The challenge to remain disciplined is getting more difficult in an age when everyone is more sophisticated at tempting us. The burden to stick to our budget, our focus, or our priorities is equally challenging to adults as it is to children. It is all the more important therefore to take time outs. HeartMark Yogalates classes, or any yoga class in schools is the first step to teaching children to listen to their body so that they can hear their own voice and resist the many outside temptations. The ability to stay disciplined is a tool that will help children turn into successful adults.
Anyone who logs onto the internet to accomplish a task knows that the headlines grab our attention to the point that it is difficult for us to remember why we logged on in the first place. It becomes increasingly difficult to remember our goals minute by minute. Even schools have found a way to fundraise endlessly so that we forget our family budgets’ goals. There is always the added pressure of wanting to please the team of other parents who are also being duped. How can we resist all these daily temptations? And more importantly, how can we teach our children to resist the temptations that they will run into if we cannot resist them ourselves?
I recommend classes that help children and adults listen to their own body. Currently, the classes in schools place a ridiculously large emphasis on team building. Most people believe that team building is a lofty goal. However, instead of wasting so much tax dollars to teach children to care about the team, the real education needs to be on teaching children to listen to themselves. Sports such as yoga, pilates, dance, and tennis allow individuals to work on their own body. Yoga and pilates especially emphasize listening to one’s own body rather than the team’s pressures which often result in damaging the body. All the individual sports are also the ones most continued into adulthood so they are more useful. Individual sports are what we should teach in schools.
At an age in which there are enough pressures from every direction and a huge burden on pleasing others, we need to teach children to listen to themselves first. The best place to start is in physical education classes in all schools. Team sports can be an after school activity. The skills we teach our children should be skills that they can use as adults. The skill to focus and listen to one’s own needs is incredibly valuable. It might help children remember not to take drugs. It can help them remember what they really want to do in life. It can help them not click on stupid links if those don’t match their real goals while doing their homework. And more importantly: it can help children turn into leaders, rather than followers. Real leaders listen to their instincts about what needs to be fixed. They don’t ignore their inner voice just to get approval. The only way to effect change is to listen carefully to your inner voice.
My inner voice says that we need to rewrite the curriculum for physical education in schools so that it includes the HeartMark Yogalates and other safe exercises that offer comfortable positions and don’t encourage uncomfortable poses.
I HeartMark You,
Tali
The heart hand gesture invented by Lehavi called the Up HeartMark
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