The myriad benefits of yoga apply equally to children as to adults. London-based yoga teacher Mollie McClelland talks to three companies committed to bringing kids' yoga to a wider audience.
A growing number of studios, companies and schools have begun offering yoga for kids; in part a response to mounting stress on children and parental desire to help manage children's health, emotions and life pressures.
In the field of yoga therapy, researchers are investigating the benefits of yoga for children, both with specific medical or educational needs, and for children as a whole.
As an educator and yoga teacher myself, I am interested in the theory and practice of teaching yoga to children. How is yoga adapted for the needs and attention span of children, and what are the approaches followed by practitioners in the field?
I interviewed three UK-based practitioners of yoga for children about their experiences and methods of using yoga with children, both in schools and in other environments.
All the practitioners I spoke to about kids' yoga said that, as asana has such intrinsic power, the practice need not be highly modified for children.
Indeed the elements inspiring successful outcomes are the fundamental elements of yoga classes: attention to breath, attention to self, structure, clarity, a peaceful environment, and the asana themselves.
Where yoga for children may differ is in how feelings, images and asana are articulated, together with the working pace.
Special Yoga Centre
For Jo Manuel, founder and director of the Special Yoga Centre in London, yoga for children and youngsters with disabilities is therapeutic. 
She developed her approach through 16 years of teaching practice and her work with Sonia Sumar, creator of Yoga for the Special Child.
Manuel uses classical yoga sequences, emphasizing that the intrinsic magic of yoga needs only slight adaptations of language and pace to be taught to children.
Many live in a fight or flight mode, she claims, overly pushed for their ages, over tired and under exercised. A lack of deep breath can cause children considered disruptive to misbehave.
Through yoga, the nervous system is calmed and the brain is organised differently. Her approach allows children grow into their practice rather than out of yoga games as they get older.
Through maintaining a calm atmosphere, a non-competitive environment of frequent praise, children benefit in myriad ways.
Modern children live detached from their bodies because of overexposure to television and video games and lack of physical activity. Yoga helps them to connect to their bodies but also extends to the non-physical aspects of asana practice.
Yoga Team
The approach of Katie Mutton of Yoga Team is thematically directing classes to help children address different needs in their lives. Like Manuel, she works in schools and with individual children.
Through a school partnership, she identified a need: a school noticed a year group of girls struggling with the stress of being at the pre-teen age and the transitions beginning in their bodies.
The school suggested classes for girls ages 9-11 to help during those changes. By witnessing and verbally sharing aspects of how asana change the body, the students developed awareness and language to understand other types of physical changes.
This led to a class using restorative poses and a discussion for increased self-esteem and confidence. She points out the importance of the teacher having a deep practice as well as comprehension of the energetic effects of asana.
Yoga Bugs
Having established Yoga Bugs in Australia in February 2010, the company is setting up micro-franchises that allow information-sharing and a consistent approach for all 
Yoga Bugs teachers.
Yoga Bugs founder and director Fenella Lindsell estimates that Yoga Bugs works with 40,000 children in the UK each week. The approach used by Lindsell is that of yoga through creative play: using stories to lead children through warm-ups, breathing and asana sequences.
Yoga becomes part of a kinaesthetic approach to learning, in which a story can explore a moral but it is explored physically.
Yoga Bugs itself is aimed at children between two and seven, with a different programme, Yoga'd Up targeted to children 8-13.
All students can participate and benefit, says Lindsell, due to yoga's non-competitive nature and the joy it inspires.
Though the field of yoga for children is expanding, the response from schools can be slow. The effects are difficult to quantify and, as yet,t here is little research monitoring the effectiveness of yoga practice in its myriad dimensions, a lack both Manuel and Lindsell have begun addressing.
To the future
As practitioners and teachers, we all recognize the value of a lifelong practice of yoga. As we give children tools early, we hope they are able to progress through the particular stresses of modern life with grace and self-esteem.
All three teachers I spoke to emphasized the desire to bring yoga to children all over the UK and worldwide.
As practitioners of yoga, it will be both a challenge and opportunity to continue to explore how to share the practice with the next generation of yogis.
A word about the author:
Mollie McClelland is an artist, yoga teacher and educator. She has taught Vinyasa based yoga for 9 years and is currently training in kundalini yoga. She currently teaches in London at the Alchemy Centre, and the University of London and works at North Harringay Primary school. You can keep pace with Molly via her blog, at http://two-threads.blogspot.com/
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