Now that yoga has become more popular in the US, parents and teachers here are realizing that yoga isn’t just for adults. In fact, they’ve found lots of yoga benefits for children. That’s why schools across the nation have added yoga to their extracurricular options. Now, even preschoolers can get the benefits of a yoga practice. Does your child want to try yoga? If so, here are just a few of the many advantages that your child can experience from regular yoga practice.
Calm and Focus
As a practice, yoga provides excellent stress relief. It gives people a way to stay calm and get to know their bodies. This practice also enhances focus because it requires the participant to pay attention to their breathing and how the body feels. So, what does all of this mean when it comes to yoga benefits children? Children can experience anxiety, too. Yoga gives children a healthy way to recognize their stressors and deal with them appropriately. Furthermore, the enhanced focus can help them academically. Focus is like a muscle. The more a child works that muscle, the easier it is to use. Yoga provides a gentle way to practice.
Flexibility, Coordination, and Balance
By the time your child is three or four years old, they’ve made huge developmental strides. They can walk, jump, crawl, and run. They can gain even more bodily control through regular yoga. Benefits for children include increased flexibility, coordination, and balance. Remember that in many ways, your child is still getting used to this body. Yoga helps children gain a better sense of how their bodies move. They’ll work their muscles and become stronger with each session.
Alone or With a Team
Your child can practice yoga alone, with a group of other children, or both. Some team sports provide limited ways to practice alone, and some individual sports don’t work well with groups, but yoga works either way. Yoga provides the perfect balance of group dynamics and individual focus. It can be a way to bond with classmates or a way to stave off boredom. Thanks to yoga, your child can have flexibility in more ways than one.
Confidence Through Skill Building
Skill building is one of the many yoga benefits for children. Yoga can be as simple or as difficult as the participant desires. When a child masters simpler poses, they can move on to more complicated ones. As they build skills and get better at yoga, they’ll build their confidence, too.
Delayed Gratification
Looking for a way to teach your child patience? Well, patience is one of the best yoga benefits for children. During yoga, children have to learn how to delay gratification. They won’t gain strength and flexibility instantly. They’ll have to wait for those skills to develop over time. They won’t be able to do the coolest yoga poses right away, either. They’ll have to work for them. With regular yoga practice, your child can increase their patience, which will help them in other areas of their life, too.
Yoga Benefits for Children
Now that you know about all of these yoga benefits for children, how can you get your child started with yoga? Well, if your child attends Legacy Academy, you can start there. Legacy Academy at Suwanee Dam offers all sorts of extracurricular activities, including yoga. Interested in learning more about Legacy Academy? Contact us today. You can tell us about your childcare needs and even schedule your free tour of the school. We look forward to hearing from you.
