Children’s Yoga, Conscious Movement for Mini Yogis & Yoginis

Children’s yoga teaches little ones and young people how to deal with pressure and change. In this article you can read more about yoga exercises for children!

If you thought yoga was just for adults, guess again. Children also benefit greatly from it. Young people are growing, so they are constantly challenged socially, emotionally, and physically. From the little ones to teenagers going through major changes: learning to move consciously could give children tools to discover themselves and the world!

Why Kids Yoga?

According to experts, yoga has a positive influence on areas that are still developing among young people, such as:

• body awareness
• coordination
• concentration
• creativity
• language development
• self confidence
• social skills

The difference between yoga and school or sports is that self-awareness is the top priority instead of performance. Through playful exercises, kids get the chance to discover their inner world on their own. And according to yoga teachers, you can’t start early enough!

Holistic Children’s Yoga

What is children’s yoga compared to the adult variant? What the lesson looks like exactly differs per age group (and yoga school). Below you will find a brief description of yoga for:

• toddlers and preschoolers
• schoolchildren
• teenagers and adolescents

Exercise with Toddlers and Preschoolers

It is important for toddlers and preschoolers that exercise is fun. Curiosity about your body and what you can do with it is central. That is usually a bull’s eye for this age group, just discover movement! Teachers therefore often add a game element to the exercises to stimulate the imagination of young yogis and yoginis. At the same time, boundaries are also discussed and the kids learn to respect themselves and their peers by doing asanas or massaging each other.

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Yoga for Schoolchildren

Schoolchildren are busy bees. Not only are they overloaded with new information every day, their social life and hobbies are also changing rapidly. In this age phase, children usually become aware of competition, achievement, and  differences. According to children’s yoga teachers, it is therefore important that students maintain an equally large dose of relaxation and fun in addition to these challenges. Children of this age are also increasingly aware that they have their own feelings and how to deal with them. That subject is also often discussed in the lessons for mini yogis and yoginis, for example through super simple breathing exercises!

Yoga Classes for Teens

Teenagers and adolescents find themselves in a pressure cooker of hormonal changes. Not only their bodies change radically, their emotional, and mental selves also experience erratic growth spurts. A little rest and concentration are therefore not a superfluous luxury! In addition, it is super important for young adults to both find their place in the group and discover who they actually are. All these contradictions are welcome in adolescent and teenage yoga. For example, the kids not only do asanas, meditations and positive affirmations, but good conversations and sharing experiences are often part of the lesson.

Yoga For Kids Exercises

Children’s yoga exercises for the little ones are an invitation to playfully increase their body awareness. Fantasy helps toddlers and preschoolers to keep their attention and experience something real. Classic yoga poses such as ‘the cobra’, ‘the cat’, and ‘the dog’, for example, are excellent for visualization games, such as depicting fairy tales. Children’s yoga postures therefore resemble asanas for adults, but then adapted to the experience and development of children. When they get a little older and ‘more serious’, the focus changes, for example, to self-reliance and self-reflection!

Kids Yoga Before Sleeping: Yoga Nidra for Kids

Just like Yin Yoga, Yoga Nidra is a form in which you do nothing, except relax deeply under guidance. Although it is quite difficult for children to lie still, a tailor-made Nidra session would do them a lot of good. In addition to rest in the moment itself, according to yogis, really relaxing is an art that will accompany you throughout your life! Yoga Nidra for children is usually done around bedtime, to help restless sleepers or give positive attention to relaxation. For example, there are special texts that you can read while your child is listening. It’s really fun for everyone.

Children’s yoga at home? This is What You’ll Need

Do you want to get started with children’s yoga for little ones at home? Then these items are nice to have:

• a yoga mat or rug
• yoga pillows, blankets, or stuffed animals
• soft, flexible clothing
• a bell or other recognizable sound

Their own mat not only gives your child the feeling of being super special, but also a framework to do exercises in. For example, toddlers and preschoolers are still practicing spatial awareness, so a designated place is very helpful. For older children, the mat can become their own domain, where they can concentrate or retreat. There are special mats for children, but one for adults also works fine, just like a rug. The same applies to meditation cushions and bolsters. So feel free to use your Hatha Yoga gear and if you don’t have it, the cushions or stuffed animals present in the house! Finally, you can start and end the session with a song, bell, or other kind of Spiritual Music. This is how you make it a real ritual! Namaste to you and your little yoga partner.

Which exercises will you do with your mini yogi(-ni)?