05/04/2024
Therapeutic Benefits of Yoga for Children?
I am always looking for creative ways to work on developmental skills without a child realizing how hard they are working! Yoga is my favourite tool for disguising this hard work because it targets every developmental skill under the sun and because it’s FUN!
So what are the Therapeutic Benefits of Yoga for kids?
1. Flexibility
Yoga poses are designed to provide a whole-body stretch from head to toe. This can be a big advantage for children with neurological and physical disabilities who develop muscle tightness. However, working on flexibility is important for all children, as they spend much of their day seated at their desks in school, developing tight hamstrings, shoulders and more.
2. Strength
If you’ve ever held Chair Pose for more than a few seconds you’ll know that yoga requires a great deal of strength! That burning in your legs means that your muscles are working hard! Working with kids on developing strength is an important part of many therapy sessions and yoga does it all – from core strength to leg strength to upper body strength..there’s a pose for everything.
3. Body Awareness, Balance and Coordination
Getting in and out of yoga poses requires a strong sense of where your body is in space (the vestibular sense) and how your body parts are moving in relation to one another. Yoga poses also require complex combinations of movement to be performed in a smooth and fluent manner (coordination).
4. Attention and Behavioral Regulation
Yoga has an ability to calm and relax even the most active and inattentive kids. Breathing techniques commonly used in yoga are the perfect tools for children who struggle with impulsive behavior and inattention. Teaching calming breathing and visualization techniques can empower all children – letting them know that they have tools they can use anytime and anywhere to calm their bodies and minds.
5. Cognitive Skills and Language Development.
SLT’s and teacher’s often use yoga & other movement activities to work on direction-following and language processing. In order to follow along with a yoga sequence, children need to be tuned in to follow instructions.
6. Social Skills
Doing yoga as a group enhances the experience. Kids can feel one another’s energy, follow the example of others, and learn to be leaders. Practicing yoga is great for this & partner yoga is another great way to work social skills into the mix.
So How Do I Teach Yoga in Class?
By incorporating yoga into games, songs and stories or using yoga cards. I use Bridge Pose or Downward Dog Pose to see if a child can hold the posture while we roll a ball underneath. We play Mirror, Mirror to see if the children can mimic the same pose I’m doing & move smoothly from one pose to the next.
Yoga can also be used as preparation for other functional activities. I may use poses like Forward Bend or other upside down postures to provide kids with vestibular input that helps them attend and stay focused. I might use Downward Dog pose as an opportunity to provide weight bearing and proprioceptive input to prepare kids for handwriting activities.
Yoga is often used for movement breaks in the classroom for children who have difficulty sitting still for longer periods of time.
Quite often I can modify or create new poses to meet the needs of a child who may be limited cognitively or physically allowing everyone to join in the yoga fun!
Coordination
Development
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