Teaching yoga to kids
On a personal level, what do you think of the practice of yoga? Do you already do it in a club, in a group class? It's good, it's even very good, since it's a complete sport that combines body and mind with finesse. It allows you to become aware of your body as well as its flexibility, while allowing relaxation and happiness!
According to a survey, it turns out that 9 out of 10 people taking yoga classes are women! If these gentlemen seem, wrongly, to abandon the powers of mindfulness, why not introduce our children to this discipline?
Thanks to playful yoga postures, the latter will paradoxically be the first to benefit from the advantages of a practice that is perhaps not sufficiently democratized. But precisely, how to initiate a child to yoga? Is it necessary to enroll him in yoga for children? Can we become a yoga teacher for our offspring? A small overview of a practice adapted to children, in full expansion!
At what age should a child be introduced to yoga?
Teaching your child that it is possible to do the frog, the pear tree, and breathing exercises to benefit from them is not impossible, quite the contrary. The proof is, there is already prenatal yoga, where future mothers will use these elements to tame their bodies and their birth.
But when the chick is there, it's another matter! It is customary to say that yoga for children can be practiced from the age of 3 years old. This may seem early, but nevertheless, the child is already well and truly at the age to understand its movements, to apprehend its flexibility, or to learn relaxation during a group or solo session.
Obviously, the idea of a yoga class of this type is to adapt to the child's level and spirit. Impatience, exigency, willingness to have fun, everything comes together to make each session complicated... or fun! It's all about vision!
And yes, the interest for the child to practice yoga is not to really realize it instantly. The postures will then have to be fun, why not even reproduce duo postures like the boat? This will also have the advantage of strengthening filial bonds.
From the age of 6 or 7, it will then be possible to make things deeper, even more worked out. The fact remains that with play and imagination, the practice of yoga is very accessible to a young child!
A typical yoga session for children
Concretely, in the light of the imagination required, a typical yoga session for a child does not really exist. However, it is based on a basic outline, which the teacher (or you yourself) can try to follow, in order to frame things and postures as well as possible:
• Introduce yoga through playful games,
• Practice different postures, different breathing exercises,
• Install a calm time of mindfulness, relaxation, or even, depending on the child, meditation, to end the session.
From this very simple plan, the child will be able to take little yogi's cues, and, who knows, will want to practice regularly in greater depth. The day he/she will ask you to buy him/her his own yoga mat, it will be won! Namaste!
Yoga postures to introduce your child to yoga
Having guidelines is all very well, but you still need to know how to implement them in a concrete way during a session. In this perspective, a few examples of easy and fun yoga postures may be a good idea.
Because a child does not have the physical capacities of an adult, and will not be able to lift the whole weight of his body, typically! The same goes for mental abilities, since a little one has naturally inferior adaptation and concentration skills than an adult. Let's think about this in the sequence of exercises!
Among the exercises suitable for children's yoga are :
• The candle, which is a natural position, and which will make him become aware of his body very simply,
• The tree, where one foot does not touch the ground. This posture has the interest to be playful, since it is necessary to hold in the length in balance. A good time to spend together!
• Belly dance, hands above the head, we draw a 8 with the hips. Simple, and roughly effective to work the apprehension of its own body while having fun,
• The cat, where, on all fours, we alternate between the round back and the hollow back. This allows to tone up the body and to have fun imitating the "meow" of the feline, why not!
Through these examples, we can see that the interest in yoga is not to create positions dedicated to children, but to adapt them to an age where everything must be in motion. An age where rest and disconnection have no place, unlike fun! So, it's not so complicated after all, yoga for children, is it?
Yoga: initiating your child to relaxation
It is well known that every good yoga session ends with a relaxation session. Through breathing exercises, mindfulness games, or meditation, this special moment allows you to end the class in beauty, and to take advantage of all the good vibes accumulated during the session.
But when it comes to children, it is easy to understand that they need dynamic yoga, and that this moment of calm and focus can be complicated. Not always, of course, but sometimes things are a little difficult to put in place to achieve ataraxy.
And yet, step by step, the challenge will be to make his offspring understand that a moment for oneself and only oneself is paramount, and that yoga highlights this very well.
During the first sessions, why not start on a kind of game where mindfulness is the main actress. For example, asking him to focus his concentration on a single thought, or a single object, can be a nice first approach to what long-term relaxation can be like.
Little by little, then will come the feeling that all this can be useful to her mind, her mind and her body. Then will come the real moments of deep relaxation, or even, who knows, of meditation together!
Take children's yoga classes
We talk, we talk, but all this, maybe it makes you want to initiate your child to yoga now? And to do so, some people decide to become yoga teachers, but others prefer to trust graduates. And that's a great idea, since they're often better able than we are at knowing what to teach toddlers.
While some classes are child-friendly, and more and more are also offering family yoga classes, it goes without saying that not everyone is willing to be as versatile. So ask about yoga studios near you!
And how about, for very young children, staying at home to practice yoga together? Yes, it is possible, thanks to online classes. The magic of the internet!
With Superprof, for example, you can call on a certified teacher wherever and whenever you want, who will be happy to intervene and introduce children to the practice of yoga.
You may have been stressed, surprised, dubious about practicing yoga for children. But now you have realized that it is a fairly classical discipline which, like all disciplines, requires nothing but knowing how to adapt to the behavior of the smallest.
Through more targeted postures, an increasing evolution of concentration or more playful circumstances, it is not impossible to initiate your son or daughter to asanas, pranayama, or limb stretching. And all this also helps to strengthen the family bond and the complicity between parent and child.
So, let's give it a try? Doing yoga has never been so much fun!
