There are A LOT of activities for children to participate in these days, aren't there? Every sport ever invented (including some straight from fictional stories, like Quidditch) has a team kids can try out for. Your three year old likes wearing a tutu? There's about a...
Mindful Moments to Welcome Fall
Here in the northern hemisphere, we are stepping deeper into the autumn season. The temperature changes, the colors change and the daylight changes all affect our children in obvious and subtle ways. Let's help them embrace the inevitability of change and the beauty...
Kids NEED Restorative Yoga, Too!
Today's blog author is Kaden, an 11-year old Yogi (pictured below) This all started when my mother, my grandmother, and I were going over to a yoga studio to do a class on restorative yoga. I was really excited because this would be my first restorative yoga class. We...
Finding Your Balance – Inside and Out
It's a busy world out there! And for many of us, it's a busy world inside, too. Our minds are kept stimulated, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, all day and often through the night. We've been given many ways to find quiet moments, to find balance, in our lives:...
Yoga for Children May Improve Mental Health
Our children live in a very busy world. Long days at school, a myriad of after-school activities, constant social demands and expectations, pressure to be smart and talented, and physically flawless in their social media worlds creates an environment ripe for stress,...
Restorative Yoga for Kids
You know what I think kids today need? Not more lessons or learning opportunities. Not more toys, gadgets, or electronics. And certainly not more pressure and stress. Our children need time to unwind, all on their own. Just like us grown-ups, they need time to...
When We All Need a Time Out
Let’s talk about some mindfulness practices to handle life as we all now know it, this weird ride we are all on. When we are blindsided by huge changes in life, we tend to want to find steady ground. It isn’t always easy to do this, especially when little ones are...
Modeling Self-Care
We often talk about self-care and why it is important to practice it, but we fail to mention that it is beneficial for the people around us too! When it comes to yoga, it is a definite form of self-care. It allows us to take care of our physical body through movement,...
A Love Letter … to Yourself
Who says that you have to wait for Valentine's Day to show someone love (yourself included)? And what better way to introduce the concept of self-love to children than through a yoga class? In whatever time frame you have, you can incorporate a theme of self-love (and...
Self-Care for Busy People
"Self-care" is perhaps as big of a buzzword as "mindfulness" these days, and for a good reason: we need it! As yoga teachers, we often get into the business of teaching because we care about other people, sometimes to the point of forgetting about our own needs. I...
Moving Beyond “Me” with Meditation
Kids are naturally egocentric, and I say this as an educator without judgement and malice. The revolutionary child psychologist Jean Piaget described "Egocentrism" in 1951 as a natural part of a child's development. He said that until the age of about 7, children are...
Mini-Meditations for the Whole Family
Meditation is an ancient practice that provides many benefits for our modern brains. A 2010 study found that meditators' cognitive skills (sustain attention, visuospatial processing, working memory, executive function) improved after meditating just 20 minutes a day...
Teaching Mindfulness
"Mindfulness- A state of active, open, intentional attention on the present." Psychology Today "Mindfulness" seems to be a popular buzzword going around lately, but really it’s something that ancient civilizations knew and practiced. Our “monkey mind” (as Buddhists...
Using Mindfulness Practices to Redirect Behavior
Disciplining our children or even simply redirecting undesired behaviors has been a hot button topic that spans generations and cultures. Our schools are no exception. Mindfulness and yoga are being adopted in schools as contemporary ways to meet the social and...
The Art of Mindfulness
Pay attention! You need to focus! Can't you just concentrate? Sound familiar? Have you heard or said these things before? Yeah, me too. We probably all have. It seems we all need help once in a while being mindful. Mindfulness is simply paying attention to what is...