Yogi Adventures Onalaska Wi

🧘🏻‍♀️ Happy International Yoga Day 🧘🏻‍♀️

❤️ Yoga is so much more than just funny looking poses! Understanding our bodies, the reactions they have to stimulus, and working through those reactions is important for any age group. That said, kids ages 2-5 are just learning to identify these emotions and need guidance in how to respond.

Ask yourself what does your BODY feel when your are mad/angry?

Hot? Tense? Tight? Rigid? Do you stop breathing?

Once we identify what the BODY feels during an emotion we can work towards a PHYSICAL release of that emotion/feeling!

The little yogi’s today also worked on impulse control… and this group had me IMPRESSED!! 💕

Breathe work is good for the Mind, Body, and Soul ❤️

Teach your child to send themselves love:

❤️ Have them sit or lie down

-use guided direction with the following-

❤️ Notice what emotions are going through your mind and what your body feels.
❤️ With each INHALE say “I am LOVED”
❤️ With each EXHALE say “I am ENOUGH”
❤️ Repeat for 3-5 breath cycles
❤️ Take pause and notice what emotions you have going through your mind and what your body feels.

💚 Don’t be afraid to try your own loving wishes to yourself.

💙 Mom and Dad can do this TOO! Create a healthy bond with yourself and your child. Always remember- Monkey see monkey do…

Yoga can have many positive effects on children's mental and emotional development. Some of the ways that yoga can benefit children in this area include:

- Reducing stress and anxiety: Yoga can help children learn to manage stress and anxiety by teaching them relaxation techniques and breathing exercises.

- Improving mood: Yoga can help improve children's mood by releasing endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals.

- Enhancing emotional regulation: Yoga can help children learn to regulate their emotions by teaching them mindfulness techniques and helping them develop greater self-awareness.

- Boosting self-esteem and confidence: Yoga can help children develop greater self-esteem and confidence by encouraging them to focus on their strengths and abilities, rather than their limitations.

- Enhancing social skills: Yoga can help children develop better social skills by encouraging them to work together and communicate effectively with others.

Overall, yoga can be a powerful tool for promoting positive mental and emotional development in children.

We have all heard it, the terrible twos and terrorist threes, but let’s dive a little deeper in why these young kiddos have gotten these nicknames!

Between the ages of 2-5 years old kids are learning how to self-regulate. Self-regulation refers to the process in which a person handles…

•emotion
•attention
•behavior

…in response to a situation or stimulating circumstance.
Self-Regulation an umbrella that encompasses a variety of sub-skills we all use when navigating through this life whether it’s socially or with a direction toward a goal.

This can also be referred to as control reactivity. An example of this would be a child waiting for permission to open a present, though the dominant urge or reaction would be to just rip it open and see the surprise. Which leads us into Effortful Control (EC) the ability to hold back the dominant response. Effortful Control is a key component to self-regulation. As a child is still learning Effortful Control, they will show behavioral components such as temper tantrums. The temper tantrum is when they are letting the dominant feeling or urge determine their response to a situation or stimuli. This is where the fun nicknames come from. Later in life Effortful Control will play a huge role in…

•moral
•personality
•academic development
•competency

…Kids between the ages of 2-5 are truly setting the foundation to who they will be and how they will respond to situations for the rest of their lives.

As parents it is important that we teach out kids how to regulate their emotions and work on effortful control. This can all be done in a positive and optimistic environment. Teaching yoga at daycare we do purposeful breathwork with explanations as to why we do it. We talked about feeling RED (mad), BLUE (sad), Yellow (Happy), and many emotions in between and then do fun breathing exercises to help cope, while purposefully explaining why in terms the children could understand.

For example, if a child is feeling BLUE and is crying, we, as parents, can blow on their face. TRUST ME, this WORKS, the child will stop crying and will take a breath in. Do this while explaining why you are breathing, to calm down, so we can use our words to express what is causing the emotions. This is a form of directed self-regulation that will eventually teach the child to practice the breathwork on their own without direction from the parent. This in many ways is also beneficial to mom and dad as it will bring them into the present moment and regulate themselves in what may be a highly stimulated situation WITH their child.

Overall, yoga has been found to enhance self-regulation among preschoolers. Along with breathwork kids can also practice short burst of yoga (25-30 minutes)

Hello!

My name is Lexi Finnell. I am a 200hr Registered Yoga Teacher here in Onalaska, Wi. I am a married mother of two kids ages 4 and 9. My family has weathered many storms but we have seen so many rainbows. 🌈

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind”

I wish to share my passion with the generations following by teaching coping skills for emotion as well as love for oneself. Yoga has been proven to drastically change one’s self image as well as reduce stress.

With this I move forward to offer services for kids yoga ranging from “baby and me” all the way through college. Yoga is for everyBODY. 🧘🏻‍♀️