Simple, Relaxing Exercises For Children

Play and play  are an integral part of a child’s development. Children have to run, jump, dance, move and get into things. That said, they sometimes need to relax and be calm. In this article we will share some relaxing exercises for children that will be useful for their physical and mental health.

If you teach children these techniques, they will be able to lower their own anxiety, stress and insomnia. They will also be able to control their emotions and their behavior better. In addition, relaxing exercises can improve their mood. And, best of all, we do not get them out of boredom in this relaxed, calm state. Welcome to fun relaxation!

The methods of Jacobson and Schultz

The Jacobson method is one of the most popular in the world. The technique involves contraction and subsequent relaxation of different muscles or muscle groups.

It’s pretty simple. While lying on the floor, tell the child to tighten up and then release different parts of the body. The child should notice a progressive relaxation that spreads throughout the body. You can start with individual muscle groups such as the hands or neck. With practice, you can make it gradually more difficult.

The Schultz Method is an autogenic relaxing exercise suitable for children over six. Schultz divided the method into two levels: upper and lower. It is based on feelings of weight and warmth.

While lying on the floor, ask your child to concentrate on the body parts that seem to weigh more (legs or arms) and that feel warmest. When the child notices a change and feels free from tension and weight, do the same with the upper body. Continue like this until all the muscles are relaxed.

To make it easier for the child to follow the instructions, you can suggest that they think about being like a robot. As such, they have to move in a very stiff and robot-like way. So, to relax, they become a cloth doll, with a soft body without muscle tension.

Rejoues lek

Rejoue is one of the most fun relaxing techniques. In French, rejoue means “ replay “. Let’s do it!

This method states that the essence of life consists of pairs of opposites. So we have cold-hot, day-night, up-down, black-and-white, activity-rest, etc. The Rejoue technique brings together relaxing exercises for children based on these pairs.

To do this , the toy uses a lot of rocking, which should mimic the movement of a rocking chair. Thus, the child uses almost all of his muscle groups to swing forward, backward, to one side, and then the other.

This duality comes into play when the child has to tense up parts of the body, but soften up and relax in others. They will be able to rock effectively if the body relaxes enough.

Another game is to stretch. It teaches young children to distinguish between the feelings of stretching and relaxing. For example, ask your child to open their arms and stretch them to the sides as much as possible. They should stay in that position for a few seconds. Then ask them to relax slowly. They will feel a tingling sensation after doing this a few times.

Relaxing exercises with friends

Sometimes children chase each other around, and it is difficult to calm them down. It is also much harder for them to concentrate and focus after so much excitement. Here you can try the feather broom activity.

It is a very easy activity to do. Put on some relaxing music in the background and divide the group of children into pairs. One child should lie on the ground, while the other child uses a feather to play with the music on the partner’s body. Then they switch positions.

There is another activity similar to this that involves a soft ball. It is also done in pairs. One child is lying on the ground with his eyes closed. The second massages the body of the partner with a small, soft ball, as if they were applying soap.

Visualization of nice pictures

If there is one area that children are very good at, it is fantasy. They are so free thinking and we can use it to help them relax. A good way to calm them down is to visualize.

Ask the child to lie on the floor and concentrate on the breath for a few minutes. Then ask them to focus on what we say out loud. Ask them to imagine a large, peaceful meadow. The grass on this meadow is perfectly cut. Ask them to smell the meadow, to hear the birds singing or to feel the texture of the flowers.

Visualization is very versatile. You can customize it with the landscape you like: the beach, the mountains, or you can even talk about smells. As you can see, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. The main goal is to help children have fun while relaxing.

In other words, do it in such a way that they do not think of it as work. To do this, it is important to make sure that the adults model the behavior of the children correctly. Remember that imitation is an important way for children to learn new things.

One last note: Relaxing exercises for children can also work for adults. After all, it’s good to stay young at heart!