While they sometimes seem like compact balls of perpetual energy, kids – just like the rest of us – can benefit from slowing down and focusing on their bodies. Passing your love of yoga onto your children is a great way to help them learn techniques to stay calm in a crazy world. Best of all, it’s an activity that you can use to make the bond between you and your children even stronger.
Making Yoga Fun for Your Kids
Your kids are typically going to be interested in what you’re doing, and it’s natural for them to want to try yoga if they’ve seen you practicing. Don’t put any pressure on your kids to have the “perfect” technique or to hold a pose for a very long time. Simply introduce them to the basics and let them catch the “yoga fever” for themselves.
Keep initial sessions short, probably no longer than 10 minutes unless they request more time. If your kids really enjoy practicing with you, make sure to get a kids’ size yoga mat and maybe a kids’ yoga video to help them develop their practice.
Kid-Friendly Yoga Poses
Teach kids the basics, using language they understand. Thankfully, many yoga poses are named for animals or other objects in nature, which can immediately draw your children’s interest from the start!
Tree Pose
Ask your kids to imagine that they are trees with roots growing deep into the ground and branches reaching up toward the sun. Challenge them to see if they can slowly raise one heal to the other knee while staying balanced.
Cat Pose
Have children get on their hands and knees on the floor with their backs straight like a table (Tabletop Pose). From there, tell them to pretend that they’re frightened cats and show them how to round their backs. Remind them to keep their hands and knees firmly on the floor while curling their backs up.
Downward Facing Dog
Tell kids to stand tall, then bend over and place their hands on the ground in from of them with straight legs (Plank Pose), and then to move their behinds up to the sky. Tell them to keep their hands firmly planted on the ground and push their heels down (though do remind them that it’s alright if their heels don’t touch the floor).
Taking Yoga Further
Do you suspect you have a little yogi on your hands? Take advantage of the opportunity to share something wonderful by continuing to help them at home and enrolling them in a class of their own. Make sure to keep an eye out for our GROUNDED Kids classes on the schedule and our kid-friendly, family yoga events!
Yoga is not only great for your body, spirit and mind – it’s also an amazing family bonding activity. Introduce your kids to yoga and give them a gift they can go back to for the rest of their lives!