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Studies show that yoga is incredibly beneficial to our health. Ongoing practice can improve strength, increase flexibility, and improve balance. It’s low impact and can be adapted based on one’s level or physical ability. On top of the physical benefits, yoga is an effective stress-reliever, can help improve focus, and can help build self-esteem. It’s basically a gold mine for overall wellness and self-care. Namaste!:)
Kids especially need many experiences to move, balance and explore different possibilities with their bodies. Moving and balancing through different postures allow for sensory experiences, which build neural pathways that develop children’s brains. Children take in information about themselves and the world through kinesthetic experiences. In addition, many children do not develop the core strength they need to engage with learning in school or at home, such as the ability to sit up in circle time or while practicing written letters. Many times because they are not exposed to enough opportunities to move their bodies during play. Core strength is built in children through play and physical activity, but some activities are better than others at developing these postural muscles. Actions like crawling help children build these deep core muscles, but very few children want to crawl once they have learned to walk. Yoga postures can be a fun way to engage these muscles in a playful way
Whether you’re an active yogi or you live in yoga pants but haven’t done a downward dog in years, inviting your child to join you in Yoga can benefit you both while also serving as a fun bonding experience. The earlier children begin to learn about and participate in yoga, the sooner they can begin to reap the benefits. Instilling its healthy practices and positive emotional tools early also helps to potentially support children as they grow into adolescence and adulthood, when they’ll really need to focus on stress-relief and self-care the most.
To get kids started with yoga, offer a small selection of high-interest, accessible poses, then add on new ones as they get comfortable. Popular ones to start with include Down Dog, Tree Pose, Cat Cow, Plank or Lion’s Breath. All of these poses will help develop core strength and body awareness. You can introduce yoga poses with yoga cards, picture books or just modeling the poses and having your little yogis follow you.
Down Dog
Place the whole palm firmly on the floor. Stretch your hips high into the air with straight legs. Your body will look an upside down v. Remind kids to drop their heels down towards the floor and lift hips way up.
Tree Pose
Balancing Poses are great for helping kids develop body awareness, deep core muscles and the equilibrium needed to navigate uneven surfaces. Tree Pose is done on one leg; the other foot can be tiptoe on the floor, on the calf or on the opposite thigh. Remind little yogis that the goal is balance, not getting the foot high, and encourage them to make the shape that they can hold with steadiness.
Cat Cows
Cat Cow is really two poses that you move between. Start on hands and knees, and then drop the head down, round the spine to make a “Halloween Cat” shape. For Cow Pose, move the spine in the opposite direction; head and chest up, belly down. This movement is good for the spine and develops the core muscles, front and back.
Plank
Plank is a difficult pose - to motivate my students, I ask them to count in their head how long they were able to hold a solid plank. They can try to beat their record next time they try it! Start with solid palms on the floor, legs straight back with toes tucked, belly pulled in.
Lion’s Breath
Lion’s Breath is a great stress reliever. Sit on your heels or another comfortable seated position. Take a big breath in; on the exhale make a loud roar like a lion and reach your chest forward. For extra stress relief, try reaching your tongue to your chin, which relaxes the muscles of the jaw - and makes kids laugh. Double stress relief.
Here are some activities you can try with children to keep your time fun and engaging for little ones, while developing young bodies and brains.
Yoga Freeze Dance
A classic for young children with a yoga twist. Play a fun song that kids can dance, skip or walk. to. Pause the music and call out a yoga pose, or draw a yoga card from a deck. Kids hold the pose until the music starts up again. Explore a different pose each time you pause the song. Remind children to look around at their friends if they need a reminder about what the pose looks like - you can model as well. Remember the goal is practice, not perfection, so whatever their pose looks like, just celebrate the joy of the movement and the pausing.
Yoga dice
For this, I have two large wipe off dice - you can also use index cards that you have written on. You’ll prepare one stack or die for yoga poses. Draw pictures and a word on each side of the die or on each card in the deck with a yoga pose the child/ren knows. For example, draw a stick figure picture and the name of the pose for Down Dog, Tree Pose, etc. on each face of the die. On the other die, or on each card of the second deck, draw a picture and word that remind kids of the action we will do WHILE doing our yoga pose. Some actions might include, “Make a frowny face” or “Sing Row, Row, Row your Boat” or “Do your best cat imitation”. The actions can be silly, like those listed above, or more focused on helping children tune into their breath or holding a pose a little longer. These actions might include “While counting to 10”, “While silently singing your ABC’s” or “While taking 3 slow breaths”. Allow children to take turns rolling the dice, or pulling a card from each deck. If you have a group of kids, they can call out what they pulled/rolled and lead the group in doing the actions. When kids are involved and experience some ownership they practice leadership and experience more engagement.
Mat Hop
If you have a group of little yogis, you can lay out mats, carpet squares or some other material to show a separation of stations. At each mat station, place a yoga card showing a pose that they have practiced already. You can buy yoga cards specifically for kids, but you can also make them with index cards and some stick figure magic.
Even better, make cards with pictures of your kids or students doing the poses and add a label of the pose’s name. Kids love to see themselves and feel included seeing their own faces and those of their peers. They also need to see visual representations and print together regularly to internalize the meaning of words, why not when engaged in yoga play too? To play, kids each go to a mat (they can go in 2s or 3s if the group is large) and do the pose on their card for a designated amount of time - start them at the count of 8. After the count they shake it off and them on your prompt, they’ll hop over to the next station.
You can have a chosen station for the “counter” to be at. A station such as Mountain Pose is a good option for this. Mountain Pose can be less engaging, and giving the child or children at this station an important job like counting for the group can increase buy-in and participation. Incorporating play and movement with yoga maintains the benefits children can experience, and also their attention and engagement.
For added buy-in, allow children to make up poses that reflect their favorite animals, real or imagined, that don’t already have poses. Unicorn Pose anyone? Incorporate poses into stories and keep it playful. Play is how young children learn, and there is a lot to be learned from trying out movements and poses that teach balance, coordination, body awareness and develops neural pathways
There are also excellent yoga games that you can buy to play with the whole family.
Turasa is an example. It can be played with kids as young as 3 (with some prompting) and still be fun for much older kids (even adults).
If you’re well-versed in yoga, you can begin parent/child yoga time by simply walking your child step by step through a mini class or inviting them to do a guided yoga video with you. Since yoga is quite slow-moving and intentionally low-key, you might find that it’s challenging to keep a child engaged and having fun. If you need any supports, choosing something like Yoga Pretzels cards could be a great start. The cards include ideas for poses, breathing exercises, and fun activities. They’re color-coded and broken down by category, and include phrases and words that help children understand and perform each pose. A YOGI kit is another great option for gathering ideas. It comes with 40 cards that can be used to create countless games and activities.
If your child is open to the idea of trying yoga but isn’t so keen on participating in a straightforward yoga class, or isn’t interested in staying engaged with it for too long, you may want to consider one of the many great yoga-infused games out there. Folding yoga into a more interactive game can help engage kids more actively and effectively. Making a game of it also presents a great opportunity to turn it into a group activity and involve the entire family. Like Yoga Pretzels and YOGI, Yoga Cards comes with 48 yoga pose cards.
The difference here is the added mission cards. The first player who correctly bends and stretches into the seven yoga poses on the mission card wins. The added bit of competition can definitely encourage certain kids to give it their all. Yoga Spinner is another great option for this. Players spin the spinner and perform the pose on the corresponding yoga pose card. If you can hold the pose for 10 seconds, you keep the card. The first player to collect a card in each color wins. The Yoga Garden is a cooperative yoga-infused board game with an added touch of cuteness. The objective is to plant a flower garden before night falls. As players move the bumblebee marker around the board, they learn classic yoga postures, as well as have the chance to invent their own!
Now, let’s say you’ve got a child who has zero interest in yoga or is simply unfamiliar with the concept, selecting a yoga game is definitely a great start, but an even better idea is to select a yoga game that’s disguised as a good old regular game. Nothing to see here, yoga-resistant kids. Memory Yoga is a great example. It begins as a classic memory matching game, which is easy for anyone to get quickly hooked on. Memory Yoga is a great way to introduce kids to yoga while additionally challenging visual attention and visual memory. Once someone finds a match, they then hold the pose that appears on the card for 10 seconds to keep it in their own stack. The person with the most matched cards at the end wins. This game sounds like a win to me!
It is important to remember that Yoga poses are being created from the inside, through physical sensation. Adults are more adept at looking at an instructor and matching the pose to the instructor’s visual and oral cues. Young children have not built full spatial and kinesthetic awareness to accomplish this. When teaching young children, know that they are trying their best to recreate that shape and expression of the pose with their body regardless of what it looks like. The coordination and accuracy will come with time and practice.
The exception to this is if you think a child might be hurting themselves. For example, doing a DownFacing Dog on their heads, instead of using their hands to support the weight of their body. In this case, show the child how to place their hands and reassure them that they will feel more comfortable if they try pushing with their hands so their neck can relax.
Yoga has incredible benefits for children’s physical and mental development. Remember to keep it simple, playful, and fun (and of course safe).