Yoga for children has grown in both popularity since the Covid outbreak. Well known for the health and wellbeing benefits it provides adults, the pandemic was the ideal opportunity to incorporate the mindfulness and movements children needed into a fun activity they could do at home.
Parents found that by incorporating it at home, they could help support their child’s emotional and physical wellbeing and take advantage of the benefits that yoga for children can provide. Let’s look at what these benefits are and ideas for introducing yoga to your children.
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Key Benefits of Yoga for Children
A child’s wellbeing both physically and emotionally can be supported through movement, making yoga an ideal activity. It offers multiple benefits to a child, including:
- Improving concentration – yoga helps to enhance a child’s ability to focus and retain information, which can help support their academic progress.
- Helping regulate emotions – having a quiet mind by learning to be present in the moment, helps a child develop the skills needed to begin to monitor and regulate their emotions.
- Reducing stress and anxiety – through slow and repetitive moments, along with learning both relaxation and breathing exercises, both stress and anxiety levels can be reduced in a child.
- Boosting self-esteem –through learning and then mastering new poses, along with improving their flexibility and balance, yoga helps to raise self esteem levels.
- Developing strength and flexibility – practicing yoga regularly helps a child to develop muscle strength and flexibility, which helps them in their daily activities.
- Increasing body awareness – the careful and considered movements a child makes when using yoga help them to become more aware of their body’s movements and position, as well as the space around their body.
Ready to introduce yoga to your child? Let’s look at some fun activities you could do.
5 Fun Yoga Ideas for Children
From instructional videos for parents through to workouts you can do with your child, YouTube is a great resource to use to find yoga activities and ideas. There are also multiple books and websites which focus on it, plus you may even have child yoga classes available locally. But to get you started, here are five fun things you can try at home:
- Freeze dancing – pop some music on and when it stops, freeze in position. You could model a yoga pose when you freeze to encourage your child to copy you.
- Downward dog tunnel – make the downward dog pose yourself and have your child crawl through the tunnel your body shape has made.
- Simon says – as Simon, ask your child to do something with their body, which helps them make a yoga pose while you do the pose at the same time for them to copy.
- Balloon dance yoga – blow up a couple of balloons and on each one, either draw a picture of a yoga pose or write the name of the pose. Throw the balloons around the room while playing music. When the music stops, grab the nearest balloon and make that pose with your body.
- Silly train – decide on a pose first and make sure everyone knows what it is. One person is the train driver, while the rest are passengers. Follow the train driver around until they stop. When they do, everyone make the chosen yoga pose.
As well as introducing yoga to your child, why not try it yourself too? Join in with them and have some fun too!
