“Reach up high for the warmth of the sun, and pull it down. Put it right into your belly anytime you need it, you are amazing and very smart”.

T hears this first thing in the morning as he follows along with his Yoga Kids DVD.

Yes, my hyper-active, wildly imaginative, creative, talkative, loud and silly child does yoga! I won’t lie to you and say he does it with 100% accuracy and enthusiasm every day, or tell you that I don’t sometimes have to prod him like cattle to get him to even try. What I will tell you, is that it changed things for us!

               I was always a bit turned off by yoga as a concept. Normally, when my mind is made up about something, there is little to no hope of that changing, but luckily for us, yoga was an exception to that rule. It seemed so pretentious to me, with its own clothing style and sweaty, headband wearing, bandwagon followers stretching and contorting themselves into pretzel knots. I’m fairly certain I have wrinkles from the face I made anytime I saw someone who was clearly a “YOGI”. A sneer and an exaggerated eye roll was standard procedure…. And then there was T.

T needed change. T needed hope. Hell, I needed hope!

When a co-worker and nurse suggested Yoga as an ADD/ADHD treatment, I politely scoffed, gave my list of reasons why that would never work for him, and thanked her for her suggestion. Later that week I had a change of heart. I realized I was denying T the opportunity to experiment because of my own illogical, unreasonable dislike of something I, myself, had never tried. I conceded and made a trip to Barnes & Noble where I bought a 2-disc DVD set. YOGA KIDS with Marsha Wenig. I had taken the first leap into the world of YOGA.

If I was going to do this, I was going to go all in! We would do it together.

The first DVD titled ABC’s claimed to be aimed at kids 3-6 years old. Surely it would be a breeze for me. I enlisted the support of my older two children, who agreed to participate in support of their brother. This was turning into a family affair, how wonderful!

5 minutes later there is an 8 year old panting, lying defeated on the mat, a 10 year old with gritted teeth and one leg shaking in the air, a 6 year old with both feet and hands on the mat and bottom in the air, and me. I was near death. I couldn’t breathe, my arms felt 200 lbs each, and my legs just did not bend the way they were supposed to. Ages 3-6.

Thankfully in our bloodline, quitting is not an option. DVD 2 Silly to Calm began. We started by Shaking the sillies out, dancing and pausing to the beat of the music, and “untying the knots” of our joints from head to toe. By the end of this DVD, T was doing something remarkable! As I laid in silence listening to my breathing, watching calm deep breaths rise and fall in my chest I noticed something; silence. How long ago had he left the room? Did I really just do 30 minutes of yoga for babies alone? Was I that easily amused? I looked to my left, where he was supposed to be, and in his place was this calm, almost motionless, silent child who was breathing and watching his chest rise and fall with his breath. My T had gone from silly to calm. I couldn’t believe it.

That was the moment I gave in. Yoga was welcome in our home, in fact if Yoga tried to leave I would have grasped desperately at its pant-leg, planted my heels in the ground and begged it to stay!

I have to admit, I have grown to love and respect this strange, and surprisingly difficult exercise. T still does yoga as often as I can fit it into our routine. Some days he participates better than others, but I’ve come to realize that even partial participation counts.

After 1 week with yoga twice a day T’s behavior in school skyrocketed! He was earning A’s and B’s in conduct and he was proud of himself!

So let them laugh at me. Let them snicker and sneer in my direction when I’m walking out of the sporting goods store with a new Yoga mat, Yoga shorts and a big inflated yellow ball. Let them laugh at me when I fall from my not so graceful warrior pose, or knock the wind out of myself attempting a head-stand that turns into a surprise front flip. Let them laugh at me. Because I’m laughing too! I laugh when I see that amazing boy of mine concentrating on his balance, or his breathing. I laugh when I walk into the room and the peaceful silence washes over me. I laugh when he quotes the DVDs word for word because he’s done them so many times. I laugh because I’m thrilled. T has gained something immeasurable that truly helps him, and I get to feel proud of myself as his mom. That is amazing!