4 Tried and Tested Tips To Get Your Kids Onto The Yoga Mat By Raffaella Veldhuyzen

Image by Amy Rowsell Photography

So you’ve been at home with your kids for a few months now. You’ve done ALL the arts and crafts, baking and science experiments. You’ve joined in with the online kids fitness classes. You’ve honed your dance skills, and maybe there has been a touch of screen time… 

What next?! What about something to help build mental and physical strength, peace and resilience ……  Yoga.  

Yoga for children is fun, playful and can be a really magical way of connecting with your beautiful young people. I have some super-achievable steps to create a home kids home yoga practice. These have worked for my busy 3-year-old boy and I am sure will work for your little darlings!

HAVE FUN & PLAY

Fun and play are key in kid’s yoga. Fun helps engage the children into the activity and keep them interested. For children aged 3 to 10, we love to make our yoga sessions super fun. You can make up rhymes for the sequences, use animal names for the poses, use the poses to tell a story based on their interests or turn games like ‘Freeze’ into a yoga game.

For older children you can make it fun by adding in some personal challenges, like how long can you hold the pose for, or see how many rounds of a yoga sequence you can complete.  

Over time you may be able to develop a more structured home yoga session. But start with simple games, a few yoga poses and grow from there. 

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

Get on down, doggy! Roll out a mat, take some deep breaths and practice a few poses or a yoga sequence yourself. Even if you are fairly new to yoga, attempt some well-known poses such as downward-facing dog, tree pose, plank and warrior 2. 

Your kids may climb all over you, but that is totally fine and also a lovely way to connect! 

Just keep it up, every few days practice a couple of poses or sit in meditation with your children near you, or on you! Then invite them in.

An invitation to the mat could look like you doing a downward dog, and saying “look – this is called dog pose” and then watching as they come and have a try too.

If they don’t want to join today, don’t force it. Just show your own enjoyment and then try again another day.

OFFER ENCOURAGEMENT 

This is important. Yoga poses can all seem a little strange at first. And many are quite challenging. It is so important to offer encouragement and praise when your child has a go. And having a go is enough!

Remember that a child’s body, spatial awareness and breath awareness are all still developing. They may find some poses unattainable or might find it hard to stay focussed. Again, all fine and so normal. Offer praise for their efforts. 

Here are some phrasings that I use …. “Look how strong your body is.” “Wow, that is a great yoga pose you are doing right now.” “Amazing focus today!” “Thank you for joining me today, I really love practicing yoga with you.” “Wow, they are some really deep breaths, I could even see your belly fill up. How did it feel for you?”

CREATE A RITUAL

Once you have introduced the practice of yoga to your little ones, you can create a ritual. Signal the start of your yoga session with three deep breaths. Then get in to your yoga poses, games or a yoga sequence. Finish with three more rounds of deep breath, sit in stillness and ask them to notice how they feel in their body and mind. Then give thanks to one another for the practice. 

By creating a ritual, you make it special and it helps children know what to expect next time they do yoga with you. Taking the time to ask them how they feel is also really important, as it helps them to notice the calming and uplifting effects of yoga.

And that’s as simple as it can be. 

Keep it fun, invite them in, encourage and make it special. 

With just 15 minutes of yoga, your children will stretch their bodies, take some deep breaths, slow down for a mindful moment and feel good in their mind and body.

Raffaella is an adults and children’s yoga teacher, a Primary School teacher and a former journalist. She has developed a home-yoga program for children over at https://yogadarlings.com
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