The greatest pleasure is to see children grow, and become confident in all areas of their lives. Yoga is a non competitive activity taught in a non competitive environment, which creates balance, harmony, respect and kindness towards each other. Emotion comes from motion creating changes in their postures, laughing, having fun, feeling determined makes the children feel happy, and coming back for more!
There are many benefits of teaching children yoga.
BETTER FOCUS: Helps a child to learn how to focus, creating a better attention span and mental clarity in the classroom.
PHYSICAL WELLBEING: Flexibility, building strong healthy limbs, better cognition also boosting the immune system, core strength and posture.
SELF ESTEEM: Build self-esteem and self-love – if a child is experiencing difficulties in the classroom or at home, self esteem issue are addressed through positive encouragement and verbal enforcements such as positive affirmations.
RESPECT: Oneself and others in their environment whether at school or in the home.
CONFIDENCE: Children learn different postures synchronized with their breath. Sometimes they feel amazed by what their bodies can do with positive encouragement which makes them feel a sense of achievement.
The word Yoga comes from the sanskrit word Yuj, meaning to unite, to become whole. It is an ancient Indian spiritual practice, bringing together the mind body and soul.
“Children are over-stimulated living in a fast pace society driven by modern technology, like television and computer games, Ipads and mobile phones. Yoga teaches them to have more aware of themselves in their mind, body and spirit rather than the “outside world”, even if it’s just noticing their own breath and developing the habit of breathing deeply when they’re feeling a little stressed.”
To keep children engaged, Yoga is taught creatively where children are challenged to learn postures, play yoga games, some chanting and mandala colouring workshops.
BREATHWORK & RELAXATION: This is just as important as doing postures. Self nurturing, breath work and creating awareness of breath is very important to a child’s development – they can learn to manage any kind of emotional stress by learning to control their breath and to use the full capacity of their lungs instead of shallow breathing.
GUIDED MEDITATION: Children can sometimes be full of anxiety and don’t really know how to process their emotions so sometimes these emotions can be expressed negatively. Guided meditations teach a child how to relax and feel at peace with themselves and those in their environment either at home or in school. Self nurturing, calms the nervous system helps them sleep better.
EMPOWERMENT: “A can do attitude” positive encouragement in learning postures and chanting opens the heart center. Children are also taught how to manage their feelings in uncomfortable situations in a positive way learning to stand up for themselves.
FLEXIBILITY: Regular Yoga practise will keep a child’s body flexible and supple, most importantly their spine, especially through this key period of growth. Yoga energises their physical bodies at every level, stretching and breathing into postures in this very important growth period which also creates good habits and mindfulness of strong and confident body posture.