Yoga For Children

Yoga Articles > Yoga For Children

Yoga is not only for adults , it's also for children. 

Children may derive multiple benefits from yoga. Though we may not consider our children going for yoga classes at such tender ages yet one must not forget that children too have a stressful life and yoga brings relief and relaxes the body. Children do have a significant amount of stress in their lives in terms of school pressures, incessant lessons, video games, malls, and competitive sports. These little pressures which build stress can be overcome by yoga.

Yoga at an early age fosters concentration and a sense of calm besides building body-awareness and strength. As discussed before, children do have busy and stressful lives and yoga helps counter many problems. When kids do yoga they are not competing with any individual, this non-competency helps children learn self esteem and cooperation which soon becomes a personality trait which helps them in the long run too. So here is a quick recap of all the benefits of yoga mentioned.

Yoga comes in as the savior! Yoga can be defined as an exercise to stimulate and harmonize all levels of a biological system, physical, mental and spiritual. It is a powerful tool to burn calories and return to or maintain shape as it offers a holistic and versatile means of losing weight. Many people also choose to combine yoga with running, walking or other aerobic exercise in order to reach their weight loss goals.

Physical Benefits

• Enhances flexibility
• Enhances strength
• Enhances coordination
• Enhances body – awareness

Mental Benefits

1. Fosters concentration
2. Improves the sense of relaxation and calms the mind

It’s kind of challenging to teach yoga to children because they are very playful by nature. It’s not easy to hold their attention on something. Kids love to move around and are also fond of animals, so keeping these factors in mind the yoga teacher should make yoga fun for the children by making them roar in a lion pose, stretch like a cat which the kids won’t refuse to do. Teaching yoga to children falling in the age group of ten-thirteen, is a challenging experience. But the result is very positive .These kids learn with zeal and also tend to learn quickly.

Physical Benefits

• If you are practicing yoga for the first time then you’re the best person to tell your child about the benefits you have derived from yoga. If both of you are beginners in yoga then you may talk about what you will be learning and how it will help.

• Make sure your child learns simple poses first and also make it a point to use visuals in order to make it interesting.

• If your child has his/her own pose, let them do it after making sure it’s safe for them.

• The most important thing which you should not forget is to have patience while teaching kids and also explain things in a simple manner.

• The first session of your class should be that of breathing session .Make the kids lie down on the floor with her arms at her side. Tell her to breathe deeply.

• It would be better to keep yoga sessions short for children. They may not like long sessions unlike adults.

The benefits of yoga are far reaching and parents of grown up kids should encourage them to join yoga classes after educating them about the golden benefits which yoga will foster on their mental and physical.health. In this time where fast food is becoming a trend among youngsters and health problems are taking a toll on every family, yoga is the best medicine to stay fit."A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves." - T. Guillemets