Having family quality time can be quite a struggle. The adults are often bogged down by work and other ‘adulting’ obligations. Meanwhile, children or teens tend to be busy with school and extracurricular activities and spend more time with their friends.
With that, being with the family needs to be a conscious effort, with each member intentionally setting time aside for each other.
While the family can enjoy activities like watching movies, going on trips, and doing hobbies together, family yoga is also an increasingly growing option!
Yoga is often considered a workout for adults but is also deemed a worthwhile hobby for children and a bonding activity for the family.
Here are some reasons why practising yoga with your kids could be beneficial.
Have Fun Together
Adults and children or teens may have different ideas of what fun entails, but doing family yoga can be a common ground.
Yoga does not need to be intensely competitive, nor is it too physically taxing. It is not a graded activity that you will need to follow each step strictly. During the process, the guardians do not need to enforce discipline or constantly be worried about their children.
The adults and the younger ones can have fun while struggling with the exercises and feel accomplished as one team after. In a good-natured way, they can laugh together, or even at each other, with all the floundering or stumbling.
Show a Different Perspective of Each Other
Doing partner yoga poses can also be a way for the parent and the child to bond. This is the chance to get them to think alike or listen to one another to achieve their goal: to do the yoga pose successfully.
It opens for a different viewpoint of the other person, letting the parent or the child new insights into each other’s thinking process and what skills or attitudes they possess.
Maybe the little one is unexpectedly inclined toward sports activities or has that never-give-up attitude. Or the grown-up is somewhat clumsy compared to how they are as a parent. Now that’s a perspective you don’t usually see at home.
It allows connections and understandings about each other that can bridge the generation gap or any misconceptions, especially with the children being younger and the parents being in authority. And it is also a great topic of conversation afterwards that both the parents and children can relate to since they did it with each other.
Develop Healthy Habits
Being too focused on work or school and too much screen time may cause adults and children to lead sedentary lifestyles and binge on not-so-healthy food choices.
Yoga promotes being physically active through low-impact movements, so parents wouldn’t be too worried if it will be risky for the children. Having the parents practise yoga regularly may influence the kids to make fitness a habit despite busy schedules and, in turn, motivate the parents to continue.
Unwind and Unplug
Regulating screen time for kids and even for adults is a growing concern. Anyone is constantly accessible to everyone but tends to be too engrossed with gadgets even while at home.
Family quality time is encroached, therefore, sacrificing communication and connection between family members.
Activities like family yoga somewhat ‘force’ everyone to put down their gadgets and get unplugged for an hour or so while they do exercises and poses. Like a constant digital cleansing of sorts, it lets parents and children focus on each other.
Alleviate Stress and Anxiety
Worries and responsibilities are excess baggage that people tend to bring back to their homes and families. It causes misunderstandings and unnecessary tension – physically, mentally or between family members.
During this block of time set aside for yoga, parents and children can stay in that moment, focusing on the exercises and poses.
Yoga helps calm the mind, comfort distracted and restless minds and re-energise the body before returning to pending duties.
Create Precious Memories
For some, yoga may seem like just an exercise activity. But beyond being an exercise, attending yoga sessions together are memories the parents and children are building as a family.
These collective memories help build a concept of a fun and loving family unit in the children’s minds, shaping them to be well-adjusted individuals and setting up their goals for their future families. It also provides a comfort zone and support group for adults and the younger generation.
When you recall doing yoga with your kids, you wouldn’t necessarily think about the specific exercises or poses. It becomes about the emotions and significance of the family being together. It will be about how you enjoyed the experience or how that yoga class became special only because you were doing it with the family, compared to doing it alone or with friends.