Principles and Practices to Strengthen Connection, Build Resilience and Cultivate Joy

Today’s children are growing up in a rapidly changing world. One that can often be overwhelming. But they have inner resources—such as their breath, body and mindset—and relational resources, like you. When we support our children in accessing the practices of awareness, and connection to self and others, we help them build valuable life skills.

Since 2006, Little Flower Yoga has been serving New York City schools, and training educators and mental health providers around the world to bring embodiment practices to the children and adolescents they work with. The lessons learned through our work with more than 300 schools and districts and tens of thousands of educators and clinicians has been integrated into this program.

This training provides you with the understanding and tools you need to share yoga and mindfulness with children and teens ages 3 to 18. Training focuses on the complete physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being of students and teaches you how to share these tools in a playful, effective way that is also trauma-informed.

The foundation of this training is rooted in building your own self-awareness and deepening personal practice. From there, we equip you with a wide range of activities that you can immediately implement with the kids you live and work with. You learn:

• A clear, structured framework (based on our five-element methodology of connect, breathe, move, focus and relax) to make teaching and learning easier and more effective
• Guiding principles for sharing practices safely and effectively
• Ways to support the developing brain and nervous system of young people
• How to set group classes up for success and consider behavior management through the lens of mindful inquiry
• How to combine activities into engaging lesson plans

You return home with a deeper understanding of child development, the capacity and confidence to create programming that meets children’s needs, and the knowledge to teach in a safe, engaging, and compassionate way, even when things get tough.

In addition to the in-person workshop, you gain a year of access to the Little Flower Yoga Online Learning Community, which offers rich opportunities for ongoing connection to other participants and faculty members, the capacity to ask questions and join discussions, and video content to support both teaching and personal practice.

This course is the foundational training of the LFY Certification Program. While it can be taken as a stand-alone course (and often is) completion of this course is the first step toward certification if you would like to pursue it. For more information visit littlefloweryoga.com/training.

Continuing Education:

Little Flower Yoga (LFY) is a Registered Children’s Yoga School, which means that completion of our training qualifies participants to register with Yoga Alliance as an RCYT, subject to additional YA requirements. Registration with Yoga Alliance is subject entirely to their policies, and requires having an additional 200 hour teacher training. We suggest reviewing their requirements directly as they may be subject to change. Those not interested in Yoga Alliance registration are still eligible for Little Flower Yoga Certification. This workshop is also eligible for 25 YA CE hours. For more information, visit  littlefloweryoga.com/training or yogaalliance.org.

Graduate Level Credits:

LFY certification offers six post-baccalaureate, graded, graduate-level semester credits, provided directly through the University of the Pacific. They are specifically designed to meet the needs of Educators for Salary Advancement and Recertification. For more information visit littlefloweryoga.com/training.