What more could a parent ask for?

As yoga becomes more mainstream in our culture, there is more clinical research being done about the effects of yoga and children.  It is very positive!  Below is a quote from the recent edition of Yoga Journal.

According to Harvard neuroscientist and yoga researcher Sat Bir Khalsa, yoga trial findings are important because new research shows that the majority of clinically significant indicators of mental health originate in adolescence, and most of those problems are related to stress.

Khalsa feels if these techniques were taught at an earlier age, we’d see fewer instances of lifestyle-related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.  “Yoga practices,” he says, “are an effective form of preventative medicine, because they enhance stress resilience and foster mind-body awareness, which lead to positive lifestlye choices.”  What more could a parent ask for?

Excerpt from an article found in Yoga Journal October 2010 Teach your Children Well pg 76

Yoga for Kids in WSJ

Here is yet another article published in the Wall Street Journal this summer about the benefits of yoga for young children.

Click here to read more.

Yoga Benefits According to YogaEd

I recently attended a workshop taught by YogaEd, an organization that trains school teacher to teach yoga in the classroom.  It was a great experience.  Here is one of my take a way’s that I thought I would share with you.

The Benefits of Yoga:

Yoga is non-competitive.
Kids practice being supportive and respectful because they must slow down, notice and work with their own experience.  It is process-focused, not goal focused.  Everyone can do yoga, feel good about it and help each other with it.

Yoga requires staying present.
Kids develop focus, concentration and discipline through yoga.  They experience how their own mind-b0dy system works, and therefore learn how to work more productively with themselves.  Kids learn how to consciously change their mental and emotional states, becoming more responsible for their choices and health.  They have tools to bring themselves into balance with leads to feeling good and making healthy nutrition choices such as eating more fruits and vegetables.

Yoga is practical, low-cost preventative medicine.
Yoga serves as a balancing and restorative counter-pose to modern life.  Kids shift the stress response in their autonomic nervous systems and move from fight-or-flight to creativity and enjoyment while enhancing fitness.

Yoga creates balance, integration, flexibility, and quiet.
Kids slow down, find center and become more present through yoga.  They also release tensions and toxins.  They feel better, are more relaxed, and can therefore focus and participate fully in learning and exercise.

Yoga expands and enriches awareness and the experience of our inner life.
Yoga is a tool that enables children to have a greater sense of SELF.  They become less reactive and grounded, creative, communicative, compassionate and alive.

Yoga is not an intellectual process; it is experiential and social.
Kids feel the difference in themselves and in the group after doing yoga.  They personally experience coherence and calm and take joy in having given it to themselves.

Yoga is a level playing field.

I have come across an article written in Reader’s Digest that I find quite interesting.  It was written in May of 2010.  There is increasing awareness of the importance yoga can have on academic learning and the calmness and concentration that children feel after regularly practicing yoga and mindfulness.  “Janet Buckenmeyer, an associate professor of education at Purdue University, surveyed six elementary schools, including one in Canada – Cameron Public School in North York – to assess the effect of yoga taught during the school day.  Her 2007 study looked at students from kindergarten to Grade 5, and their teachers and parents, before and after an eight-week term of twice weekly yoga classes.  Ninety percent of teacher and parents reported that yoga improved academic achievement.  And students reported that they felt calmer for test, better able to concentrate more confident and more focused.”

Dancing Crow Yoga

There is a new yoga studio opening up in Hingham on March 22nd.  This yoga studio is located above Crate & Barrell at the Derby Street Shops.  

Here are a couple of quotes from Fay Sutherland the studio owner.
“Offering thoughtful and challenging yoga for clients of all levels, ages and body types.”
“Dancing Crow Yoga will offer classes for students of every level, in a variety of yoga styles.  “Our teachers emphasize alignment and safety” says Sutherland.  “We will challenge students to become stronger and more flexible while observing their unique abilities and limitations.” says Fay Sutherland, the studio’s owner and founder.  This is just one of the ways in which yoga teaches us to find the balance between effort and relaxation.”

I, Meg Durkin will be offering yoga for children at this studio.  My first class will start Tuesday March 23rd from 9:30 – 10:30 for children ages 3 – 6.   There is a yoga studio next door where adults can take a yoga class from Nikki Jacobs simultaneous to the kids class.  What could be better than both Mom/Dad and Child  having yoga at the same time at each individuals appropriate level!

Check out the website:
www.dancingcrowyoga.com

Yoga for Children at South Shore Conservatory

I will be offering four classes at the South Shore Conservatory starting January 11th.  One of the classes will be part of a new program called Arts Clusters — a variety of up to three consecutive arts-based classes for children aged three to six.  Yoga will meet on Wednesday mornings as part of this program.  For more information check out this article recently published in the  Hingham Journal.

Yoga on Sesame Street

Yoga is hitting the big time.  The New York Times published a story on November 3rd about Sesame Street.  This is Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary.  The show has changed over time.  One of the new changes is that yoga is mentioned now on Sesame Street.

“This season has an Om sensibility. “My mom takes me to yoga class, I love doing yoga,” a little girl in pigtails says in an episode that ran in October. She is narrating a short film that shows a pixieish teacher and her pupils folding into the downward dog position. After class her mother arrives with a plastic water bottle. “She says it’s important to drink water when you exercise,” the girl explains. “When I grow up I want to be a yoga teacher.”

Click here to read more about the article.