Teaching Children To Use Yoga to Self Regulate
One of the many benefits Yoga has is giving children tools to self regulate, in other words, how to calm your-self down. Children are encouraged to use breathing techniques and postures to move from an energetic state to a relaxed state within Yoga classes.
One of the exercises that I do in my class regularly is encouraging children to dance, move freely, do the boogie woogie, get their heart rates up and into an excited state and then asking them to stand in Mountain pose – Standing tall, feet together, feeling the Earth below, bringing the hands to their hearts, thumbs gently pushing against their chest to feel their heartbeat, closing their eyes and then slowing down by taking long smooth breaths. After a few breaths, I ask
Can you see how breathing slowly has helped to clam us down?
This way the children have a concrete experience of how to relax their heartbeat, change their state of mind and to literally calm themselves down.
I feel that just being aware of you they feel and how to change the way you feel is so empowering. We all have times where we have felt the need to change our state, times that we react instead of thoughtfully responding. The younger you are exposed to these tips and tools the more ingrained they will be in your response.
This article from conectABILITY is really informative and it goes into detail of many calming strategies. It is certainly worth a read.