Postural Control activities are exactly what you’d think. You’re testing balance and body control. Not always easy for a toddler or school-aged kid.
Continue readingPlaytime
Things We Loved: August
Hello Readers,
Mary and I are introducing a new series to share what’s been going on with us personally, as well as what we’ve been loving as moms, bloggers, and chaos coordinators. Things We Love will also link to our #FoundItOnAmazon Idea Lists.
(Note: We do not get a commission for these. We’re still babies in the influencer world…)
Continue readingYoga For All: A How-To Yoga Guide for Kids
Yoga is simple enough that your child can do it.
Here’s some suggestions for your kid at any age.
Namaste All Day: Kids Yoga
By now, we’re all pretty familiar about the perks of yoga. It promotes our overall health and well-being, reduces stress, and helps us “find our center.” The practice has been trending in the past decade and schools have even implemented it to help guide children’s focus and self-regulation.
Research has shown positive outcomes from regular yoga practice, including:
- Increased attention, decreased hyperactivity, and faster task completion in 5-year-olds who completed yoga 2x/week
- Mental and emotional benefits in children ages 5-18 years, including decreased anxiety, boosted concentration and memory, improved confidence and self-esteem, and improved academic performance
- Brain scans revealing reduced activation of the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for emotions and arousal levels) in 6th graders
- Improvements in attention as well as decreased oppositional behaviors, restlessness, and impulsivity following 20 sessions of yoga with boys diagnosed with ADHD
- Improvements in imitation and play with peers in children with ASD following 10 months of yoga 5 days/week
Sounds good on paper, but yoga with kids can be intimidating. “Am I doing this right? Can kids even do these poses?”
It’s not just a bunch of poses and breathing. Although that notion is partially true, there’s more to it. The goal of yoga is to grow self-awareness, connecting the mind and the body to the present moment. It’s because of this broadness that makes participation in its practice easy.
Continue readingCheer Up, Emo Kid…
A couple weeks ago, my toddlers where downstairs in their playroom. We were just hanging out after snack, and my daughter Aeris decided to play with a set of Leapfrog building blocks, similar to Duplo.
Aeris is much more independent compared to her sister, and is very focused on what she wants to do with her toys. In this case, she wanted to take all the single blocks and build one tall, skinny tower.
She had about four blocks left when her tower started to bow and snap. She tried reassembling it but once it got too tall, it wouldn’t stay upright. She is only about 3′ tall, and she could not keep a hand on the tower and attach the last few blocks to the top at the same time.
I could see her frustration every time the tower fell. She was getting red in the face, she was slamming down blocks trying to get them to fasten tighter, and she was refusing to let her sister help her. More importantly, she hated that her vision of what she wanted to do wasn’t working.
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Child(ish) Advice 