Yoga For Adoptive Families: Interactive Poses to Build Connection (Part Two)
- Barbara L. Ley
- Apr 10, 2015
- 5 min read
In part one of this post, I introduced the notion of interactive yoga poses that may help to build connection between parents and their children. I also described three types of interactive poses--yoga play, helping poses, and mirroring poses. In part two of this post, I will to discuss two other types of interactive poses, as well as provide some practical strategies for integrating these poses into your family yoga routine.
Teamwork poses and activities: Teamwork yoga postures and activities require the participation of two or more
people to carry themout. For adopted children who may have spent their early months or years depending on themselves, such poses model how to work together and cooperate with others. In lizard on a rock, for example, you might curl up into child's pose while your child stretches out his body, chest facing up, over the top of your back. Then, depending on your size and weight (relative to that of your child) you may stretch your body out over his back (or just rest your head on his back if you are much bigger). Another relaxing teamwork pose is back-to-back breathing. You and your child sit cross-legged and upright, leaning against one another's backs for mutual support. Then interconnect your arms at the elbows. After closing your eyes, breathe slowly together while feeling how your backs move during inhalation and exhalation.
Some teamwork poses also highlight how working together allows each person to better hold and/or go deeper into a pose than if they did it on their own. For children (and adults) who find balancing in tree pose difficult, forest pose may be a fun and helpful alternative. To make a forest, hold one another's hands while making light eye contact. After taking a few breaths together, both of you should lift your respective leg and place your raised foot against your opposite shin. Then, when you both feel balanced, raise your arms together into branches. Take a few breaths in this position before coming out of it. Forest pose may not only make it easier for you and your child to balance in tree pose, but you both may also find that you can lift your arms higher and place your foot farther up on your other leg due to your mutual support system.
"Taking turns" poses and activities: Children who spent their early months or years living in institutional settings or in unstable home/caregiving environments may have had to fight for access to food, attention, toys, and other material items. Or they may have stopped expressing their needs and desires because they were not met or acknowledged on a consistent basis. After joining their adoptive families, such children may still carry the fear of not having enough and feel that they have to fight for what they need and want. Or they may not realize that they they can ask for (and receive) things in the first place. Family yoga activities that encourage everybody to take turns model the sharing of items and experiences. Even though your child may have to wait his turn, he will get a turn. And once his turn is over, he will get another one, either during that session or later on in another session. Moreover, taking turns in the context of practicing yoga provides you with in-built strategies for helping to calm feelings of distress that your child may feel when having to share.
Poses and activities that require multiple participants (e.g., lizard on a rock) are often premised on taking turns as you
alternate different yoga positions. Taking turns also works well with activities involving props. For example, you can use a Hoberman's sphere to illlustrate belly breathing (see photo). Expand the sphere as you and child inhale to show how your bellies and chests expand when breathing in, and then close the sphere upon exhale to show how they contract when breathing out. Each of you can take turns expanding and contracting the Hoberman sphere to guide your breaths. Another fun activity involves a meditation bell. One person rings the bell, and then you both listen to the sound until you can't hear it anymore. Then the other person rings the bell and you both listen again. Working with a yoga card deck is yet another way to practice taking turns. Place the cards face down, and have one person pick a card. Then you all do the card's activity. Take turns picking the cards and doing the poses until you are ready to stop the game. My young kids also love "Yoga Jenga." I wrote yoga poses and activities on the back of each block. After building the Jenga structure, one of us pulls out a block. Everybody does the listed yoga pose, and then it's the next person's turn to pull out a block.
Integrating Connection-Building Yoga into Your Family Routine
When practicing yoga at home with your child, feel free to incorporate the types of interactive poses and activities described above to whatever extent and in any way that works best for your family. Just remember that the purpose of laying out these different types is to provide you not with a rigid practice agenda but with ideas and approaches for using yoga for relationship-building purposes. Also remember that the boundaries between these different interactive approaches are somewhat fluid; numerous activities (e.g., lizard on a rock) fit into multiple pose categories, and some poses (e.g., tree pose) can be done in different interactive ways. Think of these interactive approaches in loose terms as opposed to wracking your brain trying to fit each yoga pose or activity into a particular box.
Feel free to modify the poses and activities based on your child's particular needs. If you are too tall to hold your child's hands while standing in forest pose with her, for example, you can do the pose on your knees so that you better match her height. One of my sons uses crutches, so for standing poses that require us to hold hands, we'll adapt it by doing it in seated position. Or we'll do the pose standing while facing one another and making eye contact but without holding hands (see my post about practicing adaptive yoga with children who use crutches). If you child has medical needs, you may also want to check in with her health care providers about possible poses to avoid and/or focus on for therapuetic purposes. And, in my next post, I will discuss how to be sensitive to your child's history of trauma and early loss when practicing yoga with her.
Whatever your child's needs may be, just remember again to keep your family yoga practice relaxing and fun. Don't force certain poses or forms of physical or interpersonal contact that make her uncomfortable or stressed. Just because you may need to modify a pose (or potentially avoid it altogether) to minimize her discomfort doesn't mean that the pose isn't working or that your relationship-building efforts aren't working. Rather, use the situation as an opportunity to ask her what she needs from you and from the yoga practice at that moment. Doing so demonstrates to her that you care about her feelings and respect her boundaries. And regardless of how well the pose turns out, compassion and respect can go along way in themselves to foster mutual connection.
Further Resources
For those of you who are new to yoga or in need of more ideas for how to practice it with your child, check out the resource section of my website. You can also look into offerings in your local community. A growing number of yoga studios and other community organizations offer mommy/daddy and me yoga classes for parents with children under the age of four, as well as family yoga classes for parents and children of all ages. Some yoga teachers even offer private family yoga sessions.
Comments