Yoga a growing trend for youth

Count kids among the people joining the yoga craze in the United States.

Yoga-loving parents are signing up their kids at yoga studios, Ys and park districts to learn the practice.

Whether it is an “Itsy-Bitsy Yoga” program for toddlers and their parents, practicing Kundalini or reciting Indigo affirmations, youngsters are developing muscular strength and learning good posture and breathing that can help them to find peace in their over-scheduled lives.

“Yoga should be about showing them the proper way to move and balance, about learning how to have proper body mechanics and alignment,” said Pam O'Brien of Greenleaf Yoga Studio in Geneva. She has taught yoga to children in the past, and intends to start classes again in January. She may also start teaching yoga to the children enrolled in an after-school care program at the Geneva Park District.

She adopts a different tone with children.

“To me, it is like you have to be playful,” she said. For example, to illustrate a point about breathing, she may place a stuffed animal on a child's stomach. Back-to-back poses and buddy breathing are other favorite exercises, she said.

Besides yoga studios, many park districts offer yoga to young practitioners, including the Naperville, Lisle and Fox Valley districts. A Naperville studio, Universal Spirit Yoga, offers an extensive list of classes for children from infancy on up.

Juanita Monaghan teaches a family yoga class on Saturdays at her Fusion Mind Body Studio in downtown Elgin.

She emphasizes fun, taking advantage of children's natural tendency toward pretend play. “Let's be like snakes!” Monaghan tells the class, hissing during a snake pose, and she barks, “Arf! arf!” during a downward-facing dog. Children crawl under their parents during bridges.

“I hope what they do together they can do at home,” she said.

Monaghan sees yoga as an alternative to the competition-oriented sports — and something that can help children who aren't interested in those sports.

Monaghan also wants kids to get a break — “a break from the rigidity at home, a break from the expectations,” she said. And because children are naturally more flexible (because their egos haven't grown so much they get in the way, she said), they “feel good knowing they can do what their parents can't,” Monagahan said.

She worries about the increasing rate of obesity among youth, and believes yoga's practices can help with that, by teaching children to be mindful of what they put in their bodies and why, as well as the physical exertion. They learn “to make choices based on what is better for your body,” she said.

Fun is the key to getting children to focus in class, Monaghan said. If you give them something fun to do, they will become absorbed, according to Monaghan.

And she also believes children model what they see their parent doing, so if the parent is practicing yoga, the child will be interested.

Except for her own teenage daughter.

“My daughter won't touch it,” Monaghan said, laughing.