Why You Should Sign Your Kids Up For Yoga

Why Sign Them Up?

It turns out that Ms Babicci isn’t the only person seeing the potential benefits of yoga for kids. Here are some of the things that a yoga practice can help your child with:

To Improve Physical Flexibility

Kids are quite flexible when they’re young, but the challenge is to retain that flexibility as they grow. Having a strong foundation of flexibility can make many things easier in life, improving your child’s active body and also decreasing the risk of injury. Yoga promotes physical strength because it involves using many muscles in the body, often in way that children haven’t done before. This in turn helps kids figure out how their body works best, and how to take care of each muscle group.

To Develop Focus and Concentration

Let’s be honest, kids aren’t always the most switched on when it comes to getting focused and holding that focus, but yoga might be able to help. The act of practicing yoga poses and focusing on the breathing that is associated with the activity can really help kids to calm their minds, which in turn improves their concentration and focus in the long term. When kids focus on achieving a new position, or remembering a series, they’re building skills in focus that stretch far beyond a yoga class.

To Better Balance and Coordination

Balance is an important part of yoga, and it’s also an important skill that children develop as they grow. Figuring out growth spurts can make this process pretty difficult, but a yoga practice, and a strong body mindfulness, can help. Balancing poses in yoga are there to encourage mental and physical grace, as well as clarity and stability. Trying these poses and practicing them regularly can help your kids improve their own balance. As for coordination, yoga has been shown to help both gross and fine motor coordination in children.

So would you want your kids to try yoga?

Clare Whitfield Chief Editor

Clare Whitfield is the Editor of Stay at Home Mum and a recognised voice in practical home management for Australian families. Based in the northern suburbs of Sydney, she balances editorial leadership with life as a stay at home mum to two school age children. Her background in home economics and more than a decade of experience in recipe development, family budgeting, and household systems inform her work.

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