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What can children achieve by practising yoga?
On a physical level, their motor skills, feeling for their own body and physical awareness improve. This makes yoga attractive for the growing number of children showing signs of impaired motor skills and "retarded" children.
The development towards increasingly differentiated motor skills is a key part of a person's brain development. Movement patterns which are learnt and internalized early on form the basis for subsequent logical/abstract thought. (Early) childhood deficits can be corrected later, but only by investing a significantly greater amount of time, energy, expense etc.
Practising yoga achieves what parents most want, in that it improves the ability to concentrate, teaches general sensory perception and therefore leads to better learning capabilities.
Observance of the yamas and niyamas (rules for dealing with yourself and your environment in a friendly, constructive manner) in children's yoga can also lead to an amazing improvement in social behaviour.
In documented individual cases a marked increase in self-confidence and self-assurance could also be detected.
In children prone to migraines, the severity of the attacks could be significantly reduced, or they even stopped altogether in some cases.
Helpful support can also be provided for dealing with neurodermatitis and allergies, especially by learning relaxation, which is not taught and practised in isolation in yoga.
On the contrary, children experience relaxation in the context of tension, both as opposites and as something that belongs together.
Through the tension-relaxation principle, children can tap into a universal instrument for "switching off" or dissipating tension. Therefore, they can learn how to control their condition themselves.
Relaxation techniques have to be learnt, but once learnt they are never forgotten - like swimming or riding a bike.
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