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Children are exposed to a lot of stress factors nowadays.
There is homework that they do daily...
the competition with other children...
TV and computer games...
and even over-scheduling.
And just like adults these kids need something relaxing to turn into and that could be: Yoga.
Yoga for kids helps them develop better body awareness, it also delivers them total self-control, flexibility, and coordination.
All of these they could carry not just in their class but these exercises can help them with their daily routines.
Yoga for kids has been shown to help children who are hyperactive tone down and brighten up their attention deficits. Children today crave movement and sensory motor stimuli that can help them balance out their inner soul flow.
Yoga for kids helps them channel these impulses in a positive way.
The main Yoga for kid's poses that seem to work perfectly with kids is the warrior pose and the tree pose. These two yoga for kids poses helps instill in their calm, confidence, and balance.
The trick to getting them to do Yoga for kids is to go beyond just doing the proper poses, you should have to get them to think about what real posture means.
Let them think that they are really what the poses are symbolizing, let them be the postures – strong and confident like a warrior.
Yoga for kids with partners is also a good way to build up trust with your children. It develops their team skills and fosters closer bonding.
Some kids when it comes to relaxation have 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 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 issue is discussed. Just stick to the visualization thing if this technique is quite complicated for you.
Every day at the end of each relaxation exercise, encourage the children to share their own experiences. Ask them to tell the group what it was like to be in their visualized surroundings. Ask them also to share what place they imagined they were 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 here is to instill a sense of peace and a 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 the union of mind, body, and spirit.
There is such a wealth of knowledge we can offer our children with the practice of Yoga.
