The Happiest Place in Dallas:
When I found Yoga Up, I found the happiest place in Dallas. Yoga Up Kids! You see it’s so often that I find myself getting stuck into the mundanity of life trying to keep my house in order, work, mind the kids and all the repetitive busy-ness that entails. I find myself getting constantly over-scheduled by just life unfolding itself. Some weeks I find that life has gone on and I didn’t spend a moment sitting down and really connecting with my children nor a moment provided for me to just sit calmly with my own mind.
Enrollment for 2017 Summer Camps is now open!
Yoga Up Kids
Then I found Yoga Up and joined a Buddy & Me yoga class. This class has been life changing. It allocates some time for me and special time for me with my boys. It’s hard to find a place that offers yoga for the full age spectrum; baby, preschooler, kids, tweens and teenagers with and without caregivers. Every week, no matter how busy life gets, what obstacles arise, or mounds of stress have piled, one glorious hour a week, I stop, have a very relaxed hour with my boys, and have some restoring time for me to just breathe and think.
Yoga Benefits for Mom:
I’m not a bending pretzel mom but yoga has personally helped me develop techniques to focus, deal with anxiety & stress, and overall be a more patient, calm mom. I’ve also developed a sense of daily mindfulness, allowing me to prioritize, and more fully enjoy moments with my kids and family. Attending the Buddy & Me yoga class at Yoga Up has helped me connect deeper with my boys on a weekly basis.
At Yoga Up in Dallas:
Classes are offered for a wide range of ages from babies to teens and all the in between:
Yoga Baby Stay and Play, Buddy and Me Yoga, Little Yogis, Young Yogis, Tween Yoga, Teen Yoga, Story Time Yoga, Family Yoga, Sensory Yoga, Homeschool Yogis and more.
Mention WiseMommies for a discount at Yoga Up; this is my favorite yoga place, in Dallas, for kids! This post contains an affliate link.
In addition to yoga, in my Buddy & Me class, my boys have created art projects, crafts, science projects and sensory activities along with instruction on how to use these processing tools for mindfulness, self-calming, and focus. We sing, we talk, we connect parent-to-child and with other yogis. We stretch, learn yoga poses and the names of those poses such as tree, superman, triangle, and unicorn pose. Kids learn to take turns talking and how to breathe in and out, filling up their lungs and releasing all before talking.
During some of the yoga up classes, we have taken time to guess what different smells are without seeing or knowing what the object being smelled was. We take time to analyze how mindful our bodies are to smells, tastes, textures, and what we see and how these different elements affect our body, our attitude and even how we feel or change our mood.
Personal Success Story
The Buddy & Me class has helped my boys have an awareness of having control over their body, their feelings, and choice in actions. In one of the classes, we made glitter jars to help deep breathe, calm ourselves and think. One day, as I was feeling tired and overwhelmed, I found myself yelling at my boys and even threw something. It’s not easy, to be honest about that but being a WiseMommy is admitting that I’m not perfect but constantly hitting reset and striving to be the best mom possible I can for my children. From this book by Smith and Gouze, when we try and deal with what is going on inside our bodies, internal stimuli, as well as external stimuli from our environment, we are self-regulating and self-organizing. Yoga Up has helped us develop our self-regulation skills, improve and help attenuate our impulsive and aggressive behaviors.
During my melt-down, I felt one of my boys tugging at the sleeve of my shirt and turned to see sadness, understanding, and support masked on his face while holding a glitter jar up to me.
The glitter jar was a science/craft created at Yoga Up. Then another one of my boys was pulling me towards our beloved rocking chair; it’s the chair where I spent hundreds of hours breastfeeding, where we sing, read books and rock together….next thing I know I was sitting in this chair with all three of my boys sitting on and next to me.
Together, we were shaking the glitter jar and deep breathing until all the glitter was still. We were silent; we were self-calming; we were taking a moment. Then I talked and they listened. I talked about being tired and stressed and thanked them for being so wise to bring me the calming jar so I could self-regulate. The rest of the day was amazing!!
It wasn’t just the calming jar that saved the day, and saved the connection and growth between my sons and me, it was the mindfulness of it; it was our weekly Yoga Up class of lessons learned, my boys & me, together, balancing out that moment and bringing us united to turn a bad moment into a positive experience.
Yoga Up has Sensory-sational Yogis and Friend Classes
There are some unique classes specifically for kids with autism, sensory and anxiety issues at Yoga Up. “Yoga is a promising therapy for autistic children, and helps increase imitation skills in children with autism spectrum disorder.” As a parent of a sensory needs child, I’m beyond grateful for some of my sleep whispering skills via self-soothing techniques that I get to implement, learnt in our Buddy & Me class.
Out of all the yoga classes I’ve ever attended, I’ve never experienced or been educated like I have at Yoga Up.
“Yoga” means to “Yoke” body and mind in harmony.
Benefits for Kids:
More and more yoga is being brought into schools in America and worldwide as the mindfulness, health, physical/mental benefits, and other benefits are being understood. Yoga is being seen as another form of exercise.
If America wants to help stop issues like bullying, for instance, yoga teaches kids to be compassionate, less competitive, more self-aware. Yoga can help kids inoculate themselves against bullying and peer pressure.Yoga can also help kids with ADD, ADHD, and anxiety.
The American Journal of Occupational Therapy published a study stating that yoga helped kids with autism and ADHD with sustained attention and improve school performance.
Why All Children Should Do Yoga
As I mentioned before, we all know parents get busy and stressed, but we often forget that this goes for children too. All the benefits adults gain from yoga, children also gain such as learning how to meditate, unwind, destress, relax, focus, and take care of our body.
Research shows that yogis have a larger brain volume in the cortex of the brain for the mental map or one’s body, attention, and visual. Kids and adults through breathing techniques can reduce stress and release healthy hormones.
Your BOYS are Yogis!?!?
When I tell people that I do Buddy & Me yoga, I’m always surprised by how surprised they are that my BOYS do yoga. Well, my boys, all three of them, don’t just do yoga, they are supreme Yogis, like Jedi Yogi Masters. Yes, my boys do yoga and, I’m surprised more boy moms aren’t seeking out yoga for their boys.
My boys, already at the age of three, have been playing competitive sports. I love that yoga is different as a non-competitive athletic endeavor, teaching them that their only competition in life, really, is themselves, their limits, and their goals. It’s a rare moment and opportunity for them to experience play, and understand their body’s capabilities without worrying about being wrong or better than someone else.
Strength, Flexibility, and Balance:
My boys have learned and practice these three things. Additionally, they have better coordination, and they understand the importance of taking care of their body by keeping their joints and muscles limber through specific stretches and poses as this will help reduce injuries from everyday activities to competitive sports.
Dealing with Anger and Frustration:
Anger and frustration. Yes, girls/women also have anger and frustration issues but boys and men usually aren’t good about talking or dealing with their anger. Instead, they tend to keep it bottled up and then explode. Yoga helps with self-awareness of what they are capable of doing with their body and emotions.
They learn how to focus on breathing and how to connect their body to their mind through deep breathing. This can change their mindset and how they approach their frustration to vary their actions and therefore outcomes. I really love that my boys are developing tools now that are enabling them to best handle stress, anger, and frustration. The glitter jar has been a go to several times without me ever even saying anything to them about calming down.
Confidence, Self-Esteem, Relaxation and Stress Management:
The world bombards kids with self-doubt, self-esteem issues such as body image issues. Yoga teaches children to focus inward to what is going on inside their body and love what their bodies are capable of doing. Yoga teaches children coping skills for a more positive outlook and ability to calm themselves down, feel happy, manage stress, and relax, to be themselves wonderfully.
For more information or to register for a class at Yoga Up, contact Nikole here. Mention WiseMommies for a discount, and maybe I’ll see you in one of the classes!! This is my favorite yoga place, in Dallas, for kids!
Yoga Up!
