Empowering Girls: Yoga Skills

One of my goals, as a parent, is to teach my daughter coping skills and practical techniques for dealing with stress.

Personally, I’ve found yoga to be instrumental in building a core strength, core inner self and self worth, stress reduction and in communing with God.

Of course I want her to have access to skills like this before she hits adolescents and all the negative coping strategies become available to her.

I used to use negative strategies like smoking cigarettes, experimenting with drugs, defining my self worth by boys and men, and a daily diet of Wellbutrin and Xanex. One of my primary objectives is to prevent the adoption of those.

Over the summer I’ve been practicing yoga listening to Elsie Escobar classes on iTunes during Zack’s nap. Sometimes I invite a friend. Sometimes I encourage Ainsley to try a few minutes.

She posed for these photos and then got bored before we moved out of the sitting pose. A fascination with the incense stick took over and she sat near me waving it through the air like a 4th of July sparkler.

The next afternoon I came out of the shower and found her teaching her friends yoga with a DVD, lit candles and burning incense.

Ssshhhh, Mom, we’re having our relaxing quiet yoga time.

The APA’s Report on Sexualization of Girls recommends teaching your children a way to center themselves, meditate, pray, and view one’s body as having value beyond its appearance, beyond male entertainment. Yoga does that for me.

Hopefully, you have healthy coping methods that center and ground you and hopefully you’re finding ways to teach those to your kids.

Teach what YOU know.