There are many benefits of yoga for children. Yoga is a great activity to help children develop important life skills and healthy habits, as well as being a great form of exercise. If you haven’t introduced your little one to yoga yet here are some reasons why you should.
Benefits of Yoga
- Unlike traditional sports that focus on performance and competitiveness, yoga encourages children to connect their minds and bodies and appreciate the wonderful things they can do.
- Yoga is also a great way to keep kids active and involved in physical activity in a non-competitive way – they can focus on themselves rather than others.
- It helps build the right balance of muscle tone and strength to stabilise their growing bodies and improve their mobility – which can help your little ones avoid injury.
- Yoga also aids children’s emotional development by teaching them to relax their minds and bodies, which helps them with emotional regulation, coping with stress, and improving their concentration.
- It gives children strategies to observe how different things in their environment affect them, empowering them to make choices about how they respond.
By teaching children poses and breathing techniques, they can learn how to enjoy physical activity and develop self-confidence. Additionally, yoga can help reduce stress and anxiety, as it cultivates a sense of peacefulness, mindfulness, and relaxation. It can also aid in proper body posture and balance, and help to strengthen core muscles.
Yoga For Children: How To Get Started
One of the best ways to get your child started with yoga is to make it fun. For example, start off by going over a few poses at their level and letting them choose their favourite ones. Then you can slowly introduce a few more poses, or even just incorporate them into daily activities like playing hide and seek. A great resource for finding rewarding and age-appropriate yoga poses is kids’ yoga books from your local library. Here are some simple poses you could show to your child.
Another way to make yoga more engaging for children is to use music and engaging stories. This will help keep them focused, entertained, and motivated. Additionally, activities that involve the manipulation of objects, like blocks, ribbons, and balls can help them learn to better coordinate their movements.
Tips for Success
- When practising yoga with children, it is important to always give positive feedback and encouragement. This way, your child will feel more secure and confident.
- It is also important to maintain an open dialogue with your child, so that they can learn to trust their own intuition and body.
- Lastly, make sure that you keep it fun and start off slow, as children will likely get bored if they’re asked to do too much in one session.
Yoga is a great way to help children build a foundation of strength and confidence. It can also be a lot of fun and can be tailored to their age and ability level. With the right resources and guidance, your child can learn the basics and reap the many benefits yoga has to offer.
