A Smooth Transition: Techniques to Shift from Summertime to the School Year

Smooth Transition

With summer ending and a new school year starting, your child may have new teachers, new friends and even new activities. Want to help your child with the back-to-school transition to ensure your little student embraces the classroom setting with confidence and success? Here are three fun exercises for a relaxing start to school that incorporate techniques from the yoga studio in the home setting.

Body surfing, also known as body scanning, offers a nice way for your child to relax and enjoy a good night’s sleep. While bringing awareness to the space around your child, body scanning helps your little one to unwind, visualize and develop a stronger understanding of one’s body. This way, when your child awakes, he or she is rested and ready for an exciting adventure in school.

To begin a body scanning session, have your child lie down on a bed face up, similar to sleeping or resting on his/her back. Ask your youngster to imagine the bed as a towel on the beach, letting your child think of a favorite beach or beach memory. Then have your child pretend that the sun is warming up the entire body, beginning at the child’s toes. Scan your child’s body from the feet up, moving from the toes to the ankles and knees all the way up to the tummy and back, and then onto the shoulders. From there, tell your child the sun is warming up the arms, fingertips and then the chin, cheeks, eyes and even the hair. Mention the sun is warming your child for bedtime to keep your little one comfortable for sleep. Afterward, ask your child to take in a deep breath and sigh two times. Follow up the exercise by kissing your youngster goodnight. I always tell my daughter that I will see her in our dreams.

Our kids miss us at night, and now that they are going to school they might miss us then, too. Body scanning with your child before bedtime presents a calming way to send your child off to sleep before embracing the new day ahead. To continue the bonding time with your child in the morning and open the day on an uplifting note, try a breath fogging exercise.

Have your child close his or her eyes facing a mirror or window while thinking of how wonderful the day ahead will be. Ask your child to draw in an ocean breath, also known as Darth Vader breath, to fog up the window. For an extra calming tactic, encourage your child to also take in a deep breath through the nose and then exhale

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onto the mirror or window.

When the fog appears on the mirror or window, ask your child to open his eyes. You two can pair up to draw a smiley face on the foggy surface using your fingers. This brings your child a smile, as well as comfort and understanding that the day will be fun just like this exercise. If your child misses you at any point of the day, your youngster can remember your morning together spent drawing a happy face. It should be a positive memory and remind your child that you two will soon be together again. The exercise is a sweet way to start the day. Add to the appeal of the exercise by closing it with you and your child expressing a wish for each other.

Now that your youngster is rested and smiling, you can get rid of any remaining anxiety and wake up the entire body by getting the

wiggles out with body tapping. Facing your child, and asking your youngster to mimic you, tap your head, followed by the ears, chin and shoulders. Go all the way to the stomach and back, and then onto the legs and knees. Encourage your child to balance on one leg while tapping shins and then ankles. Next ask your youngster to stomp his feet. This is a great tactic to give kids input to see where they are in the space around them while simultaneously getting energy flowing.

Now your child is all set to enjoy the day and come home to share with you all of the amazing journeys each day brings. Enjoy the back-to-school shuffle, too, because before you know it Halloween will be here. Stay tuned for poses inspired by Halloween, such as Spiderman, princess and a few animals on the farm. Until then, however, bask in connecting with your child and marveling at your youngster’s readiness for school.

Kami Evans is a Registered Yoga Teach and Children Registered Yoga Teacher, she is also a Family and Child Advocate and speaks at various events in the US and UK. Contact for more info 800-584-7940 or [email protected]

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This post originally appeared on our September/October 2011 Magazine

A Smooth Transition: Techniques to Shift from Summertime to the School Year

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