Don’t teach your kids yoga. Teach them how to regulate their emotions.

Teaching yoga to kids has become a BIG industry. There are hundreds of children’s yoga teacher trainings, kids’ yoga workshops and countless yoga YouTube channels specifically for children. All of this is great, but if they don’t learn how to regulate their emotions in their daily lives – what’s the point?

Despite the increasing focus on the mental health of our children; stress and anxiety rates continue to rise.

I think we’ve got it all wrong.

Kids don’t need (or want) to go to hour long dedicated yoga workshops. They don’t need the gimmicky “yoga adventures” on YouTube.

They need you. Connected and present.

They need you to reflect back to them the emotions they’re feeling. They need you to show them the way through their big emotions. THIS is how they learn how to regulate their emotions.

But how the heck do you do that when you’re struggling to deal with your own big emotions?

You start by having your own practice and tools to regulate yourself. This creates the space we need to become a container for our kid’s emotions.

I’ve been teaching yoga for over 15 years and I’ve been a Mum for 13. I don’t set aside dedicated time to teach yoga to my kids. Instead, they learn yoga daily from our hundreds of tiny interactions.

They see me practicing my yoga (on and off the mat). They see how to regulate their emotions when I model how I manage my own.

Yes, occasionally they will join me on my mat and I will take them through a few poses or a little breath work practice. (See what this looks like in this video) But I truly believe this work is supplementary to the real work of teaching yoga through mothering.

How to teach your kids to regulate their emotions through yoga

Make your practice visible.

When my boys were tiny babies I used to dream about when my practice would be my own again. I’d feel the frustration rising each time I was interupted to feed someone or change a stinky nappy. I kept telling myself it would be better when they were old enough to stay on their own mat beside me. It would be better when they could do their own practice, instead of wanting to climb all over me like a jungle gym.

While I had to manage my own feelings of frustrations about the lack of personal space, it was the not waiting for a private moment to practise yoga that has taught my kids the most about how to regulate their emotions. They saw me breathing on my mat each morning, and they saw me doing the same thing when I felt frazzled during witching hour.

They see me moving my body to build energy on the mat and they see me encourage them to get moving when we’re all getting snippy at each other when the mid-afternoon grumps hit.

I didn’t teach them how to breathe to calm their bodies down. They learnt through watching me do it for myself.

If you want to teach your kids yoga tools to help them to regulate their emotions, start by doing your own practice in the middle of family life. Roll out your mat in the lounge room while they play lego around you. Move through some sun salutations at the park. Don’t wait until they’ve gone to bed to practice your yoga. Let them see you do it.

If you’re brand new to yoga you’ll find hundreds of yoga practices designed specifically for postpartum (and Mum life) in my Online Yoga Circle Membership. We’d love to welcome you over there.

Talk about emotions every day.

The single greatest predictor for success (in all areas of life) is emotional intelligence. We build emotional intelligence through awareness of our emotions and learning tools to manage them. This means being able to stay calm and in control when we’re feeling angry. Or having strategies to relieve and reduce stress when we’re feeling overwhelmed or our adrenaline is activated. It also means knowing how to regulate their emotions when they’re feeling shut down and low energy as well.

The first step to helping our kids to regulate their emotions is making emotions a regular part of our daily conversations. Talk about your own feelings. In the moment, as they’re happening. It will feel like you’re narrating your thoughts, but that’s how your kids will learn best.

We think we need to protect our kids from our negative feelings. This isn’t true. If we hide our negative feelings from our kids when we have them, we just teach them that these feelings are scary and uncontrollable. Then when our children inevitably feel sad, or angry or frustrated; they don’t have the tools to know how to deal with them – because they’re never seen it done before! They might even believe these feelings are uncontrollable.

You’ll often hear me saying to my three; “I’m feeling sad because my friend died and something just reminded me of her. I’m going to go outside and dig in the garden to help myself feel better.”

Or; “I’m feeling frustrated with all the loud voices in here at the moment and it’s making me feel uncomfortable in my body. Can you please talk quieter so I can calm down.”

And even; “I’m sorry for snapping at you like that when you asked me a question. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was feeling angry about something at work. I wasn’t angry at you. I just need 10 minutes to talk to Dad about it so I can shake it off. I’ll come and play with you when I’m feeling better, okay?”

I also offer my kids suggestions for how they can regulate their emotions when they’re feeling them. When they’re fighting over something I might say “hey this feels like it’s getting tricky, let’s go outside and kick the soccer ball.” Later when they’re calm we might talk through the actual negotiation and the emotions they were trying to manage. Or not. Sometimes we just need a reminder to walk away and do something else.

Stop thinking of yoga as something you only do on the mat.

As a first time Mum I felt frustrated when months went by and I hadn’t found any time unroll my mat. To be honest, it made me feel like a bit of a fraud. Here I was, a yoga teacher and even I couldn’t find time for yoga now that I had a newborn! How could I tell others that they needed to make time for yoga when I couldn’t?

Eventually a wise friend reminded me that it’s the yoga we practice off the mat that’s the most important.

It’s the breath you use to calm yourself down when you’re hour 3 into what feels like a never-ending nap battle. It’s the movement you use to shake off the irritation of feeling touched out. And it’s that equanimity (or resilience you’ve built from practicing on the mat) that allows you to be in the middle of chaotic family life and still feel okay.

The more you allow your yoga practice to influence the way you live your life; the more your kids will use yoga tools in their own lives as well.

Teach them proprioception and interoception.

Before children can learn to regulate their emotions they need to be aware of their own bodies (proprioception), and be able to notice the sensations and emotions that they feel within themselves (interoception).

Proprioception is your body’s ability to sense its own movements. It’s also known as body awareness. Children who appear clumsy or are sensory seekers (always play rough, bites and chews on everything, or never seems to sit still) often have poor body awareness. Yoga helps us to start building awareness of the physical body, which is an important first step in helping them to regulate their emotions. After all you can’t ask a child to pay attention to their emotions if they are entirely unaware of their physical body.

When we ask a child to move into yoga poses their brain is working to build awareness of their physical body and the space it inhabits. We can of course do this in everyday life as well, and play is always the best way to do this.

Games that encourage proprioception:

• play games like Twister or “Simon Says”.
• create physical challenge – obstacle courses, new playgrounds, etc
• let them walk along the rock wall to explore balance
• climb trees.
• ride scooters and bikes.

The more aware of their physical body they become; the better they’ll be at noticing what’s going on inside. They have to be able to notice the physical sensations in their body, if they’re going to learn how to regulate their emotions.

Once they’ve built awareness of their physical body, you can start exploring what’s going on inside (aka developing interoception).

Become curious about what’s going on in your little one’s body when they’re having a tantrum or if they’re not doing something that you’ve asked them. After they’ve come back to calm ask them – “What were you feeling just before? Where was that in your body”.

You can start teaching them to notice those feelings when they are subtle and small, rather than waiting until they get big and feel overwhelming. “You sound like you’re getting a bit frustrated at your sister. When I feel frustrated my skin feels a bit scratchy and I get a bit fidgety. How does your body feel?”

Eventually you’ll be able to start prompting them mid-tantrum. You might say – “Hey I think you might be feeling a bit hot in your body. Let’s go have a drink of cold water and we can work this out together.”

The most important thing need to know about teaching your kids how to regulate their emotions

Above everything else; be patient. When I stopped expecting my kids to already know how to handle their emotions, I became a much more patient Mum. Emotions are tricky. Even as adults we struggle to manage our emotions at times or keep our cool under pressure.

We often turn to our partners or friends to talk about emotionally charged events in our lives – THIS is us seeking support to emotionally regulate.

If we need help to regulate our emotions, why would we expect our kids to do it alone?