Yoga helps one develop better body awareness, self-control, flexibility and coordination. After a long day of school, there is nothing better that just taking a deep breath to relax. Teaching youngsters yoga will allow them to learn at an early age how to avoid or manage stress.
Lisa Orkin, a Yoga instructor, teaches her children yoga. After a long day of school, if they have had a bad day, they will do breathing exercises, such as the three-part breath. Yoga has been proven to help hyperactive and attention-deficit children. It channels their impulses in a positive way. Warrior pose and tree pose help teach calmness and balance.
Yoga for kids also teaches valuable lessons. When it shows them partner poses, it helps develop trust. It allows kids to work together, develop teamwork, and create bonding. It teaches imagination, since yoga involves visualization and kids have such a strong sense of imagination. Yoga helps channel this imagination into positive thoughts. At the end of the lesson it is good to ask the children what they experienced so they can express their ideas and feelings.
Teaching kids poses allows them to explore their imagination while gaining balance, mind control and flexibility. For example, during the butterfly pose they sit down and straddle their legs in the air while holding their feet. In one yoga class, everyone does the tree pose. Here, balance and imagination are equally important. Children are asked to imagine themselves as an actual tree; any tree they choose, whether it be a big pine tree, an apple tree, or even a lollipop tree.
Parents are encouraged to attend most children’s yoga classes. Doing yoga with your children can build relationships, and parents will enjoy seeing their kids develop and grow during the class. Yoga for Children is a book that shows you how to teach children yoga.
Yoga encourages kids to use their bodies, minds and senses.
"Many of the benefits kids get from learning yoga are the same as they are for adults — increased flexibility, strength, and calmness," says New Yorker Marsha Wenig who has been practicing yoga for close to twenty years. "My aim in YogaKids is to build self-confidence. I want the kids to feel like 'Yes, I can do that pose!' I want these classes to foster a feeling of self-empowerment."
Yoga for kids can be a very fun experience for them. "We don't just show the cobra like we do in adult classes. We are the cobra.” The extent of imagination used in these classes is amazing. You can’t teach kids yoga the same way you teach adults; you have to make it more fun for them. It takes their natural energy and enthusiasm to explore their thoughts, body awareness, and health.
Dance classes and soccer practice don’t teach some of the valuable lessons that can be taught through yoga for kids. Through building strength, confidence, endurance, and relationships, yoga can be a very valuable relaxation technique taught to youngsters.
By Jessica Maughan