Laughter yoga in a daycare

Do I recommend doing Laughter Yoga with little children?   I say YES, keeping mind the following thoughts and suggestions:

- To keep the group motivated, offer activities that are adapted to the children’s age and cognitive level.  Avoid mixing different age groups.

- Enlist a couple of adults familiar with the group who can help you calm down any fears, break down any barriers and initiate the exercises with you – it appears that at such a tender age, systematic interpersonal relations are not always easy to initiate;  – first they did the activity with the adults and eventually they practiced with other children.

- Have a lot of space available for floor exercises.

- Find a way to trigger the children’s interest at the beginning of the session.

- Wear vibrant colors.

- Be as enthousiastic as you can (very enthusiastic – even more than with adults!).

- Be able to enter the imaginary world of childhood when you plan your activities – be creative, flexible and open to surprises.

- Have some good songs adapted to the group and to laughter, on which they could eventually dance.

- Be in good shape – hahaha!  If a regular Laughter Yoga class is like a low impact aerobic class, with children it becomes high impact!

- Follow your heart – if you think that you really prefer to do Laughter Yoga with regular adults, with seniors or with corporate groups, or if you have no experience of group animation with young children, do not jump into this kind of experience – fabulous but very demanding in term of energy and ability to adapt.

- If you do jump in, you will have FUN! and will certainly leave the session exhausted but with a big smile in your heart …