honesty

Character Development: 3 Steps to Integrity

In my city, Toronto (Canada), school teachers must guide kids on Character Development themes. Today’s theme is Integrity. Remember integers in math? They are whole numbers. Integrity comes from the same root meaning whole or complete. Sounds perfect for yoga and today’s post by Yoga In My School specialist, Donna Freeman. She gives Three Steps to Integrity for some Yogic insight on the theme of Integrity.

Integrity Blossoms in the Heart of a Child — Contemplation Nurtures Integrity in the Heart of a Child

Integrity – The Heart of Yoga

By Donna Freeman
www.Yogainmyschool.com

Integrity is a moral imperative which demonstrates itself as consistency of actions according to personal values and principles.

Three Steps to Developing Integrity

Develop the ability to discern what is right and wrong
Act in accordance with these fundamental values
Stand behind individual actions in word and deed

These three steps define character.

Yoga helps to develop integrity by addressing the whole person: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. A complete yoga practice allows introspection and self discovery. As individuals contemplate themselves, their lives, their joys and sorrows, their past, present and future, they develop self awareness and an internal consistency of character. They are able to determine their personal morality and motivation for actions.

Yoga also encourages honesty (satya). As we are honest with ourselves and others we become more trustworthy and genuine. We learn to speak and act from the heart lending authenticity to our daily lives. Both children and adults benefit from practicing satya as they can experience life as it truly is and experience the contentment of living truthfully.

Through practicing yoga we learn to respect others and live with an attitude of non-violence (ahimsa). The theme ‘do not harm’ is the keystone of yogic philosophy. Learning to live with peace, kindness and love toward self and others is vital to developing personal integrity and purity of life.

Truly developing integrity is the very essence of yoga. By spending time to know oneself, living honestly, and respecting self and others, we can determine our personal path and commit to living it whole heartedly. Yoga teaches us not only to talk the talk, but to walk the walk on and off the mat. This is integrity and integrity is the heart of yoga.

Classroom Management: Do you ask kids questions like these?

Seeing Eye to Eye with Kids in Your Class

When teachers or parents start getting frustrated with children they often resort to asking questions to get back control of the situation. The problem is when these questions aren’t really questions but are criticisms disguised as questions.

Questions like these don’t help with classroom management and don’t help the child correct their behavior either.

For example:

A pre-school teacher assisting in yoga class who pulls an overactive 3 year old out of the room, stands over her asking: “Are you a baby? Do you want to go to the baby room? Why are you acting like a baby?”
A parent overheard in the grocery store saying (loudly) to a little 3 or 4 year old girl: “If I’m right beside you, why are you yelling?”

If these children answered it would probably go something like:

“I guess I am a baby because you’re talking to me like I’m a big loser and an idiot.”
“I’m yelling because that’s what you do when you want my attention.”

These types of questions just don’t work. I’ve NEVER heard a child give what I suppose is the desired answer:

“No I’m not a baby, so I will stop my goofing around and start acting like a three year old.”
“Mommy, you’ve pointed out my error so well, I better use a softer voice.”

In my experience, children never actually answer these types questions. They just stand there frozen, not sure what to do or say, feeling bad about themselves. In terms of classroom management, it may stop the behavior for a while, but in the long term it doesn’t provide the leadership required to help children become the leaders of the future. It lowers their self esteem by making them feel incompetent.

Instead of Questions, Be a Role Model…

A great teacher doesn’t let unwanted behavior go unnoticed either. We don’t serve children if they can’t sit still or aren’t aware of how loud they are talking. Instead try some other approaches. Like:

the teacher assisting can calmly walk over to an overactive three year old and sit beside them and with one or two words, remind them of what everyone is doing (“cobra pose, everyone is doing cobra pose”), and modeling the behavior they want,
A tired mom in the grocery can drop down, look her daughter in the eye and say, “Please speak softer” in the same tone she wants her daughter to use.

kids yoga camp picture of Aruna and Charlotte — Aruna and Charlotte (selfie) at Kids Yoga Camp

Both Yoga and Classroom Management require Sadhana, a consistent practice that helps us succeed at our goal. Sadhana is done with devotion, not with criticism or questioning. Consistency brings us to the state we desire through practice, reflection on our actions, and observation of what we are doing and how it is working.

Teachers and parents are role models for children in ALL we do. These children will become the role models of the future. We need to commit to consciously creating the kind of class we want the same way a true yogi commit to their Sadhana.

This week bring awareness to your use of questions. Are they real questions waiting for real answers or criticisms disguised as questions. If you are not sure, what answer are you looking for when you ask? If you want the child to answer with a specific response, it’s probably not a real question.

If you realize it’s a criticism, and you don’t know what else to do, start by simply stating your frustration, “You’re moving around too much.” or “You’re too loud.” It’s an honest starting place and a move away from those other questions.

Then re-direct with a precise description of what you. And do it like the yogis – with consistency, with love, and make it like a mantra – short, sweet, and elevating!

Please feel free to share your classroom management stories and how you re-direct children. It will help all of us to get new ideas and tools.

Aruna Kathy Humphrys
www.YoungYogaMasters.com

P.S. Thanks to everyone who entered the Eoin Finn DVD Giveaway for Pure and Simple Yoga. The random winner is Betherann – who blogs over at ww.kitchencourage.com. Congratulations.

Character Development: Honesty

( In my city, Toronto (Canada), school teachers guide kids on themes of Character Development. I went to the Yoga In My School specialist, Donna Freeman, for some yogic insight bout them. Thank you to Donna for this monthly series.)

Honesty requires Reflection on Personal and Universal Truth

Personal and Universal Honesty

by Donna Freeman
www.YogaInMySchool.com

Teaching children to be honest is a primary goal of their upbringing. A common childhood tendency is to stretch the truth, exaggerate, or tell little lies that often lead to bigger ones. It is essential that each child learn what truth is so that they may develop confidence, trustworthiness and integrity, and become honourable, dependable adults.

Truth can be divided into two categories: personal truth and universal truth.

Personal Truth
Personal truth is an individual account or understanding of events. For children this most often becomes important when resolving conflict. “Tell me your version of what happened,” is a common request whenever adults intervene and need to understand the actions that have transpired to cause the hurt, anger, and tears.

Each individual experiences life differently. Even identical twins will gain different knowledge and life experience from the same life events because they are unique individuals with their own view of the world.

Empathy is developed as children begin to understanding that personal truth is relative. By seeing life through another’s viewpoint, children expand their comprehension of life and compassion for others.

Universal Truth
In yoga, truthfulness is called Satya: deep, foundational truth regarding the world, love and purpose in life. This is more than just telling the truth.

Knowing that within oneself are all the skills and abilities needed to successfully navigate life’s journey is a core concept in yoga. These skills may still be in embryo. However, each individual has it within themselves to be happy, successful and confident. As they learn to access their inner power and beauty, develop various skills and abilities, and trust themselves, they will reach their full potential.

Satya is also harmonizing the mind, heart and actions. When individuals live with moral discipline and align their actions with their beliefs they are living honestly. However, truth should never be used to hurt or destroy, and therefore needs to be tempered with kindness (ahimsa).

Parents, teachers and others who work with and care for children can assist them in learning to be honest with other individuals, society and themselves as they teach both personal and universal truth. These are not quick lessons, taught once and easily integrated. Instead continual review and application throughout the formative years is needed.

The result, however, is worth the effort. Children who have learned these lessons become responsible adults known for their positive outlook on life, kindness to self and others, and integrity. That’s a reality worth working towards.

Character Development: Fairness

( In my city, Toronto (Canada), school teachers guide kids on themes of Character Development. I went to the Yoga In My School specialist, Donna Freeman, for some yogic insight bout them. Thank you to Donna for this monthly series.)

Olympians Play Fair and Develop Balance and Strength

Fairness and Balance in Yoga

by Donna Freeman
www.YogaInMySchool.com

Fairness refers to justice, equality and the absence of bias. Children seem to intrinsically know what is fair and what isn’t. There is even a series of advertisements which underline children’s innate ability to know when they are, and when they are not, being treated fairly.

Fairness with Ease and Strength
There are a number of ways this principle relates to yoga. The most prevalent is the ideals of Sukha (easy, pleasant, gentle) and Sthira (solid, durable, strong). The goal when practicing yoga is to have equal amounts of these two opposing philosophies present at all times.

Yogis are always looking to balance the effort with the ease, the soft and the hard. To treat both aspects of the poses with fairness in order to allow the body and mind to expand to its full potential. If Sukha is too much of a focus, the consequence is laziness and lack of will power. If Sthira is stressed, then injury or burnout may result. Neither extreme is healthy, but a balance of the two permits beautiful expression and growth.

Yoga Poses to Teach Fairness
In addition, balance poses teach much about fairness. Poses such as tree pose, dancer pose and eagle pose help to refine the sense of equality. Performing these poses always seems easier on one side, but both sides need the same opportunity to work the pose. The lessons, however, are more than physical. Children learn to focus and concentrate, training their minds as well as their bodies.

Finally fairness is underscored with Satya (honesty). Satya is the virtue of being true to and honest with yourself and those you encounter. This includes in speech and action. The ideal of fairness is completely redundant without honesty. Being able to see the world through realistic lenses helps to overcome selfishness and encourages compassion.

Teaching honesty to children is an ongoing endeavor.
Personal integrity is an elusive but essential aspect of society’s morals. Practicing compass pose (half moon) with an accompanying discussion on how compasses help guide individuals through the storms of life provides a kinaesthetic reinforcement of these ideals.

The principles of fairness and equality are threaded throughout yoga. Children know the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice. Allow yoga to help develop this knowledge through balance and honesty.

Kids and Anxiety: What is Thought? (Part One)

Picture by GangaSunshine

As all of us who work with children know – stress and anxiety are not only for those with bills to pay and families to feed.

Anxiety and Acting Out in Class

Last week in my kids’ yoga class one of the boys was acting unusually defiant. He was acting out and not following the rules to the point where he ended up crashing into one of the other kids in the class. No one was permanently injured – but he was not happy to be sitting out for part of the game we were playing.

This was near the end of the class, so when we finished he left the yoga class sullen. He slumped onto the bench beside his mom who was picking him up. Of course she wanted to know what was wrong and I joined in to talk about what was happening. It turned out my student was having trouble with one of the other kids at school who they called a Bully. The bully was making fun of my student because he sometimes stutters. Plus the bully was always telling everyone what to do and generally trying to be the boss of the whole soccer game at recess.

No one likes the bully!

My student, who not only has the stutter going on but is a small sized kid too, especially dislikes the bully. He couldn’t think of one nice thing to say about that kid (I asked if there was one – nope there wasn’t).

The whole situations has been making my student more and more upset. He told me, “I’m just going to be bad too.”

The only solution he could see was to become a bully too.

He wasn’t open to any other suggestions nor did he care about the consequences. But his mood lifted as he talked about it and as he headed off home I told him I wanted to hear how it was going next week.

This got me to thinking how so many of our problems are caused by thinking of what we don’t like, and even starting to become like it!

Like my meditation teacher would say: we become like a fly who will sit on a beautiful cupcake, then sit on a pile of manure.

For my student, good thinking and bad thinking are lost, just like that fly landing on anything it can.

In Part One of this post about Kids and Anxiety lets examine what thought is.

The Three Types of Thinking:

Worm Thinking: worms crawl around in mud and darkness only think of what is right in front of them. Everything goes in one end and goes out the other. Worm thinking is when we just think of what is happening right now based on the way everything is right now, without any thought that we could think any other way.

Fly Thinking: when you see a fly at a picnic what does it do? It becomes a nuisance and a bother because it jumps from here to there. One minute it is on the ground, one minute is it on a pile of poo, then it lands on your cupcakes or your arm. It doesn’t discriminate between where it lands, it just keeps buzzing and hopping around. Someone who things like a fly will do the same thing with their thoughts. They’ll think of an amazing thing that could happen then think of the worst thing that could happen, they allow all of it. Just like a fly, your mind goes here and there and lands in some pretty gross places.

Bee Thinking: How does a bee live? Well a bee lives on the nectar of flowers. They will fly through the air and look only for the sweetest part of the blossom. Bees don’t even eat flowers, they eat the nectar of flowers! When you are a bee thinker you will only spend your time on thoughts that will uplift you.

In class you can talk about these Three Types of Thinking and kids will contemplate what kind of thinking they do.

In Part Two I’ll update you on the progress of my student and the bully.

We know, when kids don’t figure out how to deal with bullies – they end up facing them over and over again. Many kids who are bullied and switch schools to deal with it, end up being bullied at the new school as well.

Let’s examine what yoga and mindfulness tools can empower kids to handle the situation for themselves.