Childs Pose: Instructions, Tips, and Benefits for Balasana

Child’s Pose 🧘🏽‍♀️ is commonly known as Balasana and is a prominent foundational posture in yoga practices. 

I understand the importance of Balasana as it is a posture meant to give your kids rest and meant to be done as a relaxing 😌 and rejuvenating exercise between other challenging yoga postures and exercise routines.

This posture is a counter practice that can help your kids cool down and relax their bodies and muscles, thus making it a transition pose that teaches your kids the importance of inaction, intentional rest, and staying still.

In this blog post, I have included a detailed description of the Child’s Pose, a simple yet beneficial posture for your kids to practice at home for a better sense of physical, mental, and emotional well-being. 😊

Meaning

Balasana is derived from Sanskrit, where the word bala means child 👧🏽, and the word asana means posture 🧘🏽‍♀️ or seat, thus arriving at the name of this yoga asana – Balasana or the Child’s Pose.

The Child’s Pose is also referred to as the Fetal Pose, as it resembles the resting position of a child in the mother’s womb.

Importance of the Child’s Pose

“The shape of the pose is useful for many reasons, but in particular, it forces you to confront your attitudes and patterns of breathing, the health of your organs, and your level of awareness in moving from the abdomen. It is a very simple pose, to begin with physically, yet it requires patience and the ability to surrender to gravity and a state of nondoing.”

– Peter Steriois, a yoga teacher and the author of Gravity & Grace (2019)

I cannot stress enough the importance of guiding your kids to practice the Child’s Pose 🧘🏽‍♀️, which I have found very beneficial for my son – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

The Child’s Pose can help your kids in many ways by creating a state of calm, activating their relaxation mode, deactivating their stress mode, and slowing down their parasympathetic nervous system. 

The front-forward state of this pose also stretches the muscles in the back, arms, and shoulders and allows for better blood circulation throughout the body. It also aids in digestion, flexibility, and overall wellness.

How to Do the Child’s Pose

Here, I break down how to do the Child’s Pose yoga with simple steps so you can guide your kids to do it easily at home –

1. Make your kids kneel on a yoga mat and sit on their heels with their big toes touching each other.
2. Once they are comfortable, guide them to spread their knees hip-width apart.
3. They can raise their hands upwards and inhale as they do so.
4. Then, make them bend their upper body forward to touch their forehead to the mat and exhale while bending.
5. Guide them to stretch their arms forward on the mat – palms facing down, with the torso resting between the knees and their arms aligning with their knees.
6. Allow your kids to rest in the posture for some time ⏳ and let them consciously focus on their breathing patterns.
7. Slowly instruct them to return to the original sitting posture while they exhale.

You can let them remain in this resting posture anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 to 3 minutes, depending on how comfortable your kids feel. 

My son started by holding the posture for 30 seconds, after which I slowly increased the time to get him used to it.

Benefits of the Child’s Pose

The Child’s Pose offers various benefits for your kids and can help them with their physical and mental health. I have listed the benefits of this pose to help you understand the importance of this yoga posture.

Develops Flexibility

Performing the Child’s Pose can help your kids develop their level of flexibility 🤸🏽‍♀️ and mobility gradually, as it involves stretching the spine, arms, thighs, hips, ankles, and muscles.

I noticed that my son was able to become a lot more flexible over time after he began doing the Child’s Pose.

Improves Mental Health 

Practicing the Child’s Pose can help contribute to an improved state of mental 🧠 health, and it lets your kids remain in a state of solitude and calm, where they are doing nothing, which results in a calmer and more peaceful mind. 

This posture is also considered therapeutic and helps relieve stress, restore inner peace, and cope with anxiety and depression.

Encourages Proper Breathing

By practicing staying in the Child’s Pose, your kids will learn the proper breathing 🌬️ pattern, as it requires them to concentrate on their breath. This also helps calm the mind and body.

Strengthens Spine and Lower Back

I would say the Child’s Pose can help your kids strengthen and stretch their spine and lower back.

Most of the time, our kids are sitting in a compressed state without getting the needed stretches, and while resting in this position, they can release all the pressure stored in the shoulder and the lower back of their body and lengthen it. 

Strengthens Shoulders and Necks

This pose also helps your kids straighten their shoulders and the back of their necks, release pressure, relax the muscles, reduce tightness, and make them feel calmer and more energized.

Strengthens Knees

The Child’s Pose can help your kids strengthen their knees by stretching the muscles to avoid possible injuries due to physical exercises. It helps strengthen and thoroughly stretch the knees and its ligaments, muscles, and tendons for stronger knees. 

If your kids have sensitive knees, place a pillow or folded blanket to help them strengthen their knees by being in a comfortable position. 

Stretches Ankles and Thighs

This posture also helps your kids stretch their shins, ankles, and thighs. Staying in this pose for some time gives these parts of your kid’s body a much-needed stretch, as you know they are essential for physical activity.

The shin and ankle muscles are stretched, thus relieving the stress stored in the lower portion of the legs.

The quadriceps, which are four large muscles in the front portion of the thighs, are stretched and improve mobility. 

Stretches Hips

The hips get a much-needed stretch through this yoga pose, and your kids can stretch their hip muscles well. The Child’s Pose helps open up the hip muscles, which can become tight due to increased pressure and sitting posture throughout the day. 

You can also help your kids minimize the chances of possible hip pain and problems that may arise in the future by making them more flexible.

Promotes Blood Circulation 

This yoga posture allows for better blood 🩸 circulation to the heart and the brain. Thus, it helps the organs and tissues function better due to increased blood flow. 

Doing this Child’s Pose can help your kids regulate their blood pressure, which is essential for the body to function at its full potential to carry oxygen and nutrients and remove carbon dioxide and tissue waste.

Aids Digestion

If your kids experience indigestion and bloating, I suggest you make them do the Child’s Pose regularly to help with the problem.

In this posture, your kids rest their torsos between their thighs and on their knees, and the constant breathing leads to the stomach expanding, thus massaging the digestive 🥗 organs to help with the digestion process and reduce the discomfort.

Ensures Good Sleep

Every time my son practices Child Pose before his bedtime, he enjoys a good sleep 💤 due to the relaxed feeling that the posture offers.

It helps soothe the muscles, relaxes the body, and helps your kids sleep well at night.

Stimulates Organs

By performing this pose, your kids can stimulate and massage their organs. The abdominal pressure helps stimulate the internal organs, making them active, which leads to their better functioning and aids in digestion.

Boosts Energy

Doing the Child’s Pose is an effective way for your kids to boost their energy ⚡️ and energize their bodies. While resting in this pose, your kids release the tension they are holding in, focus on their breathing, and thus feel more energized. 

It also helps create a healthy balance between the body and the mind, which helps your kids focus and feel better physically and mentally.

Tips To Follow 

I want to share a few tips to help elevate the overall experience for your kids and help them have a pleasant and fruitful experience.

• The purpose of this yoga pose is to offer your kids a soothing and relaxing 😌 experience so you can think of ways to make it more comfortable for them.
• I recommend you provide your kids with a pillow or a folded blanket to place on the yoga mat to rest their heads or knees on an elevated height to avoid possible discomfort and make the posture easy to do, as this posture might not be comfortable for everyone. 
• The intent of this posture is introspective and intuitive, so I suggest you encourage your kids to draw their attention inward and pay attention to each breath 🌬️ to connect to their inner selves.
• You can make sure that your kids relax their necks while resting in this posture to prevent any possible neck pain or injury 🤕.
• Another thing I sometimes like to do is allow my son to set an intention 💭 or choose a mantra to point their focus on while staying in the position of rest.
• You can give your kids cues 🔢 to breathe in and breathe out to make the experience more effective and encourage them to sink their upper body toward the mat.

Things to Remember 

There are some things you need to keep in mind before your kids practice the Child’s Pose –

• You can make your kids practice the Child’s Pose in the morning ☀️ as soon as they wake up if possible or at night 🌙 before their bedtime – but it can also be done whenever they find a comfortable time ⏰- whenever they want to relax their bodies and catch a breath or between or after their exercise sessions.
• I recommend you make your kids preferably do the Child’s Pose with an empty stomach, bowel, and bladder. 

Otherwise, as an alternative to this, you can make them eat 🍽️ 4-5 hours before practicing this posture, leaving enough time for the food to get digested.

Contraindications for Doing Child’s Pose

As much as this Child’s Pose is beneficial and effective, I would like to share that some categories of people are advised not to perform it as a precaution. 

• People who suffer from any underlying heart conditions.
• People who have undergone any surgery in recent times.
• People who suffer from diarrhea and high blood pressure.
• People who have a knee injury.
• People who have back pain.
• People who have shoulder pain.
• People who have neck pain.

Variations of the Child’s Pose

I understand that even though a yoga 🧘🏽‍♀️ posture is meant to be simple and relaxing, it might be uncomfortable for many people to actually practice as everyone has different levels of flexibility and physical capabilities. 

The best part is that you can adjust yoga postures to suit the different needs and comfort levels to make this pose more inclusive and welcoming for your kids to try and experience the benefits.

Some variations you can let your kids try –

• As mentioned in the tips to follow section, you can use pillows, blankets, cushions, and towels. You can also provide them with props like blocks and bricks to make it easier for your kids to perform this yoga pose.
• You can also get your kids to keep their arms toward the sides of their thighs with the palms 🤚🏽 facing upward instead of stretching them forward. They can also fold their hands 🙏🏼 in front of their head.
• Your kids can also spread their knees a little wider or slightly separated instead of keeping them closer, which makes it easier for those with knee-related pains and sensitive knees.

Conclusion 

The Child’s Pose has been an excellent form of practice that has helped my son develop physically and mentally ❤️‍🩹. And I recommend you guide your kids to do this simple yet effective yoga posture as part of their everyday routine for better overall well-being.

I hope you enjoyed reading this A to Z guide 📑 I compiled about the Child’s Pose and getting to know the yoga posture a little better to help your kids practice.

Please comment below if you have anything more to share or any questions for me to answer – I would love to hear your feedback! 😁