After 16 years of teaching primary school children, with teaching and learning becoming ever more focused upon passing tests and the curriculum continuing to narrow with increasingly unrealistic expectations, I retrained as a yoga teacher with a focus on children’s yoga and mindfulness. Seeing more and more children worried, anxious and lacking the self confidence to ‘have a go’ I began to teach m
y classes simple yoga and mindfulness practices to nurture their self esteem and confidence. Yoga is an amazing way to enable children to be better equipped to deal with stressful situations, resolving conflict and enjoying good mental health and emotional well-being. My own two daughters (currently in year 7 and year 4) take part in an after school yoga club, and frequent words that they use to describe how yoga helps them are; peaceful, happy, calm and able to communicate more clearly and share ideas, understanding how others feel. Through story telling, imagery and play we explore postures and stretches. With the emphasis being on fun to spark imagination and creativity, classes aim to improve self-awareness and nurture self-esteem and confidence. Children’s mental health is crucial for lifelong well-being, happiness and success, and I believe that this should be considered as important as academic achievement. We all want our children to do their best academically but for them to feel secure, happy, confident, adventurous, brave and willing to take risks is surely just as important.
