Children with Cerebral Palsy require various forms of therapy and treatment to meet their special needs. If you have diagnosed cerebral palsy in your toddler. One thing that has recently been proven to work well for children with Cerebral Palsy is mindfulness exercises.
Mindfulness is a form of meditation. It works well in kids with Cerebral Palsy as it helps them to calm their minds. It is also a great way to help them focus on and accomplish various tasks.
Mindfulness encompasses more than just meditation. It is a way of exercising the brain and training your child to declutter their mind and focus on either one specific thought or nothing – just tranquility.
Since children living with Cerebral Palsy have challenges with mental clarity, mindfulness is a discipline that can significantly benefit them.
Mindfulness is not an easy thing to get into. However, once your child or loved one learn to practice mindfulness each day, you will see signs of cerebral palsy in toddlers will be reduced significantly in their overall mental and physical health.
Pillars of mindfulness
- Breathing
To make it easy for your child living with Cerebral Palsy to get into mindfulness, start with breathing exercises. Encourage them to concentrate on the breath as it goes in and out of the body. Just that.
Since children with Cerebral Palsy often have tantrums, you can teach your child to use this breathing exercise to calm down whenever they feel overwhelmed and mad, before their feelings erupt.
Start by doing the breathing exercises in a pleasant setting for a minute each day and build on the time as the days go by. Within no time, your child will be able to practice the relaxing breathing exercise for up to thirty minutes.
- Slowing down
Teaching your child to slow down is essential for mindfulness to work. It will help them to take it slow and be deliberate with every task or exercise. Slowing down through mindfulness will work well during exercise or therapy sessions.
Here you can combine the breathing exercise with any workouts or therapy. Mindfulness will encourage your child to engage in slow, deliberate, well thought out movements that produce maximum benefits mental and physical benefits.
- Patience
Mindfulness can work wonders for a child with Cerebral Palsy, but parents and caregivers need to be patient while they learn the practice. To make it easier, it’s a good idea to work on the practice with them.
Take your time when training the art of mindfulness to your child because once learned, it will be a great life skill. Make a point of doing it every day so that it becomes a natural part of their life.
Yoga and Cerebral Palsy
Can Yoga help in Cerebral Palsy Treatment?
Once your child masters mindfulness, you can introduce them to Yoga. Yoga, combined with mindfulness, can improve the lives of kids with Cerebral Palsy and other forms of disability significantly.
Yoga helps children deal with Spastic Cerebral Palsy by;
- Making them flexible
- Improving their muscle tone
- Relieving pressure on nerves
- Reducing stress levels
- Speeding up their metabolism
- Making them stronger, mentally and physically.
Yoga is a natural progression from mindfulness. You don’t have to worry that it will be strenuous because there are many yoga positions that a child living with Cerebral Palsy can do without harming their health or body.
The form of Yoga that children with Cerebral Palsy engage in is an adapted version. There are yoga positions to benefit a child with any type of Palsy. For example, a child in a wheelchair can do various adapted Yoga poses with the help of support equipment such as blocks and straps.
A trained yoga instructor that has experience teaching Yoga to children with disabilities can provide you and your child with great guidance and support. For more about this, check out MiYoga, which helps kids with Cerebral Palsy learn mindful Yoga and improve their quality of life.
