Tag Archives: kids

7 Reasons Your Child Should Try Yoga

I’m a bit of a neuropsychology nerd. I find it fascinating and so helpful to truly understand people. While I already understood that yoga can be helpful in treating trauma and PTSD, Dr. Bruce Perry, whom I greatly admire, introduced me to the idea that yoga can also be helpful in helping the brain develop in an organized fashion, especially for children who have been traumatized.

As a result, I routinely recommend adoptive parents practice yoga with their children. Whether your child has been adopted, traumatized, has other struggles or not, yoga can help him or her develop physical, emotionally, and neurologically; here’s why:

  • Learning to control breath and body can help children feel more in control of themselves, which can be extremely powerful for children that have been traumatized, children that have been adopted, and children diagnosed with ADHD.
  • Yoga has been known to enhance concentration and attention span, while teaching focus.
  • Children can increase confidence by successfully attempting new poses and developing new skills.
  • Flexibility can prevent injuries, and children can increase strength through yoga with little risk of injury.
  • Yoga develops bodies, brains, and motor skills. (more…)
Posted on September 5, 2023 by Brooke Randolph

Yoga Inspirations: From a Happy Baby to the World’s Oldest Yoga Instructor

From the crib to the coffin, our bodies crave activity. Whether you are a newborn, a young child or a nonagenarian, see how yoga can be a mainstay for a healthy and happy quality of life.

We are natural born yogis.

Babies are natural yogis. We are all born with an innate ability to breathe, move, stretch, and rest; yet many of us quickly forget about these inherent qualities. Not only are yoga poses such as the happy baby pose appropriately named, babies are great yoga teachers because they remind us how exciting and exhilarating it is to move our bodies generously. Whether we believe it or not, it seems we are born to practice yoga. Just watch happy babies grab their toes and kick their legs up in the air and you may soon realize what you might be missing. Have you been neglecting your own mind and body over the years?

If you are one of the many stiff, tense and tired individuals who don’t get enough exercise, please keep reading and let the following examples inspire you to get moving.

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Posted on December 13, 2023 by Jill

Troublemaker Kids May Just be Sleep Deprived

Eradicating the ever-present problem of bullies may lie in establishing proper sleeping habits for children. The New York Times reported that a new study of over 300 elementary students in Michigan revealed a correlation between sleep-disturbances and behavioral instability. Louise O’brien, the study’s lead author, cautions that the findings don’t prove lack of sleep causes bullying but it certainly implies a relationship between the two.

Other studies have yielded similar findings. We’ve known for a long time now that proper sleep habits affect both mental and physical health. Fatigue, mood swings, weight gain, weakened concentration, memory loss,  and impaired immunity can all be caused by insufficient sleep. What to do if your child isn’t sleeping well:

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Posted on June 10, 2023 by Theresa

Yoga for Babies

Yoga is truly for everybody – babies included. Just like prenatal yoga, yoga for teens and yoga for kids, yoga for babies is fast becoming a popular class for moms and their newborns.

Here is what you need to know about yoga for babies.

Benefits

Yoga for babies classes are meant to give moms and babies a chance to bond as well as provide mothers with a bit of exercise. In addition, moms can learn new ways to relax their infant, say for instance, when he or she is crying and a bottle, nap or change of diaper isn’t doing the trick. Yoga for babies also provides mothers with simple movements and exercises they can do for their child in order to bring relief to a colicky baby or reduce gas pains.

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Posted on April 26, 2024 by heather

“Vitamin Adventures of Don and Flip” for iPad Teaches Kids to Eat Right

Punflay Vitamin app for kidsPunflay specializes in creating apps for the iPhone and iPad that are aimed at kids. One of their newest apps is an interactive storybook for the iPad called The Vitamin Adventures of Don and Flip, which teaches children about different vitamins. This app is appropriate for kids from kindergarten to third grade.

With childhood obesity on the rise, it seems more important than ever to find fun ways to teach children about healthy eating. This app takes a crack at this challenge. The story follows Don and Flip and they intact with the fellow inhabitants of GoGoo Island and learn about the vitamins in different foods. Each food they encounter comes with a quick game, followed by a description of that vitamin. Kids will also learn what foods contain each vitamin, and the list is unfalteringly healthy.

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Posted on February 3, 2024 by Margaret

Jamie Oliver Announces the Winners of The Food Revolution Open IDEO Challenge

An Open Food Revolution CoverChef Jamie Oliver hosted a design challenge on Open IDEO, a site that promotes collaborative problem solving. Oliver asked the community, “How can we raise kids’ awareness of the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?”

Part of Oliver’s Food Revolution, the challenge led to 198 final concepts, from which 17 winning concepts were selected. The concepts tackle the issue of healthy eating on many different fronts, from the grocery store, to schools, to home activities. To illustrate the whole process, Oliver and Open IDEO created a booklet that you can download.

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Posted on January 31, 2024 by Margaret

Eliminate Halloween Candy Without Eating It

You are working hard to minimize your intake of sugar and processed foods, but you don’t want your children to miss out on the fun of Halloween and dressing up and trick or treating. Maybe you want to minimize the sugar and processed food your children eat and teach them healthy eating habits.

What are you going to do with all that Halloween candy?!?

You could simply throw it out, but you risk complaints from the kids. Plus, what are you teaching them other than denying them indulgence? You could hide it in that cabinet above the refrigerator, hoping the kids (and you) forget about it- but will that work? (more…)

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Brooke Randolph