How to Start Yoga With Your Kids
Children love yoga. And adults love it when kids do yoga because it focuses their mind and body, limiting collateral damage to home and siblings. But what if you don’t do yoga or don’t know how to make it fun for your kids?
Why is it good
Yoga 4 Classrooms , which offers a research-based yoga curriculum for schools, has a long list of how yoga benefits a child’s mind and body, improving, among other things:
- Neuromuscular development
- Power
- Flexibility
- Coordination
- Immunity
- Sleep
- Concentration
- Creativity
- Confidence
- Social interaction
- Self-control
And this is an extremely short list of benefits. (If you’re a fan of the research behind these claims, check out this one .)
“Children are born yogis, they experience everything physically,” says Mariam Gates, author of several books on yoga and mindfulness for children . “They are the definition of“ fat, ”and therefore for them stretching out their arms and exhaling deeply has an immediate effect on their well-being. It’s never too early to focus on how mind and body are connected. “
So kids will start doing yoga right away – in fact, they are probably already doing it. How can you help? Here are some simple tips.
Start small and make it a chore
No one starts out with focus and stamina to complete a 60 minute practice. Try starting at 5 minutes (maybe 10 if no one is whining).
“Even a few minutes of breathing and movement can go a long way towards moving from being agitated, tense, or anxious to being spacious and calm,” says Gates.
Lifehacker Health editor Beth Skoreki advises aspiring yogis to schedule a time and place . Perhaps yoga will be part of your relaxation before bed. Or maybe it will make the transition from school to lunch easier. It could be a Saturday morning activity for the whole family to go outside and greet the sun.
Keep it fun
Give up the idea that yoga is serious or requires precision. You will immediately recognize your kids’ favorite positions – they are the ones that make them giggle, they try them again and again, even when you are gone.
You can also personalize your practice by mixing it with what your child already enjoys. TheCosmic Kids Yoga channel has yoga videos that cover every child’s interest you can imagine. Frozen, Harry Potter, pirates, space travel, insects – whatever, there is a video about children’s yoga for this.
Yoga with Adrienne is also a good source for children’s videos without any caricature if that’s not your style. Austin-based yoga teacher Adrien Mishler’s channel offers a ton of yoga videos to suit every mood and situation.
Let the professionals teach
You don’t need to know how to teach your kids yoga when there are videos and books that contain all the child-level instruction. Your library or bookstore will have many yoga books just for kids. The best one is the one that will make you and the kids try it. Gates’ Yoga Bedtime Story : Staged Bedtime Story is one of my favorites for its cute and soothing illustrations, simple posture descriptions, and bonus scenarios for guided meditation.
Another family favorite is I Am Yoga by Susan Verde and Peter H. Reynolds. A simple handbook introduces the concepts of mindfulness along with a short sequence of yoga sessions.
For older kids and parents with an easy yoga experience, check out Yoga for Kids and Their Adults by Katherine Gunnam. It looks more like an instruction manual for adults than a picture book for the little ones. It includes tips for practicing yoga with children of different ages and choosing a practice to achieve different goals, such as calming, energizing, or grounding.
Still a little nervous about yoga? Gates says you know more than you think.
“Even taking a deep breath and a long breath right now can change the way you feel as you read,” she says. “And if you add a little stretch or twist to each side to relieve tension, that will make a difference, too. You know this because it is a part of the human body and these slight shifts are the result of the benefits of yoga. So having a physical body already qualifies you. “