Why Center Stage Preschool, Ashburn Incorporates Yoga Into Their Afternoon Program?
Yoga outside on a warm spring afternoon!
It’s hard to be a kid today. Children live in a constantly moving world with many distractions, busy parents, overstimulation, school pressures, and competitive sports. We usually don’t think of these influences as stressful for our kids, but often they are. The busy pace of our children’s lives can have a profound effect on their sense of joy and usually not for the better.
The practice of yoga can help counter these pressures. Physically, it enhances their flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness. In addition to when children learn techniques for self-regulation, concentration and a sense of calmness and relaxation, they can navigate life’s challenges with a little more ease. Fostering cooperation and compassion for self and others—instead of opposition.
Some Benefits Of Teaching Yoga To Our Center Stage Students:
1. Breath Awareness
Breathing exercises can energize kids or encourage relaxation, depending on what you teach. Different games and techniques help kids connect to how their bodies feel as a result of deep breathing. In guiding their bodies through the poses, children learn more about their bodies and what they are capable of. They learn more about their minds, and how they can affect not only their own attitudes and approaches to life, but also the attitudes of others. Focus increases, as does their breathing and lung capacity. Stress is naturally reduced and healthy hormones are released.
So Flexible!
2. Yoga is non-competitive
In today’s world, we hear so much about being the best and achieving the most. Yoga teaches kids that their bodies are different; different bodies do different things and all of them are okay. There is no one better or worse at yoga than anyone else; we are all just learning from our bodies in our own way. Yoga is truly for everybody.
3. Balancing
Balancing poses teach children that with increased focus, you can increase attention naturally, even in kids who struggle with different attention challenges. Poses and games focused on balancing skills, develop an inner strength, and promote stillness and quieting of the mind. This can help kids deal with the stress of living in a world where constant stimulation is a regular part of life.
4. Focus
Yoga helps create awareness in the body through deep breathing and movement. It gives kids a way to express themselves, build a strong connection between what they hear and what they do. Children that have healthy body awareness are more confident and strong, have better posture, breathe better and have a sense of quiet strength.
5. Flowing and connecting
When we string poses together, we give kids a taste of what it means to move with ease. It also helps them build the awareness that all our movements are a series of coordinated efforts between muscles, bones, joints and nerves.
6. Relaxation
Yoga at Center Stage Preschool, Ashburn
Yoga is relaxing by nature. Young kids deal with frustration most typically by crying and throwing tantrums. When they learn proper, healthy breathing techniques and tools to focus the mind, they begin to learn how to apply those tools in their everyday lives and to react appropriately to any situation. So whether a child is holding a balancing posture, sitting in relaxation or moving through a series of poses, there’s going to be a calming, soothing quality. Giving younger kids something to do as they rest on their mats will help with their attention, such as suggesting they think of a favorite color or toy.
7. Yoga supports positive mental health
All of the above benefits tie together. When children learn to accept and love themselves for who they are, to see the good in others, to focus and calm their minds, and to be aware of their capabilities, they learn tools for resilience.
Most Importantly!
Yoga teaches children that relaxation is not only allowed; it is encouraged. Relaxing is not easy and learning to relax takes practice. Yoga provides space for the mind to slow down and settle.
Children are always told that they need to be engaged and productive. Their little minds are leaping from one activity to another all day long, often right up until they crash at bedtime. Here at Center Stage we want kids to know that it doesn’t have to always be like that.
If our Center Stage Preschool, Ashburn students can learn how to relax and be still, they will be able to handle the stressors better as they get older. Read more about some of our other afternoon programs.
Doesn’t this sound like a great way for your child to spend their day? Find out more about our Center Stage Preschool, Ashburn by scheduling a tour! You can also follow us on Facebook and get daily updates of what we are up to!