Why should kids practice yoga?
Children today have more pressure than ever! Between school, home and other activities, they sometimes lose the ability to just be kids. Yoga helps children find ways to ease their pressures and allows them to find themselves in a non-competitive atmosphere. The benefits that children of all ages and abilities can obtain from regular yoga practice are inclusive of the same mind, body and soul benefits that adults achieve.
Yoga…
- Develops flexibility, strength, stamina, agility, balance, and coordination
- Helps with body awareness and sensory integration issues
- Promotes concentration, self-discipline and develops inner strength and clarity.
- Builds cooperative skills and good social behaviors
- Promotes positive communication and good listening skills which foster self-respect, compassion and respect for others.
- Builds self-confidence and self-trust in a non-competitive situation.
- Encourages creative imagination and self-expression.
Yoga and mindfulness are essentially self-care tools and reflective approaches that support the holistic approach to human development by integrating social and emotional learning with healthy lifestyle habits. Secular in nature, contemplative approaches have the ability to support development of attention, creative problem-solving and insight, emotional self-regulation, empathy and compassionate action.