You might be thinking, aren’t toddlers too young for yoga? Absolutely not! In fact, toddlers and young kids are the perfect age to start. They are naturally curious and creative. They love to imitate other kids and adults. Toddlers and young kids also enjoy trying new fun and engaging activities, especially with their bodies! Did I mention they are MUCH more flexible than most adults? Learn the tips to get started, the important benefits for their growth and development, and the best yoga poses for toddlers and young kids here!
What Are The Benefits of Yoga for My Toddler or Kids? Why Should I Start Now?
If you can, start yoga for toddlers and kids as early as possible. Toddlers and kids learn by imitating, playing, and moving. Yoga includes all three of these learning techniques! They love to try new exciting activities, especially in a group setting with other kids. Yoga helps kids physically by increasing their coordination, strength, balance, flexibility, and aerobic capacity.
When it comes to mental health, yoga may be even better for the mind than the body! Yoga reduces toddler’s and kid’s stress and anxiety, improves their focus, memory, and discipline, and fosters group cooperation instead of competition.
And speaking of anxiety, here are 5 yogic breathing exercises to try.
It’s important we nurture positive habits in our children as early as possible. Because whether they are good or bad, habits are hard to break!
By the way, did we mention it’s super fun?
As we recently wrote about in a previous post titled, “8 Important Benefits of Yoga for Toddlers, Kids and Teens,” there are tons of great benefits and reasons WHY you start toddlers and kids early for yoga. Give it a read! It’s an excellent guide and resource for all of the top benefits and goes into detail on yoga’s benefits for older kids and teens, too.
The top benefits of yoga for toddlers and kids:
- Increases their memory and concentration skills
- Helps them manage stress and anxiety
- Promotes their positive body image and improves bodily awareness
- Teaches children discipline and reduces impulsive behavior
- Increases their strength, balance, flexibility, and aerobic capacity (for building strength and muscles, take a look at these yoga poses)
- Improves kid’s self-esteem
- Strong connection to higher academic performance and classroom behavior
- Supports group cooperation with others in a non-competitive environment
Consider Creating A Screen Time Plan BEFORE Your Toddlers and Kids Start Yoga
This is a quick, but important point we wanted to mention. As most parents already know, too much (or even worse, unlimited) screen time can create HUGE problems for toddlers and kids and can also stunt their growth and development. It’s important to discuss before we get started because, as mentioned, creating a yoga routine is something that can really help their ability to relax, concentrate, and focus. If nurtured properly and practiced consistently, these benefits can stay with them into their teenage years and adulthood.
However, too much screen time can directly interferes with these goals and benefits! Too much technology can destroy toddler’s and kid’s attention span and ability to concentrate, memorize, and focus. It can also INCREASE stress and anxiety as kid’s scroll endlessly (if you let them!).
Don’t get me started on YouTube!
Of course, we want to maximize and reap the best possible benefits of yoga for our children rather than being counterproductive. So, if you haven’t got one already, we STRONGLY advise you to create a family screen time plan for your toddler’s and kids based on experts from The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry :
General screen time recommendations for kids:
- Turn off all screens during family meals and outings.
- Learn about and use parental controls.
- Avoid using screens as pacifiers, babysitters, or to stop tantrums.
- Turn off screens and remove them from bedrooms 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
Age-specific screen time recommendations for babies, toddlers, and young kids:
- Until 18 months of age limit screen use to video chatting along with an adult (for example, with a parent who is out of town).
- Between 18 and 24 months screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver.
- For children 2-5, limit non-educational screen time to about 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours on the weekend days.
- For ages 6 and older, encourage healthy habits and limit activities that include screens.
Source: Screen Time and Children – The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Best Tips for Getting Toddlers and Kids Started in Yoga
Although similar, it’s important to understand the differences in teaching yoga to toddlers and younger children compared to teens and adults. Especially in the beginning, we want to focus more on posing than breathing exercises and meditation. Poses are more fun and exciting and will hold their interest for longer. We are also not seeking perfection! We can’t expect toddlers or young kids to hold poses for more than a few seconds due to lower levels of coordination. They will also get bored more easily. The key is to making yoga as fun, exciting, and stimulating as possible while also building their confidence and self-esteem!
Best tips for toddlers and kids beginning yoga:
- Ensure kids are safe and supervised at all times and away from hard surfaces, pointed edges, or anything else that could potentially cause injury
- Make it fun and exciting to maximize their interest and attention span.
- Keep it simple and start them with beginner poses to build their confidence and self-esteem.
- Modify poses if necessary
- Only hold poses for a few seconds before moving to the next one.
- Add in meditation and breathing exercises AFTER they have strong foundation with poses, and add them towards the end of the yoga session when they have gotten some of their energy out!
- Feel free to add accompanying high-energy and fun music! Just make sure it’s not loud and that kids and toddlers can still hear the yoga teacher’s instructions.
Fun, Easy, and Effective Yoga Poses for Toddlers and Kids
Toddlers and kids can practice indoors or outdoors on a yoga mat in a quiet and comfortable setting. As mentioned, keep it simple and make it FUN without worrying about perfect form, especially in the beginning. Feel free to invite some of your children’s friends to make it a group activity and add fun and high-energy music, too! Here are some of the best yoga poses for toddlers and kids that are safe, fun, and effective!
8 Fun and Easy Yoga Poses for Toddlers and Kids:
- Easy Pose (Sukhasana)
- Child’s Pose (Balasana)
- Happy Baby Pose (Ananda Balasana)
- Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
- Cat Cow Pose (Bitilasana Marjaryasana)
- Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Shvanasana)
- Lion’s Pose (Simhasana)
- Corpse Pose (Shavasana)
Easy Pose (Sukhasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
This is a great warm up to calm kids down and get started. Kids are very familiar with this pose as it is also used in school as sitting “pretzel-style” or with an even more fun name of “criss-cross-applesauce.” It also helps strengthen their back and learn better posture which will translate into the classroom as they get a little older and must sit longer periods of time at their desk.
How to do it:
- Sit down and cross legs.
- Rest hands on knees, with palms facing down.
- Sit up as tall as possible.
- Breathe slowly and deeply.
Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
This pose helps kids stretch their hips and thighs gently while also helping them relax. Specifically, placing their forehead on the mat often calms them down significantly and focuses their attention. Along with easy pose, this is another great warming up exercise that helps them settle down and understand it’s time to pay attention.
How to do it:
- Get on your hands and knees.
- Open your knees shoulder-width apart with big toes touching and tops of feet touching the floor.
- Bring your head and torso down.
- Rest stomach between thighs.
- Gently place forehead on floor, and relax shoulders, neck and face.
- Slowly stretch out your arms in front of body with palms touching the floor.
Happy Baby Pose (Ananda Balasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
This is a great pose for opening the hips and stretching the thighs and inner groin area. Along with lion’s pose, this is among the most fun for kids to try and inspires their creativity! Rocking back and forth also can make them feel silly and often makes them laugh!
How to do it:
- Lie on your back while keeping your spine as straight as possible.
- Pull your knees up and into your chest while keeping your hips down. Make sure your tailbone stays on the mat and your spine remains in neutral position.
- Flex feet with your soles facing up.
- Grab both big toes with your index and middle fingers and pull down gently.
- Move knees closer to your chest while keeping soles of feet facing up.
- Breathe slowly and deeply as you stretch the hamstrings, inner groin, and spine. Rock back and forth gently to massage the spine.
Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
This pose increases flexibility in the spine and stretches the shoulders, hips, chest, and especially the glute muscles in the thighs. This pose can be a little harder for kids (feel free to give them a pillow for added support if necessary) and gives them a great sense of empowerment, mastery, and self-esteem boost to achieve.
How to do it:
- Lie down on the back and bending the knees and elbows.
- Then place the feet flat on the floor with soles flat on the mat
- Slowly lift the body up in the air by lifting rear end and back to create a “bridge.”
- Tuck chin into chest and feel the stretch in the glute muscles.
- It is important to hold the pose for 20-30 seconds. This pose is one of the most beneficial poses as it strengthens the legs, thighs and back muscles and relieves arthritic pain. It helps in facilitating blood circulation when the heart is lifted at a raised level than that of a head. It helps in releasing blocked channels and reducing blood pressure. As this pose helps in stretching the spine and chest, it helps in relieving stress. This pose is great for people suffering with high blood pressure, stress and hypertension.
Cat Cow Pose (Bitilasana Marjaryasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids: Another super fun pose for toddlers and kids that stretches the spine, torso, and neck. This is relatively easy for most kids to learn and can also inspire confidence and boost their self-esteem. The most fun part for kids? Saying “Moo” and “Meow” as they get to stretch not only their body – but imagination, too!
How to do it:
- Get on hands and knees.
- Place the wrists underneath the shoulders and the knees underneath the hips
- While inhaling and exhaling, draw the navel toward the spine and gently tuck the tailbone.
- Repeat after inhaling again. Make sure you link the breath with the movement of the body.
- While doing the movement, awareness regarding one’s body should be there and focus regarding releasing the tension should be there. Practice the cat cow stretch at least 5-10 times in a day for the better mobilization of the spine. This pose not only stretches the spine but also the torso, shoulders and neck.
Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Shvanasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
This is really easy for kids and comes naturally. It’s a great way to build their confidence and self-esteem. It’s a great stretch to improve flexibility, coordination, and balance. The biggest fun-factor for kids? The upside-down view!
How to do it:
- Get on your hands and knees.
- Place the hands under the wrists and align them with the knees under the hips.
- Lift up the knees while pressing the hands and tucking the toes under.
- Make sure a slight bend in the knees and heels slightly off the ground. Also ensure weight is even distributed between both sides of the body and balanced.
Lion’s Pose (Simhasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
For many kids, this is likely the most fun of all the poses! They get to be creative, use their imagination, and get to pretend to be a lion and roar! It is a great energy release and helps them de-stress and calm down.
How to do it:
- Sit down and cross legs.
- Place palms on the knees facing down.
- Take a deep inhale through the nose.
- Open your eyes wide while also simultaneously opening your mouth and sticking out your tongue.
- Now, give a BIG exhale through your mouth and roar with the “ha” sound like a lion!
Corpse Pose (Shavasana)
Why it’s great for toddlers and young kids:
You might want to refer to this pose as the “sleeping,” nighty-night, or “resting” pose rather than the “corpse” pose so you don’t scare them! We saved this for last because it is the pose because it among the most relaxing and calming for kids and is a great finishing pose to wind down. Keep a blanket handy in case they slowly drift to sleep!
How to do it:
- Start by lying on your back.
- Extend your legs all the way out and spread them about shoulder width apart.
- Gently let your feet fall to either side.
- Place your arms next to your body and spread them out comfortably with palms up.
- Tuck your shoulder blades onto your back for additional support.
- Release all tension in limbs an relax your entire body. Let your fingers curl. Let the feet and toes fall naturally as you let go and release tension throughout the body.
- Relax in this position and breathe normally and naturally.
- If your child’s attention span is long enough, try to hold for 5 minutes.
We’ve presented other fun exercises in our article on yoga, meditation and breathing for kids with ADHD. Even if your child doesn’t have ADHD, but is simply hyperactive and has a short attention span, those exercises are great for him/her to try.
Conclusion
Our modern world is fast-paced, hectic, and increasingly stressful for everyone, including toddlers and kids. Teach them how to relax without screens! Give them the skills to not only relax and reduce anxiety and stress, but also techniques to enhance memory, concentration, and focus that will translate to better academic performance.
At the same time, they will also reap the physical benefits of enhanced coordination, flexibility, strength, balance, and aerobic capacity. Don’t forget about a boost in self-esteem and confidence, too! With all these benefits and strong recommendations from experts, why not give yoga a try? Start yoga with your toddlers and kids today!
Sources:
WebMD – Meditation and Yoga for ADHD
Shanti Arunkumar, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active
Learn more about Shanti by reading her bio below.
Click on link below to meet L’Aquila Active’s entire team of experts, including university degrees, certifications, and credentials on yoga and meditation: