Children's yoga to recognize and transform emotions

When describing children's yoga, I often talk about "a journey of awareness at an early age for children". Our children embark on a fun journey where they explore their bodies, minds and emotions through yoga.

Although each discovery is very valuable, today I will talk about emotions. And in the continuation of my article, I will share methods that help children manage their emotions.

Why are emotions so important?

When we help children recognize their emotions at an early age, we see that they can manage their emotions more easily. Young children are more affected by their "emotional brains" than their "logic brains" and often experience big emotions.

Let's take a look at how the understanding and teachings of yoga help in recognizing and managing emotions.

1. Recognizing and naming emotion

The first step in not ignoring it is recognizing and naming the emotion. Before we start teaching children to manage their emotions, we must teach them to recognize and name their emotions. For example, we can't handle anger very well if we don't know we're angry!

For this, the duty of parents and teachers is to be good guides in recognizing and understanding children's emotions. You can do this by giving examples of your own feelings and emotions and ways of coping with them. For example, describe a reality you experienced. “I feel sad today because I had an argument with a friend today. I can talk to him again and express myself and listen again to what he has to say.”

Another method is to observe the emotions we notice in our children and name them for them.

For example, “I can see that you're feeling angry. It must have pissed you off that you couldn't wear your favorite shirt today because it was dirty.”

While naming the emotions, you can also benefit from the heroes in the storybooks you read together. In this way, you can explore emotions together. After reading the storybook, ask, “How do you think this hero might have felt?” question can be a good awareness exercise.

2. Transforming emotion without magnification / Affirmations

When was the first time adults allowed themselves to criticize themselves, to have their inner voices broadcast in the background? We may not know the answer to this question, but we do know how to change and transform these sounds at an early age for our children.

Encourage children to use positive language when talking about themselves or to have positive self-talk. For example, when they find something particularly challenging, say, “I can't do this!” They can use the phrase “I am not ready for this yet!” instead. Children who grow up with this teaching begin to look at their life experiences more logically or rationally and to react more emotionally.

Although noticing these negative expressions and suggesting positive sentences is a good method, the most enjoyable way to make positive conversations or affirmations a habit at an early age can be to use affirmations in yoga postures.

At the same time, we can express our emotions more easily by using yoga poses. When you combine it with facial expressions, you can see that there are much more effective results. When we guide children in naming emotions while doing these poses, they will be able to better recognize and name their own emotions.

For example:

• I feel so strong (Warrior pose)

• I'm happy today (downward-wagging dog pose)

• I feel fun and energetic (monkey pose)

• 3. Transforming emotions through yoga poses, games and breathing

Getting moving is an incredibly useful tool, especially for releasing negative emotions. This applies to both adults and children. As adults, we may better understand this ourselves (for example, “I need a run, I'm so stressed!”), but children may need some support with this.

We can use different gestures to help children manage emotions depending on how they are feeling.

For example, for a child who is feeling angry, he might first name the emotion (anger) and then take a movement break. It can be games where movement and attention go together or accompanied by music, or it can be a dance that only the body needs. Afterwards, an active and loud breathing exercise will help to release anger along with breathing. Elephant breath and lion breath are two good breathing exercises that we can use in this sense. Check out the Minikyogees YouTube channel to learn or remember how.

When children come home from school tired, we can do slow, smooth movements and a longer deep relaxation along with deep belly breathing to unwind. You can use a light plush toy for younger children and a favorite book or item for older children while doing belly breathing.

For a worried or sad child, you can play a game of colorful pom-poms. Moving the pompoms with the feet from one corner of the room to an empty bowl is good for calming and organizing thoughts and emotions. Afterwards, you can regulate the emotion with a relaxing breathing practice such as blowing colored feathers.

4. Breath

In the previous section, we talked about the importance of conscious breathing in helping children manage their big emotions. Being aware of our breath and regulating and calming it with our consciousness helps us cope with our emotions. By focusing on the breath, we can begin to turn negative emotions into positive ones.

When we slow our breathing, our heart rate and blood pressure return to normal and we begin to feel less anxious or stressed. Bee breath is excellent for reducing anxiety in both adults and children. To learn how to make bee breath

Taking deep, conscious breaths fills our bodies with oxygen and can energize us when we feel tired or exhausted.

Balanced emotions and happy children…