing the best activity that they like.

Sometimes for boys letting them think of a favorite girlfriend helps them relax, but this is sometimes hard to do because they become shy and intolerable when this kind of issues are discussed. Just stick to the visualization thing if this technique is quite complicated for you.

Every day at the end of each relaxation exercises, encourage the children to share their own experiences. Ask them to tell to the group what it was like to be in their visualized surroundings. Ask them also to share what place have they imagined they where in.

Another approach is to create a guided imagination by telling them a story with a calming theme of some sort.

As you know children have the most active imagination, they imagine all sorts of things. And at this point of imagination it makes them feel calm. So when doing yoga for kids let them think that they are walking on a green pasture.

You can even let them think that they are butterflies in a beautiful garden. The main idea in here is to instill a sense of peace and feeling of oneness with nature.

Yoga for kids should be taught more often and in different places. It is important to teach children the meaning of union of mind, body and spirit.

There is such a wealth of knowledge we can offer our children with the practice of Yoga.