The Value of Yoga for Kids

Sharing yoga with my growing family simultaneously developed as teaching yoga became a greater part of my professional life. In 1992, I ended my full-time work as a registered art psychotherapist/family therapist, and established a home-based yoga studio. This enabled me to schedule classes around my children’s schedules and to be home with them full-time throughout their formative years. While I practiced my yoga, my babies and toddlers would play yoga with me, copying me as well as creating their own poses.

We began to regularly practice yoga together. In 1997, I developed and implemented the children’s yoga program in Toronto called YogaBuds™ for Kids. My children continue to practice yoga by themselves or with me and participate in the children’s classes and workshops. They are literally growing up with yoga as a natural and integrated part of their lives.

With today’s frightening reality of childhood obesity combined with an increase in sedentary activities such as computer and videos, as well as the increase in children’s eating disorders, introducing yoga to children at an early age is a wonderful way to help them to exercise, to develop body awareness and a positive self-image. Oftentimes at the dinner table, my children will assess each family member’s posture while ensuring that their own is correct. We all laughingly sit up just a little bit straighter! Children are naturally drawn to the fluid movements in yoga because it is fun, easily accessible, and natural to them as they are always in motion.

When doing yoga, one can’t help but improve with practice. As a result, children feel good about themselves because they derive an immediate sense of accomplishment, and their self-esteem is enhanced. As children become successful at the more advanced poses, their self-confidence increases and their motivation to learn more poses never wanes. Today’s children are faced with so many stressors, and in their fast paced world, they too need to learn how to slow down. Yoga teaches them the invaluable life skills of relaxation and centering. As much as the children are intrigued with yoga, I am intrigued that their favorite pose is the final relaxation pose called “savasana” or corpse pose.

Living Life With Grace Through Yoga

I recently experienced a major milestone. It was the 20th year anniversary of my yoga practice. I first discovered yoga during my university days, and it has since been a major component of my life. It has remained a constant throughout all of the life stages that I have passed through. My yoga has evolved with me as I matured from a young single woman into marriage, pregnancy and parenthood. Yoga, in all its manifestations, has enabled me to live my life with grace. Throughout the past 20 years I have successfully woven yoga into the fabric of my hectic life, and it has greatly helped to sustain me.

As a professional and mother of three young children, the struggle to achieve a sense of balance in my life is ongoing. In addition to nurturing myself and my marriage, providing for my children’s needs and schedules, managing the household and housework, I also run a business and teach weekly yoga classes and workshops to kids, adults and families. I am blessed to have discovered many valuable work-life balance tools which I strive to daily implement in my journey towards balance and wholeness.

Yoga is a Sanskrit word that literally means “yoke” or “union”. Through the process of yoga, we bring into unity the three aspects of the self: mind, body and spirit. We also create a balance between active practice and passive surrender. Harmony is created inside of ourselves as all aspects come together like the different performers playing a symphony.

Over the past few years, yoga has moved rapidly into the mainstream. However, the very essence of what yoga is at risk for becoming lost due to the commercialization of yoga. Yoga is about so much more than the attractive appearance of the superstars and models doing yoga and the vast array of props, products and paraphernalia available. The 5000 year tradition of yoga is becoming diluted as yoga offshoots and hybrid forms of yoga are being developed, as studios pop up on every corner as quick money-making ventures, and as the advertising industry at times misrepresents yoga in campaigns that distort its meaning and value. As the marketing of spirituality and the false pursuit of the body beautiful is promoted, people believe that enlightenment and inner beauty can be bought. So for the average woman interested in pursuing yoga, how can she understand what yoga is really about? And how can she learn to apply its richness to her life?

Understanding the Yoga Journey

Beginners come to yoga for relief from stress, physical issues or pain. If the practitioner is consistent in her practice - even just weekly - she observes that her posture begins to improve. If she does miss a class, she finds that she really felt its absence in her week. She discovers to her delight that the body and the postures are really just tools to teach her how to quiet the mind and to connect with her inner self. And that the key to achieving balance in her life is in accessing this center.

The student comes into class, and stands on her mat. The practice begins. The breath has new meaning. Possibly for the very first time ever, there is a new awareness of breath and of the breathing process. The brain cells begin to settle, and there is a meditative quality in practicing the poses. The intense focus on the body and the execution of the postures, or asanas, increase one’s concentration and attention span. All other unrelated thoughts are absent. Challenge and pleasure in movement is felt. The normal experience of an hour or two is altered: time dissipates. Then class is over - the fluctuations of the mind are stilled, the body is well stretched, muscles toned and joints lubricated, tensions are released. The student joyfully steps off her mat and into her world outside of the studio.

Chaos ensues. Traffic jams. Late for car-pool. Deadline at work looms. Return home. One child’s scraped knee, another battle between siblings. While on the phone asking her partner to pick up milk, the pot boils over, the baby spills the can of apple juice and someone is at the door. What happened to the tranquility of the yoga studio? How to remain calm in the present moment without the desire to flee? Where to find the inner point of stillness that the teacher referred to?

There are no easy answers, magic formulas or simple roadmaps to follow. However, committing to a consistent practice of yoga over time does teach you how to return to your center when needed. In class, as you quiet your thoughts, observe your breath and follow the instructions being given while in a pose you learn how to stay fully connected with yourself in the moment. As you learn to detach from external stimuli and distractions and to take your awareness inwards, you are drawn to your core. You begin to discover your own sense of stability, strength, balance and calm. Learning to stand firmly in the basic standing posture called “tadasana” or mountain pose, creates a sense of grounding from the feet. As the rooting in the feet occurs, the spine and spirit begin to ascend up. Eventually, regardless of what surrounds you, you will be able to maintain your poise, steadiness and focus. Then when you have stepped off the mat and into your life, you will be well equipped to tackle whatever challenge presents itself to you with equanimity and grace.

The Joys and Rewards of Living Life through Yoga

Yoga has provided a baseline and a framework for my life. For the past 30 years, I have never missed a day of yoga practice. I view my world from the yoga ‘lens.’ Yoga is so much more than just the physical process. It has enabled me to integrate all aspects of myself and to strive to live an authentic life in which work, family and personal needs merge and balance.

The yoga philosophies, both ethical and moral constraints, the lifestyle of moderation in diet and all endeavors, walking the middle path, interacting without judgment and with compassion, and understanding the interconnections among all living things are just some of the ways in which yoga permeates and guides my actions and thoughts.

Through my yoga practice, I have been able to create time for myself. While savoring the solitude, the practice provides me with a balance against the myriad of responsibilities I face, as well as the hectic pace of life.

During my practice, I draw inward and access the ‘Divine’ within. I experience my creative spirit, and my intuition. It is from my inner core that I am able to experience my authenticity, my strength, and my stability. When practicing pranayama, or breath control, I connect with my breath, and with my inner organic body. From this point of stillness and integration I feel energized and calmed, and am thus able to interact with others with clarity, patience and compassion.

Yoga has been a gift of health to me in my life, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It has helped me to maintain my physical strength and flexibility, to increase balance, coordination and grace. It has enabled me to move through three pregnancies with joy, awe and appreciation and has further assisted me in my acceptance of life stage changes and my transitions through them.

I am honoured to be a conduit to pass on the blessings of yoga to my mother, my three young children, and husband, and to my students.

Using Yoga in Healing Practice

In the Fall of 2001, my mother began to experience physical limitations due to osteo arthritis, sciatica and back pain. At 78- years of age, she turned to yoga to maintain her mobility, manage her pain, and soothe her spirit. Due to her serious and oftentimes debilitating physical issues, her yoga has been practiced primarily for relief from aches and pains, and for gaining physical benefits. Supports like the wall, and props such as chairs, wooden blocks and belts, as developed by B.K.S. Iyengar, have often been utilized during her practice.

Due to yoga, her body awareness and her posture have greatly improved. As she practices standing postures, she practices lifting her trunk up as she extends and lengthens her psoas and abdominal muscles. After the first time that my mother practiced a new resting pose on her own, I received a phone call from her. She stated, “You’ll never guess what happened? I fell asleep for twenty minutes while doing this pose!”

Establishing a new routine for someone at this stage of life is not easy and there have been some pitfalls along the way. Yet despite the difficulty in maintaining motivation and consistency with her yoga practice, my mother has remained committed to her yoga. As positive results continue to occur, she has come to enjoy and trust in the yoga process. Yoga has given my mother hope, healing and health. And after a lifetime of selfless giving, it is such a pleasure to see her learning to take time for herself and responsibility for self-care.

When practicing yoga together, my mother, my children and myself may all be in the same pose but in three different ways. Poses may be modified to meet each person’s needs for we each have different abilities and are at different stages of life. At times my children act as my assistants, helping their grandmother in a pose and there is always much laughter in the room. Yoga is a highly individualized process and may mean different things for different people. When doing yoga together, grandmother, daughter and grandchildren experience this ancient healing art nonverbally, and this connects all of us in a deep manner.

As I have become the conduit to carry the gifts of yoga to my mother and to my children, my roles as daughter, mother and teacher merge, and I am an active partner in their journeys. Interestingly enough, a role reversal occurs as I become caregiver to my mother while also being a role-model of living a healthy lifestyle for my children. This unique triad involving three generations practicing yoga together is a very special gift in my life. I feel immense gratitude for the opportunity to touch the lives of those I love so dearly through the yoga teachings. Regardless of what stage of life we are at, we hold the key to achieving balance in our lives. With this, we can practice our yoga on or off the mat.