Yoga for Children: Developing Mind and Body

Yoga is an activity that helps build strength, flexibility, and concentration. This ancient philosophy of body and mind is widely recognized as an activity designed to promote relaxation and calmness.

There are many benefits associated with teachers and parents teaching yoga to children, such as the development of self awareness and self management.

Incorporating yoga into kids’ daily activities is easy using the inspirational Yoga Pretzels card set developed by Yoga Ed.

Benefits of Yoga for Children

Educators recognize the link between yoga and a student’s academic success and physical, mental, and emotional health. The mind-body health and wellness of yoga inspires children’s creativity and achievement, and helps with their concentration and focus.

Parents have also recognized these benefits. Yoga for children is beneficial in helping them learn self awareness, self management, self care, and self esteem. Physically, yoga helps children develop flexibility, gain strength, and increase their coordination.

The benefits associated with the kids’ practice of yoga have positive impacts on many other areas of life. Other benefits include:

• Because there is no competition, yoga promotes cooperation and compassion over opposition with other kids;
• It is a great activity for all skill levels and ages, from preschoolers to teens;
• Yoga helps build focus and develops in-the-moment discipline;
• It helps kids develop their listening and observation skills;
• Yoga is used as a preventative medicine approach to health and wellness;
• Kids have an opportunity to learn how to relax and become calm;
• Yoga promotes overall well being, and highlights the harmony between the kids’ inner actions and outer actions.
• When practiced with the family, yoga acts as a healthy bonding activity and promotes wellness to the entire family unit.

Yoga is a wonderful activity for kids as it helps inspire the imagination of the children: kids enjoy pretending or becoming various objects or things—likes plants and animals—through the different poses. This also helps the kids connect with the world around them. Yoga helps older kids learn about the human body and its functions, including muscle development and other physiological processes.

Teaching Children the Basics of Yoga

Yoga Ed is an educational supplier of courses and materials that help teachers and parents promote the benefits of yoga to children. Yoga Pretzels (published by Barefoot Books) is one such product.

Authors Tara Gruber and Leah Kalish, along with illustrator Sophie Fatus, developed a deck of 50 yoga cards, each card representing a different yoga activity. These activities include various bending or twisting exercises, and even breathing and relaxation routines.

Teachers and parents find this resource invaluable as it is a fun method of promoting yoga, and it encourages participation from both parent or teacher and child or student.

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