Children’s Yoga and Social Skills Classes

Classes are led by a certified children’s yoga practitioner and a NYS licensed and certified speech language pathologist. Each class focuses on promoting communication and positive interactions in a safe, caring environment. What skills do our yoga and social skills classes promote? Read on to find out!

Body and spatial awareness – Young children are learning how their bodies move through space. Proprioception, the ability to process sensory information when it comes to position and movement, is more than just a motor ability. For a child, knowing where their body is in relation to another person is necessary for understanding social boundaries. Yoga helps them to truly understand where their bodies are in space.

Focus and Engagement – Many children are told from a young age Focus! Pay Attention! However, many children don’t fully understand what these words mean. They wonder, “What is focus? What does this mean when people tell me pay attention?” Through experiences of success in kids yoga, children will develop their capacity to attend. Skills such as keeping your body in a group and following the group plan will also be emphasized to increase the child’s ability to focus and engage in a group.

Turn taking and Sharing Skills – Taking turns and sharing with others are major social developments during childhood. Yoga encourages children to take turns while learning in a group. The instructor may ask one child to demonstrate as the other students watch and wait for their turns. Along with sharing class time by taking turns, children must also share the space. The children develop a mindfulness the helps them to inhabit their own space. This is one that is near and shared with other students.

Acceptance and Empathy - Understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings doesn’t always come naturally. Young children often find taking others’ perspectives and seeing someone else’s point-of-view challenging. That’s where empathy development comes in. As kids start to develop the ability to empathize they also learn about the give and take needed for social interactions and conflict resolution. Yoga can lead to empathy development in young children. How?

Yoga helps children to look inward and pay attention to their inner-selves. During class children help each other with poses, play games as a group and celebrate other students’ successes – not just their own. Instructors use creative techniques to teach empathy, such as story-telling and asking the children to talk about what they would do in different situations. This requires imagination, understanding and the ability to take perspectives. As the class progresses and children use their new skills more often, they’ll start seeing the benefits that acceptance and empathy bring.

Social Language Development – Yoga instructors encourage children to initiate and respond to peers during class. This type of social language use may take the form of asking and answering questions on a specific topic, understanding and following directions and social commenting. With a focus on acceptance, the yoga class environment is all-inclusive and non-threatening. This provides the young child with the chance to use social language skills without fear, anxiety or the worry of being judged.

Coping skills and Self Regulation – Emotions aren’t always easy to identify, especially for young children. Understanding how to look inwards and identify what you’re feeling is part of practicing yoga. Children will learn to recognize their emotions and energetic state (high, low or just right) during different situations and activities. Along with this, children will harness the power of breath paired with movement so they can focus, relax and regulate. The beauty of yoga is that it can help children during times of peace and even during high stress times.

Self Confidence and Resilience –When children first begin practicing yoga, they may first find it unfamiliar. Yet as children continue to practice they will understand their bodies are capable of amazing things! As children see their progress and achieve success in different poses their self-confidence will increase. Children who practice kids yoga will begin to feel strong and confident, knowing they can rely on their bodies and minds to help them navigate through life.