Today’s world is offering more challenges than ever to our children and their families. Challenges that our society are ill equipped to efficiently support. One only needs to look around and see that we are trying to raise our children in an outdated paradigm of rules, regulations, demanding structures and very little nurturing and compassion.
A new approach is needed to take care of the new challenges our children and families are facing nowadays. Bullying, social medias, video games, poor diet and other social distractions cause many disorders such as anxiety, depression, autism
All those factors make it difficult for a child of any age to stay connected with his true self and our schools and communities are so institutionalised that little is done to address those problems.
More and more schools are trying to incorporate the power of yoga and mindfulness into their curriculum nowadays. Studies have demonstrated that schools who have incorporated yoga in their curriculums have cultivated further competence in mind-body awareness, self regulation and physical fitness. Teachers also benefit from yoga as it leads to improvement in children’s behaviours, mental health performance and overall classroom climate.
But what is yoga exactly?
More than a discipline, yoga is a philosophy of life. This millennium practice inherited from our country is a method of relaxation based on postures and control of breathing.
From the time they can walk, children can begin to practice yoga even as early as 2 years old. Yoga is recommended for those who need to practice simple exercises to focus on their balance and to move harmoniously.
The benefits for children who practice yoga are:
- Increase in concentration, ability to focus more
- better self esteem
- flexibility in the body but also in their daily behaviour
- adaptability to changes, consciousness of the body in space
- better balance
- emotional and physical stability
- release of pent up energy
Bringing Yoga in Poornodaya Vidyanikethan
In Poornodaya we have introduced yoga to the children and we can already see the benefit of it. Children love it and are always asking for it. Yoga for kids includes songs, different kind of games and fun activities to help them stay alert. This is the way we do it at Poornodaya.
First we start with small breathing exercises and short meditation exercises that will allow us to concentrate. Then we do some stretching exercises to enable the body to loosen up and to relax. We want to make yoga fun for the children and the postures we use are adapted to their age but also to their taste. Most postures we use have names relevant to nature such as the cat position, downward dog position etc….those work very well with children. Then after we have done breathing exercises and asanas (positions) practice comes the time to relax . This step is essential for it allows children to refocus and feel all the benefits of yoga.
Teachers attend the yoga classes in the morning alongside the students. Not only does this create a positive environment and relationship between the students and teachers, but also has enabled the teachers to learn the foundation of the class. This key foundation will allow them to teach the students themselves.
Beatrice Allegret, France
Poornodaya Vidyanikethan