How Yoga Supports Resilience in Children
Resilience is a child’s capacity to cope with stress and adversity. When we strengthen that capacity, everyday challenges become more manageable, and children are better equipped to navigate difficulty without becoming overwhelmed. This makes resilience one of the most powerful protective factors against trauma.
Trauma occurs when a child’s experience exceeds their capacity to cope. It’s not only about what happens to them, but about whether their nervous system can process and integrate that experience.
“Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.”
This is where yoga and mindfulness become powerful tools. They expand a child’s coping capacity through age-appropriate, playful practices, not by demanding calmness (which is a common misconception about kids' yoga), but by teaching children to notice, understand, and respond to their internal experience.
And this isn’t only something we see in practice; it’s also supported by research.
A 2023 school-based study with 3–5-year-old children found that a weekly yoga and mindfulness program was linked with stronger resilience-related protective factors, including increased initiative and self-control, as well as a decrease in behavioural concerns compared with a control group.
In other words, yoga and mindfulness didn’t just help children “calm down.” They supported the skills that help children adapt, cope, and recover.
Research also shows that yoga and mindfulness help children connect with their bodies and emotions, strengthening self-awareness and emotional regulation. According to Hagen and Nayar (2014), yoga supports the development of self-regulation: a core capacity for managing stress, emotions, and behaviour.
This is why our approach to children’s yoga is resilience-based.
At its core are playful practices, mindful conversations, and trauma-informed choices that support regulation and emotional literacy. Everything is designed to meet children where they are and to strengthen their inner resources.
Children’s yoga, as we see it, is never about doing a pose “right” or “wrong.”
It is about:
Body–mind connection
Learning to notice the body, breath, and sensations.
In a class, this might look like pausing for a moment and asking gentle inquiry questions:
What does your body feel like right now?
If this feeling had a colour, what colour would it be today?
Children are not expected to answer in words. Some respond verbally, some show with their bodies, some simply notice quietly. Over time, children learn that tuning into their bodies can happen in many ways and that all of them are valid.
Self-awareness
Becoming curious about what is happening inside.
Rather than relying only on verbal sharing, we create multiple opportunities for children to express how they feel. A child might show their mood through movement, sound, drawing, or stillness. By welcoming different forms of communication, children learn that their inner world matters, even when it’s hard to put into words.
Inner exploration
Discovering strength, boundaries, emotions, and choice.
When children struggle with a pose, the focus is not on “fixing” it. Instead, we invite reflection:
What is your body telling you here?
Does it want to keep trying, change the pose, or take a break?
Children are supported in listening to their bodies and making choices, learning that self-regulation includes knowing when to pause, adapt, or ask for support.
Falling and trying again
Learning that losing balance and trying again is part of the practice.
Adults play an important role here. When an instructor models losing balance, falling, and trying again (with kindness and humour), children see that mistakes are not failures. They are part of learning. This modelling helps children develop resilience not through perfection, but through persistence and self-compassion.
Children’s yoga is not a performance.
It is a practice of building inner capacity.
As this capacity grows, children become more flexible: not just in their bodies, but also in how they meet challenges, manage emotions, and navigate uncertainty. They learn that while we cannot always control what happens around us, we can build the skills to understand and manage what happens inside us.
And ultimately, that is what resilience is.
