More Kids Meditation Fun

Yoga CD Giveaway

It's Earthy Yoga Mom's first giveaway! Hurray!

During the month of July, I'll be giving away five copies of my favorite kids yoga CD, I Grow with Yoga to randomly selected Facebook fans of Namaste Baby, my wee kids yoga company.

So become a fan of Namaste Baby on Facebook and you could win a copy for yourself! This CD has most of the most popular music I use during my own kids' classes and my son Kai loves it, too!

Research Says Meditation Benefits Preschoolers and Elementary School Students

USA Today ran a great piece this week about meditation in schools and hospitals:

Preliminary research shows that Los Angeles preschoolers who were taught meditation improved in their ability to pay attention and focus. For early elementary school kids, improvement came only in those who had attention problems at the start, says Susan Smalley, a UCLA behavioral geneticist who did the research with psychologist Lisa Flook. Very young brains may be more malleable, she speculates.

I LOVE building a bit of meditation into my classes. For preschoolers, it's super brief, something like closing their eyes and imagining someone they love for a few moments. For older kids (especially those oh-so-contemplative and introspective 7- and 8-year olds), I love doing guided meditations and visualizations, or breathwork/meditation. Kids work so much more earnestly and willingly on their meditatio

Yoga, Kids, Fun, and Inspiration

"Thank you...I had a very bad today. I was all riled up - it was a very bad day. But I feel better now and calmer." So said seven year old Henry after a recent end-of-the-school-day yoga class I taught to elementary students in Allston, MA. It had been a rough day - the class's teacher told me she herself had been in tears earlier.

I LOVE my job. LOVE it. Kids take yoga so seriously and playfully all at once. They practice yoga like they were born to practice it and the way we as adults often only aspire to practice - with joy and acceptance humor and spirit and focus!

In the coming months, I'll be teaching more and more classes for older students. I've recently had the pleasure of completing additional training in kids' yoga instruction, and am nearing the end of my 200-hour adult teacher training as well. I'm becoming very interested in research and news about the impact of yoga and meditation on young people - after seeing it first hand for over a year now, I'm more committed than ever to living a path that brings this gift to our kids.