Smart bodies smart kids
“Even one small shift can create a ripple effect that could change the whole world one kid at a time or one kid’s whole world.”
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Smart bodies smart kids
Kids need yoga too
Ep 163
Kids Yoga the key to socio-emotional development and mental health
Trauma informed yoga builds smart bodies and smart kids. Science is telling us that our interoception, our somatosensory sixth sense, is important in being able to focus, learn and recover from all forms of stress. Children who are chronically scared, hungry, tired and neglected will find ways to adapt to those feelings and not in ways that are conducive to learning. The body has an innate intelligence that our current education system ignores in favor of sitting still and staying on task. But if we can harness the developmental connections of movement, memory and emotion we can help our kids calm their nervous system in order to feel safe no matter where they are. And strong, emotionally resilient children grow up to be strong emotionally resilient adults. That’s our Work IN today.
I recently got to take a 2 day trauma informed kids yoga workshop and in the preparation for that I was a little hesitant because I mostly work with adults. So I wasn’t sure how valuable it would be. BUT ALL training focused on kids is valuable for ALL adults. And just a reminder to other instructors and teachers of all kinds, the training you take is really more for you than it is for those you serve. You as the individual first and teacher second have to filter and alchemize the experience before you can share it. It’s not about how many poses you know how to do or your magical cueing words you use. It’s about you. Your personal experience and how you show up. So even if we don’t have kids ourselves, don’t intend to be parents, or they’re already grown up, or you don’t intend to ever teach kids, all of us were once children. And for the adults in our rooms, many of them are there trying to process their childhood trauma.
I learned in my most recent training that understanding kids yoga through a trauma informed lens and somatosensory could be the key to the mental health + chronic disease crisis in this country. (not could be… it IS the key) In the mid 1990’s (95-97)The ACE studies done by Kaiser Permanente showed us that adverse childhood events, things like divorce, having a family member with substance use disorder, or a parent with mental illness, can have a long lasting effect on our physical health that may not show up until middle age. Something like 44 different health diagnoses are correlated with an elevated ACE score including Cardiovascular Disease, Autoimmune diseases, Diabetes, increased risk of stroke and cancer. These were present even without the lifestyle habits that we typically associate with them. Link to Nadine Burke’s tedtalk and the ACE Q if you would like to take it.
(The original ACE study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997 with two waves of data collection. Over 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization members from Southern California receiving physical exams completed confidential surveys regarding their childhood experiences and current health status and behaviors. ⅔ had ACE score of one or more and 20% had 4 or higher)
What that tells us is that even if we’ve “gotten over” our childhood we can still be feeling the echos of it physically, mentally and emotionally.
The tools that we practice in trauma informed yoga tap into the somatosensory connections between the brain and body. And even in the most well adjusted, stable homes none of us escape childhood without some traumatic experiences. Even if it’s self induced. When I was 6 years old I tried to fly off the top of the slide with just some happy little thoughts. I was around that age when a boy in my class stabbed me in the face with a stick on the playground. I still have the scars. And then there’s the medical moments when I was held down for allergy testing. None of those things were my parents fault. That was just Kindergarten and first grade.
I mention those things because they were things I had forgotten about. Things that were part of my history but that I didn’t see as problematic until they came up in some trauma release work I was doing. They were things that I didn’t put a lot of value on but my body had been holding on to tension around it.
And this is why it matters. Because as an adult we create stories and meaning around why we are the way we are, who we are and how we got that way, but our conscious stories don’t always match the body’s stories.
That’s why it can feel so baffling when we feel anxious and panicky in certain situations that don’t seem like they should be that scary. And if we haven’t learned how to be curious and open to those sensations in the body, if we can’t pause and notice it before it overwhelms our system we’re going to be at the mercy of our nervous system and the emotional dysregulation that goes with it.
Children are naturally dysregulated. They aren’t born knowing how to name the sensations in their bodies. They learn how to get what they need first by crying and then with language. How we respond or don’t respond to infants and children affects their brain development. Prolonged neglect in particular has a profound effect on the size of a child's brain especially in areas responsible for memory, learning and behavior. Google Romanian orphans and you’ll see.
Our tiny humans need healthy connections to other people and they need to learn healthy connections within themselves. We can, through this greater understanding of the brain, somatosensory connections and the nervous system, give our kids a better whole body education. Yes we need to learn reading, writing and arithmetic in schools but in order to do that we need to help our kids into a state that allows that to happen. We can do that through the body.
Our teachers need more support in this area for themselves and for their classrooms. We can’t have a dysregulated adult in a room and expect the children to learn safe self regulation. Our education system needs an overhaul in that respect. And parents also need to be more educated so they can create a home environment that sets their kids up for success. I wish I’d known half of the things I know now when my kiddos were little.
There isn’t a quick fix for any of this.
Even one small shift can create a ripple effect that could change the whole world one kid at a time or one kid’s whole world.
So what might that look like?
Teaching kids how to channel the energy in their body physically. Kids do this naturally when they have the space. Running, jumping, moving (whatever it is)when they’re frustrated or angry. (stop cutting recess or using that as a punishment stop using isolation or movement restriction)
Teaching kids how to handle fear, nervousness and anxiety using breathing techniques. (befriending the butterflies + possibly restricting Social media as that’s like being raised in a carnival house of mirrors)
Teaching kids how to show themselves care and compassion with things as simple as what they eat or self affirmations. (Name, claim, tame + reframing)
Teaching kids how to set boundaries for themselves and others to build self trust. (lifelong skill that addresses bullying on both sides of the behavior, teachers need this too)
Now I know that some of this stuff sounds stupid or woo woo for a certain generation of parents. Maybe it sounds like too much effort to add or perhaps too expensive or a luxury especially in our inner city schools. I get it but the truth is that no kid is going to be able to sit still for eight hours a day let alone learn anything if everything inside him or her is screaming that it’s not safe. No matter what the age.
If we want better for our kids, for ourselves too, better education outcomes, better mental health outcomes, better long term physical health we need to start here. With our children. Somatic movement and resilience training can be woven into how we teach. It starts with simple awareness and new understanding.
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard and you want to learn more head over to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin there’s some free resilience resources and of course the show notes for this and other episodes of The Work IN podcast.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.
Savage Grace Coaching is all about bringing resilience and burnout recovery. Especially for overwhelmed entrepreneurs, creators and coaches in the fitness industry.
Schedule a free consultation call to see if my brand of actionable accountability is right for you and your business.