Yoga for children: a tool for life

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 their children. It is magical to observe how suddenly 3 year olds do downward facing dog or concentrate to try to maintain balance in tree pose. Or as 6 or 7 year olds relax in child’s pose.

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 are doing that… and much more.

Undoubtedly, knowing the multiple benefits of yoga for children can encourage us to introduce them to this practice from a young age, either at home or by enrolling them in a children’s yoga class. Also to older children, since yoga can be a valuable practice in pre-adolescence and adolescence.

But How is children’s yoga? Are there yoga poses for children? Or is it about adapting the postures to make them easier? Which ones are the most suitable for them? At what age can they start? How do you guide them and manage to 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 themfrom physical benefits such as increased flexibility, improved posture and increased 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 connection body-mind-emotions, helps them realize that everything is reflected in the body and that it is a two-way road,” says Elena Ferraris, yoga teacher and founder of the Elena Ferraris Yoga Center. “SIf I feel like I’m on a cloud, or as if I had a thundercloud overhead, or I feel very closed, I can work from my body, I can breathe widely, to focus myself, to feel better, to clear myself…”

In this yoga center, located in the Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí, 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-awareness 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 that sometimes where my stomach hurts and nothing happens, I continue, or they ask me to kiss my aunt and I don’t want to kiss her… With yoga we focus on feel how your body is, what it is asking of you. In the smallest children, it is a question of promoting what they already have, of valuing it, and with those who are growing, of helping them to recover what they are losing, respect for their own body”, explains Patricia.

This increased body awareness may be a valuable tool in difficult times. For Mamen Duch, a children’s yoga teacher at the Yogui Kids center in Barcelona and author of several children’s yoga books, this is one of the most important aspects. “With yoga you not only help them focus, become aware of their body and their breathing, but you help them discover within yourself tools to be able to return to calm or concentration in complicated moments of stress or nerves.”

yoga poses for kids

Neither are there specific yoga postures for children, nor are all yoga postures for children. But let’s go by steps.

Generally, children perform the same postures as adults, except for headstands in the case of younger children, because their cervicals are still being formed. “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 most 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 began to be like a tree: just as strong, but flexible. Or that they saw a dog and wanted to be like him, so they stretched their backs like him and stuff. And that’s where the yoga postures come from, from observing nature and connecting with nature.”

Anyway, yes there is postures that are most 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 it is accompanied by sounds, it is ideal for working on breathing.The posture of the child or the folded leaf: It is ideal for relaxing and you can give him a back massage while doing it.Downward Facing Dog: You can ask them how the dog would move, or how it would pee, so that they would raise their leg…The cat: a great posture to wake up in the morning and that is very easy to understand.The lion: if accompanied by a roar, it helps to get angry, and can be of great help in case of a tantrum. You can also practice in pairs looking at each other, which can be very liberating and end in laughter.The plane: a good balance posture, very fun, although difficult for the little ones.The warrior: in its different variants, ideal for them to feel the force and explore how it makes them feel.Salutation to the sun: Good physical work that is fun and that works the connection with nature and gratitude, also ideal to do at home in the morning, looking at each other, so that they can follow the postures by imitation.

Of course, there are many more and there is a large amount of resources with yoga postures to use both in class and at home (yoga cards, posture cubes, posters…). The difference basically lies in how they are usually performed:

The postures are entered through the game, for example by 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 can be chosen to your liking.They last a little whileless the younger the children. Accuracy doesn’t matter: posture is not correctedespecially in the early years. You can encourage make the postures emitting sounds, to roar like a lion, to make a hissing sound in the cobra… It is a way of working on the breath in the posture without saying it. images that appeal to your imagination and help them better understand the pose, like in the cat pose talking about doing the “angry cat.”

Beyond the work with the postures through play, in the yoga classes for children they are also done contact shots at the beginning of the sessions, relaxations, visualizations… and many other activities that, although a priori may seem like something else to us, are also yoga.

“Yoga is very connected to the elements and the cycles of nature,” explains Patricia de Santos. “In classes, for example, we can do celebrations in the changes of seasons: a ceremony to welcome spring, autumn, winter… and we can work on how your body, your emotions and your habits adapt to this.”

“Both when doing a yoga class and trying to bring yoga home with the children, if we understand that yoga is something very global, it is not just the postures, we have many possibilities. We can use the cards for the postures but we can do many other 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, it goes far beyond simply performing simple yoga postures so that they get used to it.

Yoga for children is simply a yoga that develops in a different way, a yoga in which the needs of children at each age are taken into account 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 amuses them, takes care of them and helps them get 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 actually doing yoga, but it is a way to reinforce the mother-baby bond.

However, as the baby grows and gains mobility often begins to imitate parents and participate moreso it can be a way to start introducing him to the postures and the calm atmosphere that is breathed in yoga classes.

“When mothers with babies manage to maintain the practice for a while, we see how later those babies, as they grow up, begin to imitate the mothers by doing the downward facing dog, the cobra… It is very beautiful and proof that, If we want children to do yoga, the ideal is that we start doing yoga ourselvesand that we do it together”, points out Elena Ferraris.

2. Children from 3 to 6 years old: play and dynamism

From 2 or 3 years, yoga is still ideal to be practiced with parents, also in classes. Creativity and dynamism are the key.

“With the little ones, everything is through play. The postures are introduced many times with tales, 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 long: they are more distracted.”

The precision in the postures is the least of it. And surprisingly, sometimes younger children are able to perform some poses quite easily. “Doing yoga with them is actually collaborate with what they already are, accompany 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 to move they do it with yoga movements. It’s something amazing!”

To work the breath In young children and not so young children can use the most varied simple and playful resources: blowing windmills, candles, dry leaves in autumn, felt balls…, blowing bubbles, placing a stuffed animal on the belly and watching it go up and down …

3. Children from 6 to 8 years old: little explorers

children no longer alone maintain postures and concentration for longerbut are more prepared to approach yoga with a new curiosity. The game is still essential and the way through 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 scouts. You can start to…