Breathe! Salpeter Father and Daughter Create a Book for Teaching Yoga to Kids

You are never too old to practice yoga—or too young. Nina Salpeter teamed up with her father, award-winning graphic designer Bob Salpeter to create a book Teach Your Child Yoga, to help parents teach yoga to children from one to six years old. Taking known positions, such as “downward facing dog” and “lotus,” to name just two, Nina Salpeter has teased out the family-friendly ingredients, animals, and comfort food—(she calls the familiar cross legged seating, “criss cross apple sauce,”)-- in order to capture the essence of each pose, providing a visual prompt that brings the images close to a child’s experience.

Bob Salpeter’s charming illustrations make this simple book a lovely bedtime reading for youngsters as well. His “tree” is hilarious with its moving branch arms. Nina Salpeter, a board-certified practitioner, has written the book in a well-developed progression that could be used for teachers, parents and all caretakers to create a class for children, incorporating yoga’s special benefits in meditation, cardiovascular conditioning, relaxation, and breathing techniques. Wow! Stress management for the terrible twos!

Starting young: how might that have a long-term health benefit for future citizens? As a whole, Teach Your Child Yoga (available on Amazon) made me think of how a new generation of yoginis could change the world.

A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central