Yoga For Kids
Melvin Chua
Our children today are subjected to a lot of stress factors. There is homework that they have to do daily, the competition from other children, after school game activities and sometimes over-scheduling from parents.
And just like us adults these children need something relaxing to turn to and that Yoga could just be that instrument.
Yoga for kids helps then develop better awareness of their body, and also teaches them total self control, flexibility and coordination. All of these they could carry out not just in their Yoga classes but also in their daily routines as well.
Yoga for kids has shown to help children who are hyper active to tone down and also brighten up those attention deficit ones. Children today crave movement and sensory motor stimuli that can help them to balance up their inner soul-flow.
Yoga for kids helps them channel out this impulses in a positive way.
The main Yoga for kids poses that seem to work perfectly with kids are the warrior pose and the tree pose. These two yoga for kids poses helps instill in them calm, confidence and balance.
The trick to get them to do Yoga for kids is to go beyond just doing the proper poses, you should have to get them think about what the real posture means.
Let them think that they are really what the poses are symbolizing; let them perform the postures strong and confident like a warrior.
Yoga for kids with partners is also a good way to build up trust with you children. It develops their teamwork skills and fosters a closer bonding.
Some kids when it comes to relaxation have a big trouble closing their eyes and having them focus on their exercises. One thing that encourages a child to relax is visualization. Let them think of something that they really like and let them imagine being like these things.
You may also have them focus out on belly breathing first and have them listen to soothing and relaxing music.
Then ask them to imagine their favorite spot in the house or let them think that they are in outer space floating, or let them visualize that they are at the beach, playing their favorite sport or doing the best activity that they like.
Sometimes for boys letting them think of a favorite girlfriend helps them relax, but this is sometimes hard to do because they become shy and intolerable when this kind of issues are discussed. Just stick to the visualization thing if this technique is quite complicated for you.
Every day at the end of each relaxation exercises, encourage the children to share their own experiences. Ask them to tell to the group what it was like to be in their visualized surroundings. Ask them also to share what place have they imagined they where in.
Another approach is to create a guided imagination by telling them a story with a calming theme of some sort.
As you know children have the most active imagination, they imagine all sorts of things. And at this point of imagination it makes them feel calm. So when doing yoga for kids let them think that they are walking on a green pasture.
You can even let them think that they are butterflies in a beautiful garden. The main idea in here is to instill a sense of peace and feeling of oneness with nature.
Yoga for kids should be taught more often and in different places. It is important to teach children the meaning of union of mind, body and spirit.
There is such a wealth of knowledge that we can offer to our children with the practice of Yoga.
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Melvin has dozens more related articles and tips on doing yoga at his site: doing yoga, check them out today!