“Baby yoga 2 years old”, “baby yoga at what age”, “happy baby yoga”… On the internet, there are numerous researches related to yoga for children, including babies. Books devoted to the subject are equally so, from Great yoga book for children. a 52 yoga poses for kids. And yoga classes for parents and babies or family yoga are spreading, which shows a great interest in the topic.
“The practice is developing,” Brigitte Anne Neveux, honorary president of the French Hatha Yoga Federation and yoga teacher, tells BFMTV.com. This former inspector of National Education, responsible for the IUFM of Moselle for the training of school teachers, is no stranger to the development of this activity: she has been one of the most fervent defenders of children’s yoga for thirty years.
Yoga “for all ages”
“Yoga can be done at all ages of life,” says Brigitte Anne Neveux, also the author of yoga and children. “And from the earliest childhood.” If it is not, strictly speaking, yoga classes, this former inspector evokes a “connection of children with these techniques.”
“Yoga is a mediation. I did it with kindergarten kids, even babies who went to daycare.”
The psychomotrician Catherine Lefevre, representative of the French Federation of psychomotors, boasts of multiple contributions for the youngest: both in terms of balance, coordination, dissociation, flexibility, strength or even precision of movement.
“Yoga allows the child to start learning, particularly at the level of motor components such as tone control, inhibition and parameters such as rhythm, slowness, acceleration,” she says on BFMTV.com.
A useful practice to “focus”?
For Alice Guyon, yoga even has a lot of interest in getting into school. “In Western school education there is little room for the internalization of the body”, laments this CNRS researcher in neurosciences from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, who has worked on the benefits of body-mind disciplines (including yoga, tai-chi and qigong).
“These approaches, such as yoga or sophrology, allow you to develop emotional intelligence, observe your own sensations, calm your breathing and listen to your own body without contradicting school achievements.
“It is a resource that can help the child in his schooling to resist disturbances, to concentrate, to gain resilience and self-confidence.”
a controversial topic
During the philosophical workshops that Alice Guyon teaches from CE1 to CM2, before each session, she offers children an “attention practice”, a kind of short meditation to channel their energy and improve their concentration. In her training for her teachers, Brigitte Anne Neveux evokes yoga as a time to refocus children or offer them a break between two school sequences.
“After sitting for 45 minutes, you can get your body moving again, get up, stretch, massage. In school, you learn know-how. Yoga develops soft skills, tames the mind. In this, he has his place in the class.”
But if this type of meditative practice in class is obvious to some, others are concerned. Jean-Michel Blanquer was alerted to the holding of “mindfulness meditation” workshops – a technique other than yoga – in certain schools, presented in the form of “relaxation workshops” or “breathing” or “meditation” exercises.
Associations and unions had been set up, judging that they entailed “significant risks” and “uncertain consequences (…) on the psychological development of children.”
At a scientific level, several studies have established the benefits of yoga in adults: reduction of depressive symptoms from two to three sessions per week, decreased anxiety either strengthen the immune system in patients with breast cancer. But in children, no such evaluation has been carried out.
“It’s cosmetic”
That’s why pediatric neurologist Catherine Billard is more reserved about it. If she recognizes that yoga is part of a set of “methods” that can “relax” children, she does not get to boast of benefits on motor skills, concentration or managing emotions.
“Anything we can do to help kids who have learning difficulties, who are anxious or agitated is good,” this cognitive development specialist, who coordinated a learning disability screening experience, tells BFMTV.com.
“It can also help the teacher in class management. But what is at stake is only in terms of well-being.”
“Everyone can more or less feel the benefits of yoga, but I can’t say that it has a really positive impact on children, especially in terms of learning,” explains Catherine Billard. For this neuropediatrician, “it’s about cosmetics”.
Source: BFM TV
