A litte yogi

A couple weeks ago I had a fun idea to write a blog post about my revived enjoyment of and discipline in yoga. I wanted to talk about how it helped my stress, my spirituality, and was a great way to quickly and notably feel more fit.

However, that blog never happened, and instead, in its place, I have thought of a whole other topic, though quite related, for my post on the little yogis. So here goes..

The aforementioned blog post idea was the result of reading a CNN.com article about kids, ages 4 and up, taking yoga classes. There was a 12-year-old boy interviewed, far better at yoga than me, who said it was his favorite activity and that it was helping him with his parents' divorce. The video included in the article was adorable - it looked a little like an add for a Gymboree.

However, while I am completely in favor of age-appropriate fitness and health, it got me to thinking if yoga for 4-year-olds is, in fact, age appropriate. Some teachers say it helps with ADHD. Well, that's good. Other studies have said it helps teenage girls with body image issues. Good too. But I guess my question is bigger than that, and it's about whether as a society we are going back to a time when young people are treated more-or-less like adults, and whether or not (given that we've reversed this kind of thinking from back in the day to begin with) this is a good thing.

Kids became kids more or less in our country when child labor laws were enacted and we got to go to school instead of work. Before then, farm kids worked on farms all day, poor city kids went to factories, and rich city kids drank tea and learned social graces.

Then came new laws and policies, and thank goodness developmental psychology, which continually, now through neuroscience, reveals that kids don't think or act like adults. For good reason, Sesame Street happened, Playskool happened, and little kids got their own place in the world. But now it seems like we're dressing little kids like adults, we're expecting them to learn like us, and we're giving them freedom that they may or may not be ready for or capable of using safely.

Maybe I am overreacting, but I wonder where the actual healthy balance is between taking our kids seriously and investing in them and treating them like little adults.

I am sure I will err on the side of the later when it comes my time to parent, so it's a good thing to think about.