Little urchins of centuries past had sticks and hoops. Kids today have sticky mats, as yoga's expanding popularity reaches down to ever younger students. "Yoga is the new soccer," says Lawrence Rosen, M.D., of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Complementary, Holistic and Integrative Medicine. "People want their kids to do it because it's cool. They think it means they're modern parents who are looking after their kids' spiritual as well as mental and physical health."
Yoga does offer many benefits for kids—increased flexibility and strength, better posture and sleep—but it also entails risks for your pint-size pretzel. "Over the past year and a half, kiddie yoga has brought me a few patients a week with muscle tears and pulls," says Eric Small, M.D., chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Sports Medicine & Fitness. "I'm even seeing shoulder and hip dislocations, which I've seldom had to deal with before."
In yoga, children's natural gifts, agility and enthusiasm, are also their curse: Many are so bendy that they may not recognize their limitations and overstretch, inadvertently injuring muscles. Kids can also get hurt in efforts to compete with their friends, impress the teacher, or try advanced poses before they're ready. But there are several things you can do to help your child practice safely. Now take a deep breath....
Is your kid too young for yoga?
With the recent boom in prenatal yoga classes, it's no exaggeration to say that some kids started practicing in the womb—in fact, some Hindu texts say babies perform all of yoga's 108 postures there. And mommy-and-me classes are the logical continuation for kids up to the age of 4. "Yoga for children 3 and under is more of a partner activity, with the parent moving the child through stretching movements," says Baron Baptiste, a yoga instructor in Camden, Massachusetts, and the author of My Daddy Is a Pretzel: Yoga for Parents and Kids (Barefoot Books). From 4 to 8, kids "begin to follow direction and connect one posture to another," says Baptiste. "They can also participate in games that incorporate postures as well as ideas about yoga, like learning how to focus, breathe, and appreciate their bodies just as they are."
Next Page: What poses should kids avoid?
