Children often find themselves living in a hectic world filled with school work and after-school activities that drain them. Yoga is a form of practice that allows children to escape from their everyday routine and offers them the chance to improve their health and well- being in a playful, non-competitive environment.
At an early age, Yoga helps children build awareness, strength, and flexibility in both mind and body. Through using these skills, children are better able to battle stress, enhance their concentration and build confidence! Skills learned through Yoga slowly become hardwired and will thus be of great use when children reach adolescence and adulthood.
What are some of the benefits of Kids Yoga in general?
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- Enhances concentration – In this hectic world that we live in, children seem unable to focus on anything for a decent length of time. Yoga can enhance concertation through teaching kids to be present by focusing on their breathing.
- Builds flexibility and balance – Yoga improves flexibility and balance, and in turn makes kids stronger and less likely to suffer injuries from accidental falls.
- Calms the mind and helps battle stress – The hectic lives that kids lead nowadays with school pressure and extracurricular activities can sometimes impose a lot of stress on them. Practicing Yoga can help them navigate those pressures with more ease, as it enhances the release of happy endorphins.
- Boosts confidence – Yoga allows every child to move at their own pace in a non-competitive environment, which helps mastering a pose to feel special.
- Kids Yoga encourages PLAY!
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How does Kids Yoga add to Occupational Therapy?
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- Learning and practicing yoga poses (called asanas), directly targets and improves motor planning, strength, coordination, balance and flexibility. More specifically it:
- enhances fine and gross motor skill development
- adds to low muscle tone
- increases joint mobility
- improves proprioception skills
- strengthens a child’s respiratory muscles
Essentially, yoga helps children connect their minds with their bodies (and who doesn’t need that!). This is especially useful during childhood, a period during which children’s bodies grow and change at fast speeds. Yoga provides children the space to develop body awareness, and learn how to move, breathe and react more mindfully.
What will my child’s Yoga classes be like?
Yoga classes for children can be quite different from adult yoga classes.
- Kids Yoga isn’t quiet – There can be chatting, laughing, down dog barks and cat-cow meow-moos. Kids are full of life and personality, and their class will be too!
- Kids Yoga is more playful and less stringent, it needs to be fun and engaging!
- Kids Yoga involves a great deal of interaction and collaboration, unlike adult yoga which mostly encourages independent practice.
- The content of each yoga class differs from the previous one so that children remain engaged and excited about what every class has to offer to them. With younger children, yoga sessions are often carried out with the use of an imaginary storyline, which differs from session to session!
What is wonderful about Kids Yoga is that each child is able to progress in their own unique pace. The yoga practice is tailored to the needs of each individual as much as possible, so that all children feel confident and empowered during their practice.
