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Surya Namaskar for Kids - Benefits and How to Do
Surya Namaskar is a basic practice in Yoga, traditionally done to warm up for more difficult poses and as a form of paying tribute to the sun. The sun is the source of life on earth, so ancient yogis believed that paying their respects to the sun can result in good health and increased vigour in life.
Surya Namaskar is a great warm-up for kids, as it stretches the entire body and helps move every joint and major muscle group present. This smooth transition between the poses helps one concentrate and focus and can have a marked effect on the creativity and focus levels of the child. In this article, let us take a look at the methods of making Surya Namaskar more fun, as well as the steps to performing it.
Amazing Benefits of Surya Namaskar
There are many benefits that come with the regular practice of sun salutation, especially in children. The foremost one is that the practice addresses certain parts of the body in a comprehensive manner, including most joints and the major muscle groups. Therefore, the poses and the actions help tone the muscles of the body well. Also, the Surya Namaskar makes changes within the body of the child. Not only are the outer sets of muscles given a nice workout, but the inner muscles like the solar plexus and navel are also worked on during the activity. If the practice is continued regularly in children, it has the potential to prevent more than a hundred ailments too. Some of the benefits of Surya Namaskar are:
1. Improved Blood Circulation
Inhalation and exhalation are particularly focused upon, so the lungs are constantly ventilated. This means that the blood in the body becomes highly oxygenated and purified in a short span of time.
2. Increasing Fitness
If the poses are carried out in a smooth and quick manner, you will find that the salutation itself is a great cardio workout. Excess weight around the stomach is trimmed off easily, and you can help your child become more active easily.
3. Benefits the Skin and Hair
The activity improves blood circulation, so the skin automatically becomes more glowing and radiant at a young age.
4. Anti-Anxiety
The salutation helps the children focus and improves their memory, and can have a great calming effect on the entire body. Any exam related stresses can be completely eliminated by practicing the Surya Namaskar poses regularly.
5. Optimized Metabolism
Another effect of the improved blood circulation is that oxygen and nutrients reach every organ wherever they are required, which means that the metabolism of the child increases to the optimum levels quickly.
How to Do Surya Namaskar – A Step By Step Process
Here is a detailed breakdown of the steps of Surya Namaskar for anyone wondering how to do Surya Namaskar at home.
1. Prayer Pose
Place your feet close together and balance your weight on your feet equally. Expand your chest, and as you inhale, lift your arms up from both sides- bring them together in front of the chest in the prayer position as you exhale.
2. Arms
Then, inhale again and lift your arms up and back with the biceps close to the ears. Make sure to stretch your body in its entirety, from the heels to the tips of the fingers.
3. Hand to Foot
Bend forward with the spine erect as you exhale, and bring your hands down to the floor beside the feet.
4. The Horse
As you inhale, push your right leg back as far as possible. Then, look up and bring your right knee to the floor.
5. Stick Pose
Similarly, take the left leg back while inhaling and come to the plank position with your body in a straight line and your arms perpendicular to the floor.
6. Salutin
Gently, exhale and lie down with your knees touching the floor first. Raise your posterior slightly- eight points of the body (two hands, two feet, two knees, chest and chin) must be the only points of contact between your body and the floor.
7. Cobra
Raise your chest up, with your elbows bent and your shoulder being far from the ears. Stretch as much as you can, and ensure that your chest pushes forward when you breathe in. When you breathe out, push your navel down gently.
8. Mountain
Lift the hips and the tailbone up with the palms still on the floor, so that your body forms an inverted ‘V’ shape. Ensure that your heels touch the ground so that your body remains stretched.
9. Horse Pose
From the inverted V, get back to the equestrian pose with the right leg backwards and the chin looking up again in one fluid movement. Stretch your body as much as possible.
10. Hand-to-foot pose
In a reverse manner, make your legs perpendicular with your hands placed near your feet on the ground. You can bend your knees if necessary, but keep your body as straight as possible.
11. Raised Arms
Continuing the reverse trend, roll the spine out while exhaling and lift your hands up over your head. Stretch up more, rather than stretching backwards.
12. Relax
Exhaling slowly, bring your arms back down, and observe the various sensations coursing through your body.
The answer to how many Surya Namaskar per day depends upon your reasons for the activity. If you want your child to improve his mental skills rather than improving his fitness, make him do it 3 or 5 times as slowly as possible. If you meant it as a cardio exercise, you can do it as many times as possible.
Ways to Make Sun Salutation Fun For Kids
Sun salutations for kids can be a boring ordeal, especially because they will not understand how beneficial it is. In such cases, there are a number of ways you can make the activity more fun for your children:
1. Follow My Body
To make it more fun, just put on some great music and encourage your children to follow the poses as much as they can. Let them cut loose and add their own variations, and have fun in the process.
2. The Wave
Stand in a circle, and start doing the salutation. Tell the person next to you in one direction to follow what you are doing, and the person on his right to follow him in turn. The result is a wave, which is more fun to watch and requires more concentration to pull off.
3. Sun Dance Story
To make the activity more interesting, you can make up a story that relates to each pose you are doing. This is bound to get the attention of the children and helps them focus on the poses themselves.
4. Human Mandala
Place yourselves in a circle, and stay connected via arms, feet or other parts of the body. Do the poses in unison, so that the result is a fluid movement in unison by everyone in the circle.
5. Saluting Each Other
Pair up the children and make each pair face each other. Then encourage one of each pair to make up a new set of poses, and the other has to follow his partner. Switch roles as the song changes in the background.
6. Saluting for Love
Encourage each child to individually make up some poses in honour of something they love, and make each child show off their poses in front of everyone. The viewers have to guess what item they are trying to salute.
7. Sun Dance Song
Make up some sort of a song that goes well with the poses, so that the children can sing along while they practice the sun salutations.
The Surya Namaskar is an extremely healthy activity for children, as it can have a range of physical and mental benefits as the child grows up. Even though it may not appear to be a fun activity from the perspective of the child, you can encourage them to practice every day using any one of the fun activities mentioned above.
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10 Effective Ways on How to Praise A Child with Words
As a parent, you will be the one who plays the most part in the development of your child. This not only includes physical development, but also the emotional aspects. Parents have a huge say on the mental condition and the personality the child.
Therefore, it is extremely important that you do what is best for your child when he is growing up. You must remember to praise your child when he does something well, but this is a double-edged sword- too much praising will not be good for the child. In this article, let us take a look at how to praise a child with words and actions, and when praise and encouragement for children must be given.
When is Praising your Child Considered Good?
Praising your child is good, but like everything else, it has its time and situation. You must praise your child in a few situations when it can have maximum effect on his personality.
Praising your child is good when the praise is realistic. This means that you must not go over the top with your words, and give him a false belief. You have to ensure that the praise which you have given can be used by him as a yardstick in order to measure his progress.
Praising is good if he has earned it. If your child has done something, even if it is something as simple as helping you out in the kitchen, you must ensure that he gets the praise he deserves.
Praise is good when it is specific. This means that you must be as specific as possible in your praises so that he understands what he has done to deserve it.
The most important thing to remember is that praise is best only when it is used sparingly. You must be sure to use it when he deserves it, but not for every single little thing he does. Otherwise, he might fail to understand the value of your words, and it soon has no effect on him whatsoever.
Why should you Praise your Kid?
There are many reasons as to why you should definitely be praising your child. Praise, motivation and the child’s personality are hugely interconnected, and praise can have wondrous effects on his psyche as a whole. You can easily boost his self-confidence and motivate him, with a few well-chosen words. There are no limits to what praise can do- you can help him understand that he should never compromise on his well-being, and instil a fighting spirit in your child right from a young age using praise.
You have to make sure that you choose a balance between effort-based and talent-based praise when you compliment him for his actions. The former focuses on his natural abilities, while the latter helps him understand that actions are more important than his talents. If you praise him for his talent often, it can make him feel uncomfortable towards opening up to new challenges- therefore, you should try and stick with effort-based praises as much as you can for his development.
How to Praise Kids without Spoiling them?
There are many ways to praise kids without it having a bad effect on your children. Some of these methods are given below.
1. Encourage
Encouragement is the best way to ensure that your child knows why he deserves the praise you give him. You can encourage your child to develop a skill of your liking and make him focus on it in a constructive manner. Even when the results do not deserve to be praised, you can still rally around him and give him your support by encouraging him to do better.
2. Mirroring
You have to take care to notice the small things too when you encourage your child. It can be something trivial and unimportant, like the way he keeps his toys arranged. Let him know that you are interested in every single little thing he does, and you can have a lasting mark on his psychological development. Your child will grow up to be more confident and collected with this praise.
3. Listen
It is just as important to listen to your child, and not simply praise him for whatever he has done. Most parents today have jobs and workplace issues, which leads to less time with their children. It is no hidden fact that children crave attention- therefore, you have to listen to him whenever he has to say something. Also, be empathetic towards him- you do not have to always pick your child’s side when he complains.
4. Rewards
Whenever your child gets close to some sort of an achievement, you have to praise him on it no matter how small it may be. This means that you can praise and motivate him for trying to memorise that poem, or for a tight game of soccer which your child lost. When he succeeds eventually, you can reinforce good values by saying that he proved that he can change everything with hard work with this result.
5. Reinforcement
You should also try to make your child remember something he has done that deserves praise. This leads to him believing more in himself and gaining self-confidence. You have to be genuinely interested in the actions of your child, and praise him for his accomplishments in order to cultivate diligence.
6. Questioning
Praise does not always have to be compliments- you can also ask him questions regarding the accomplishments he made. Start by asking him questions regarding how he did what he did so that he gets a better idea about his thought process and reasons as to why he was successful.
7. Eye Contact
In matters of praise, you should take care to deliver in the right manner. This means that you have to not only say the right thing but also say it right. You should maintain eye contact with your child to show that you mean what you say, and use a warm, nurturing tone of voice. Also, try to say it at their level, face-to-face if possible.
8. Construct Sentences Wisely
It is important to choose the right words when you praise your child. Your child has to understand what you mean, for the praise to be successful. Therefore, it is important that you choose the words keeping in mind the developmental stage of your child while praising him. As they get older, you can go for words which reflect how experienced they are and say them accordingly.
9. Individual Strength
No two children have the exact same skill set, so you might find your child doubting his capabilities when he sees someone do something that he cannot. In such instances, it is important that you remind of his own strengths so that he is not short on confidence. You can point out that there are things that he can do better than his peers so that he feels better.
10. Do not Overdo It
This is perhaps the most important thing that you have to keep in mind when you are praising your child. You should never go overboard with praise, as it can have detrimental effects on your child’s personality. He might lose value to your words and pay no heed to whatever you have to say when he grows up. Also, you should try not to tell him that he is the best at something, as it only leads to disappointment and loss of credibility later.
Praise is a double-edged sword that parents have to handle with care- too little or too much, both can have a bad effect on the development of the child. Therefore, you have to aim to be balanced when you offer praise to your child and help him become a better person as he grows up.
Also Read: Ways to Improve Your Parenting Skills Read more
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DIY Grass House
These super-cute grass houses are excellent to teach your kids about living as one with the natural world. Not only will this activity get them interested in gardening and plant care, but the kids will also love the delight of watching something grow, right before their eyes! Best part is – the entire family gets to come together for this one!
What you need
4-5 unused household sponges in different colours
Magic markers
Ruler/scale
A plastic storage container
Kid-friendly scissors
Craft-knife
Grass seeds (pick fast-growing ones to get quick results!)
Water bottle for spraying
Step-by-step instructions
Rinse the sponges with water to make sure they are clean.
Draw the basic outline for your house on the sponges using the ruler and magic marker.
Now, cut out the shapes using the scissors. You can let your child do this with a pair of kid-friendly scissors.
4. Spray your house with a water bottle so that it is damp through but not soaking wet.
5. Now, take a handful of grass and sprinkle it all over the sponges.
6. Add a little extra spray of water to the seeds. After all, seeds need some extra care! You can remove any excess seeds from the lid.
7. Finally, add the bottom of the container to complete your little grass-house!
8. Keep your grass-house in a warm place that gets plenty of light. Make sure you explain to your kids how grass needs warmth and sunlight to grow.
9. Now, all you have to do is wait for the grass to start growing. Check on your grass-house every day, as a family, and you will see the magic commence soon!
Messiness score
3
Level of difficulty
Medium
Parental Involvement
High
Skills enhanced
Fine motor skills, curiosity and interest in the natural world, cause and effect relationship
You Will Observe your Child Doing...
Asking questions about the world around them, practising fine motor skills for drawing lines and for using scissors, learning to come together as a family
All the Fun That Was Had
Children love seeing things grow and change, as if by magic, and when they know they have played a part, nothing could be better! The delight on your kids’ faces when the grass starts growing is something you will always cherish. Read more
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