The benefits of yoga for children are many. Through play and imagination, they don’t just learn basic postures. They also learn to listen to each other and take care of themselves.
More and more yoga centers and schools offer yoga classes for children, and more and more parents are encouraged to do yoga at home with children. It is magical to observe how suddenly 3-year-old children start to do the dog upside down or concentrate to try to maintain balance in the tree posture. Or as children of 6 or 7 years relax in the child’s posture.
They may not be aware that they are stretching their back, strengthening their muscles, or working on balance and concentration, but they are doing it. They’re doing that… and much more.
Undoubtedly, knowing the multiple benefits of yoga for children can encourage us to introduce them from a young age in this practice, either at home or by pointing them to a children’s yoga class. Also, to older children, as yoga can be a valuable practice in preadolescence and adolescence.
But what is children’s yoga like? Are there yoga poses for children? Or is it about adapting postures to make them simpler? Which ones are best suited for them? At what age can they start? How do you guide them and keep their attention? Can we also do yoga postures or relaxation exercises at home with them?
BENEFITS OF YOGA FOR CHILDREN
The benefits of yoga for children are numerous and more and more studies corroborate them, from physical benefits such as greater flexibility, better posture and greater body awareness to emotional and mental benefits such as a healthier relationship with stress or a greater ability to concentrate.
“The most important thing is that yoga helps them establish the body-mind-emotions connection, it helps them realize that everything is reflected in the body and that it is a two-way path, “says Elena Ferraris, yoga teacher and founder of the Elena Ferraris Yoga Center. “If I feel like I’m on a cloud, or like I have a cloud over me, or I feel very closed, I can work from the body, I can breathe widely, to center, to feel better, to clear … “
In this yoga center, located in the Madrid neighborhood of Chambery, they offer workshops and classes for children and adolescents, as well as family yoga workshops and sessions in schools. Patricia de Santos, a teacher specializing in children’s yoga and yoga for families, also highlights self-knowledge and respect for one’s own body as one of the most profound benefits that yoga can have at an early age.
“We all go through sometimes that my stomach hurts and nothing happens, I follow, or they ask me to kiss my aunt and I don’t want to kiss her … With yoga we focus on feeling how your body is, what it is asking you. In the youngest children it is about promoting what they already have, valuing it, and with those who are growing, helping them recover what they are losing, respect for their own body, “explains Patricia.
This heightened body awareness can be a valuable tool in difficult times. For Mamen Duch, yoga teacher for children at the Yogi Kids center in Barcelona and author of several yoga books for children, this is one of the most important aspects. “With yoga you not only help them to focus, to become aware of their body and their breathing, but you help them discover inside tools to be able to return to calm or concentration in complicated moments of stress or nerves.”
YOGA POSTURES FOR CHILDREN
There are no specific yoga poses for children, nor are all postures in yoga for children. But let’s go in steps.
In general, children perform the same postures as adults, except for postures on the head in the case of younger children, because their cervicals are still forming. “In essence it is the same, only that the postures can be simplified in some cases and you do not speak to them in Sanskrit, but using the more descriptive names, the names of animals or elements of nature,” explains Mamen Duch.
“I always tell them the story that in India people liked nature very much and that they saw a tree and became like a tree: just as strong, but flexible. Or that they saw a dog and wanted to be like him, so they would stretch their backs like him and stuff. And that’s where the yoga postures come from, the observation of nature and the connection with nature.”
Anyway, there are postures that are more common in yoga classes for children, precisely those that are inspired by animals and elements of nature, because children find them fun and easy to understand. Some, for example, are:
- The tree: the little ones can lean on the wall, then they can lean on each other…
- The cobra: if accompanied by sounds it is ideal to work breathing.
- The posture of the child or the folded blade: it is ideal to relax and you can give a massage on the back while they do it.
- The upside-down dog: you can ask them how the dog would move, or how it would pee, so that they raise the leg…
- The cat: a great posture to stretch in the morning and that is very easy to understand.
- The lion: if accompanied by a roar, it helps to take out anger, and can be of great help in case of tantrum. It can also be practiced in pairs looking at each other, which can be very liberating and end in laughter.
- The plane: a good balancing posture, very fun, although difficult for the little ones.
- The warrior: in its different variants, ideal for them to feel the strength and explore how it makes them feel.
- The sun salutation: a good physical work that is fun and that works the connection with nature and gratitude, ideal also to do at home in the mornings, looking at each other, so that they can follow the postures by imitation.
Of course, there are many more and there is a lot of resources with yoga poses to use both in class and at home (yoga cards, pose cubes, posters …). The difference is basically in how they are usually done:
- You enter the postures through the game, for example telling a story in which the animals and elements of nature that appear are represented. Or using cards or yoga dice with the postures that you can choose to your liking.
- They stay for a short time, less the younger the children are.
- Accuracy does not matter: posture is not corrected, especially in the early years.
- You can encourage to make the postures emitting sounds, to roar like a lion, to make a hissing sound in the cobra … It is a way of working the breath in the posture without saying it.
- Images are offered that appeal to their imagination and help them better understand the posture, as in the cat posture talk about making the “angry cat”.
Beyond the work with the postures through play, in the yoga classes for children there are also contact at the beginning of the sessions, relaxations, visualizations … and many other activities that, although a priori may seem otherwise, are also yoga.
“Yoga is very connected to the elements and cycles of nature,” explains Patricia de Santos. “In the classrooms, for example, we can celebrate the changes of seasons: a ceremony welcoming spring, autumn, winter… And we can work on how your body, your emotion and your habits adapt to this.”
“Both when doing a yoga class and trying to bring yoga home with children, if we understand that yoga is something very global, it is not only the postures, we have many possibilities. We can use the cards for the postures but we can do many more things.”
HOW YOGA IS TAUGHT BY AGE
One can believe a priori that with children the only thing that can be done is a simplified or decaffeinated version of yoga, but yoga for children can have as much depth as yoga for adults and, in practice, goes far beyond the simple performance of simple yoga postures so that they get used to them.
Yoga for children is simply a yoga that develops differently, a yoga in which the needs of children are taken into account at each age and in which play and creativity are used to motivate and guide them.
Through stories, games, challenges and even crafts, puppets or musical instruments… Children are gradually introduced to a practice that entertains them, cares for them and helps them to know themselves better. But yoga for children of 3 or 4 years is not the same as yoga for children of 6, 12 or 15 years …
1. YOGA WITH BABIES: BONDING AND IMITATION
Here the classes are for mothers or fathers with children and it is the adults who make the postures, trying to integrate the baby or child into them. The baby is not properly doing yoga, but it is a way to strengthen the mother-baby bond.
Anyway, as the baby grows and gains mobility often begins to imitate parents and participate more, so it can be a way to start introducing him into the postures and the atmosphere of calm that is breathed in yoga classes.
“When moms with babies manage to maintain the practice for a while, we see how then those babies, as they grow, begin to imitate moms by doing the dog upside down, the cobra … It is very nice and proof that, if we want children to do yoga, the ideal is that we start doing yoga ourselves, and that we do it together, “says Elena Ferraris.
2. CHILDREN FROM 3 TO 6 YEARS OLD: PLAY AND DYNAMISM
From the age of 2 or 3, yoga is still ideal to be practiced with parents, also in classes. Creativity and dynamism are key.
“With the little ones, it’s all through play. The postures are introduced many times with stories, stories … even songs,” explains Patricia de Santos. “And you work for a short time, in a more dynamic and playful way, because the little ones cannot maintain the postures for a long time: they are more distracted.”
The precision in the postures is the least. And, surprisingly, sometimes younger children are able to perform some poses quite easily. “Doing yoga with them is, in reality, collaborating with what they already are, accompanying them,” says Patricia. “Yoga is something organic and natural, it is in everyone. And if you look at the children, you see that when they start moving, they do it with yoga movements. It’s an amazing thing!”
To work the breathing in young and not so young children you can use simple and playful resources of the most varied: blowing grinders, candles, dry leaves in autumn, felt balls …, making bubbles, placing a stuffed animal on the gut and watching how it goes up and down …
3. CHILDREN FROM 6 TO 8 YEARS OLD: LITTLE EXPLORERS
Children not only maintain postures and concentration longer, but they are more prepared to approach yoga with a new curiosity. The game is still fundamental and the way by which they enter the postures and their attention is maintained, but new elements can be introduced.
“At this age they enter class many times as explorers. You can start talking to them about the benefits of a posture, concentration, relationship with the other …”, says Patricia de Santos. The playful approach is still maintained, but taking into account their needs for exploration and knowledge of the external world.
According to Mamen Duch, from Yogi Kids, from this age children can already start doing yoga alone in class, although the accompaniment of parents is still highly recommended. “If it is done with the parents, it is beautiful, because it creates a very nice bond and apart the parents can then work at home what has been worked on in class,” he says.
It is also “the time to create a routine, so that everything is not left to practice only one day a week,” says the actress expert in children’s yoga.
4. CHILDREN FROM 9 TO 12 YEARS OLD: POSTURAL AWARENESS
As children grow older, the needs for exploration and knowledge increase. Also, the ability to maintain postures and concentration.
“In children of 9, 10 or 11 years, body posture is already marked by backpacks, by the time they spend at school, by the physical activities they perform …”, explain Patricia de Santos and Elena Ferraris. ” The important thing is that they learn to be aware of their body. That they can distinguish how and when they position their body in certain ways, and how their body changes in each situation.”
For these yoga teachers, in general with children it is not advisable to correct the postures, but this age is already a good age to start giving some alignment instructions and make some small correction. Bodies are changing and often reflect the activities and sport they do, so working on alignment becomes more important:
- With football, for example, the flexibility of the legs is greatly shortened, something that can be worked with yoga.
- Many girls who do rhythmic or artistic gymnastics have very developed flexibility and elongation, openness, but usually have a hyperextension of the spine; With them you can work the back of the body, feel the breath in the ribs, the strength …
- In ballet you work a lot with your feet out, and it is important that they become aware of this, that they realize that the body does not have to be placed the same when they carry the backpack as when they are in class, doing an exam or practicing ballet.
On the other hand, at this age they begin “to be able to apply that body awareness that yoga gives them to their day to day, to realize how they are placed, how they feel, how they move …”, explains Elena Ferraris. ” And they begin to see how that influences their attitude, before an exam, in a conversation … If I shrink, the diaphragm closes; If I open up, I have more room to breathe… That awareness starts there at that age.”
5. ADOLESCENTS: WORKING WITH EMOTIONS
Adolescence is a very tired time, very complex on an emotional level. “These are ages in which young people, in general, are very disconnected from the body,” explains Patricia de Santos. “Here the important thing is to maintain the climate of the group, offering what they need, which is a lot of relaxation, a lot of visualization and a lot of self-knowledge of the body.”
At the Elena Ferraris Yoga Center, which organizes yoga workshops for teenagers in schools, experience has shown them that teenagers, who are sometimes a little reluctant at first, find in yoga sessions a space of trust where they verbalize their concerns and immediately get hooked.
“If it is mentioned, for example, that a posture is going well for menstruation, that gives rise to talk about it. They are with their ears open, because there are not so many spaces in which they are told about menstruation, the sensations they may have in the neck, how breathing too high can tighten your scalp … All that fascinates them and allows them to do a great job with them,” they explain.
“In adolescence it is very important to connect with emotions,” says Mamen Duch, who in addition to being the founder of Yogi Kids is a theater actress and works a lot with teenagers. “Through breathing or postures they can observe how they feel and see how they can change the emotion.”