The disappointing truth about teaching yoga for kids that no one talks about

Beautiful picture of kids practicing yoga

So you are thinking about doing your kids’ yoga training, you love working with kids and are feeling drawn to a meaningful career where you can positively influence the lives of kids through the practices of yoga and mindfulness. Or maybe you have just completed your yoga for kids training and are excited about the possibilities and the new adventure that awaits you.

You have probably been inspired and motivated to start this journey by adorable photos of kids practicing yoga, sitting quietly and peacefully in meditation and by your own belief and love for yoga as a practice through which kids lives can be enriched. You see yourself sharing the valuable essence of yoga through yogic principles and teaching kids the power of their breath and how they can easily manage their emotions through mindfulness practices. You may have already started taking steps towards building your kids yoga teacher vision through branding, a bright colorful logo and your own vision statement around what yoga means to you. In your planning you have envisioned yourself teaching full classes and reaching lots of little souls with your own unique brand of yoga love.

And then once you start teaching or reaching out to potential students you hit a bump in the road, where are all the students at? How do you create exciting lesson plans and yoga classes that will keep your students wanting to come back for more? The truth that many kids yoga teachers come to realise after a while is that there are not that many kids that are overly excited by a traditional yoga class and to be quite honest most of them don’t really like yoga that much.

The disappointing reality

The way that most kids yoga classes are structured goes along the roots of a story based class, where yoga poses are incorporated into a story and the kids mimic the animals and characters being portrayed through making shapes and sounds with their bodies. Although these classes work quite well with younger age groups ranging through 3-6-year-olds, older kids can find them quite boring and will quickly lose interest as they jump into something that is more fun and hip. This can make it challenging for kids yoga teachers to grow and maintain full classes and be quite disheartening when you feel that you are not reaching that many kids and that your efforts are going unnoticed by potential students. It becomes even more disheartening when you realise that you are not being rewarded in a monetary sense for all the effort and planning that you are putting into your classes. Because let’s face it, even though most yoga teachers do what they do for the love of yoga we all still deserve to make a good living.

In today’s fast-paced world where modern living means that we are constantly being bombarded with information, images on screens and the newest tech gadgets it is becoming more difficult to grab the attention of kids who have so many other options available to them in the form of entertainment and. It is also becoming more difficult for these kids to find stillness and inner contentment. In yoga for children, we want to teach the kids to be present, to be able to manage their emotions and to enjoy healthy bodies and minds. Sometimes though a classical yoga class maybe going in the opposite direction as the kids get easily bored and begin to dislike yoga classes. Even teaching younger age groups such as kindergarten, the classes may only appeal to a few of your students and the ones who are there because their parents want them to join yoga classes soon become restless and uninspired in the yoga classes.

It’s not about you!

One of the unfortunate truths about being a kids yoga teacher is that many kids yoga teachers go through yoga for kids teacher training, and put their heart and soul into getting classes going only to find that they struggle to get students or to build full classes. Since nobody mentions the fact that many kids can find yoga boring, these teachers may get uninspired and think that perhaps they are not doing something right or that their path is not to teach kids after all. They may blame themselves for not been able to bring and keep the kids in their classes. They may tell themselves that “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not good at marketing”. Doubt starts to creep in about their ability to be a successful children’s yoga teacher and they start questioning whether people who said they would not be able to make a living from teaching yoga may have been right.

The truth that many kids yoga teachers will have to realize is that it is not about them or their ability to successfully lead a kids’ class. The truth is that they are probably great yoga teachers. The truth is that because of modern living and the pace of kid’s lifestyles, classical yoga classes may just be too boring to keep their attention.

It worked for me and it can work for you!

How can I make such a claim? I have been there! After doing my kids’ yoga training I set off on my new adventure dreaming of all the kids I would positively influence through yoga. It took me 4 years of really putting in a lot of effort and not seeing any rewards for it, I would get kids coming to classes only to have them leave again soon after. I tried everything from new stories, new games, lots of planning went into every lesson and yet I still didn’t see results. I had a few loyal kids who stayed with me and I struggled to get new kids to sign up, or if they did sign up they only stayed for a few months and then left. I found that many parents were still somewhat skeptical about yoga and this made it even more difficult to sign up new students.

Then a few years ago I discovered aerial yoga, I had such a great time in these classes and new I was onto something when I finally brought these classes to the town where I live it changed my teaching and my life! I had finally discovered a way that I could bring yoga to kids in a way that was fun and exciting to them no matter what their age was. Since launching my aerial yoga classes I now have ten full weekly classes and a waitlist of kiddos who are eager to start aerial yoga. My classes run over a full year with my regular students and I also have advanced aerial classes for those kids who have been doing aerial with me for many years and need a more challenging class. My classes are not only acrobatic exercises, they fuse the fun of yoga poses with all of their physical, mental and emotional benefits with the bonus of allowing me to bring in the essence of yoga through mindfulness practices and yogic values-ensuring the kids are receiving a well rounded and holistic yoga class with a fun twist!

There is a solution

After going through this myself and also seeing many other kids yoga teachers struggling to make a career out of their passion and not fulfilling their dream, I started the SiRA Aerial Yoga for Kids program. Combining all my knowledge and experience, everything that I learned along the way to create a yoga program that kids yoga teachers can use to assist them in having full classes with happy and excited students.

SiRA Aerial Yoga for kids is an online platform training where you will learn how to teach effective and fun swing yoga for children classes, these classes combine traditional yoga poses with the fun aspect of doing them in a supported hammock or swing. This program has been refined many times to ensure that each class runs smoothly. Because kids love the sense of freedom and fun that comes from these hammocks they will keep coming back for more.

What’s great about this program is that you have access to over 35 illustrated lesson plans, set up in such a way that they provide you with a year-long aerial yoga program that you can easily teach without having to prepare your material, saving you time and leaving you with the energy to teach a great class. The lessons build on each other and are structures in such a way that you will be able to teach even if you have never done aerial yoga before. You also get tips and tricks of the trade – all the little things that have taken me ten years of teaching to learn and to master, you get included in your training as a children’s aerial yoga teacher. And we also include themed yoga classes for those special occasions during the year such as Valentine’s and new years.

Teaching Aerial Yoga for kids is still a new concept and therefore it can be a great niche market for you to establish yourself as a kids yoga teacher in your area, and to create an abundant income stream so that you can earn a good living while fulfilling your dream.

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