Childhood is one of the most precious gifts of nature to all human being. Full of fun and frolic! But nowadays, we have stolen those golden carefree moments. On the one hand, the societal developments have given us modern gadgets and high tech society and on the other hand they have made our life total mechanical. Our children are compelled to lead a stressful life, be it simple school homework or sports or future carrier. To overcome such necessary evils kids should be motivated to practice yoga. Yoga is not just an exercise but a guide to disciplined life.

Yoga for kids is a noncompetitive performance that inculcates confidence and awareness in their mind and body. Yoga helps the attention-deficit and hyperactive child.  Their degree of coordination increases and limbs experience greater flexibility. Kids with regular habit of yoga practices excels in every aspects of activities, be it school’s results or sports.

A note of caution – all kinds of yoga are not suitable for the child. The body of the child is still growing and cannot deal with intense yogas, as it can affect their mind and body. Some beneficial yogas for children are - tree pose, the warrior pose, partner pose etc. These infuse sense of confidence, peace and maintain their body balance.

If asanas are taught to kids with mixture of simplicity they will definitely enjoy doing it. Remember, children visualize every event they perform and a good yoga teacher should deal them psychologically. Prepare them mentally to enjoy performing yoga, never force them. For example, let us discuss the warrior posture – make children assume that they are warrior. A warrior should have strength and confidence. Hence, while doing yoga with the warrior pose they will visualize themselves as warriors. In the same way, the partner pose generate team spirit.

For younger children and toddlers, yoga exercise contains simple postures like copying movements and maintaining balance. Five to eight year old kids can start from practicing single breath and increase them up to three breaths. Also stretching exercises can be continued.