By Ria Sharon

Are Your Kids Throwing a Fit? Breeeeeeeeathe.

In the video above, Heather, a mom of two, discovers that breathing is the secret to managing her preschooler's tantrums. How did this breathing technique (and Yoga Parenting) come to be?

Well, funny you should ask!

My best friend Suzanne Tucker, a fellow mom and the co-creator of Yoga Parenting is also the co-owner of the Brentwood Center of Health. A few years ago, she realized that parenting was easier on the days she went to yoga class. She said, “I thought about it and realized I was taking the principles I was learning and applying them to my life as a mom. For example, when we were late for school and my four year old wouldn’t let me tie her shoes, I was able to breathe and stay centered and guide her from that place of acceptance when in the past, we would both be upset and yelling.”

So Suzanne enlisted the help of Michaela Turner, a certified YogaKids® trainer and instructor who was teaching at the Brentwood Center of Health at the time, to help her develop a class for parents that taught centering, ritual, power, and letting go, among other things. Could they take these universal yoga principles off the mat? Together, Suzanne and Michaela created a parenting course where people got the benefits of yoga, whether or not they themselves or their children actually did the yoga poses.

Parents loved it. One of the class participants said, “I was impressed at how learning to tune in and breathe, especially whenever things start to spiral downward with the kids, changed everything. My kids are really responding and I feel so much more centered and patient with them.”

But it was really tough to find days and times that would work for most parents. So last year, Suzanne and I decided that the Yoga Parenting message was important enough to create an online parenting course. This way, anyone with internet access could take the class, whenever and wherever it was convenient for them. They just sign up and the lessons are delivered automatically via email every seven days for eight weeks, including audio .mp3's, journaling exercises, and access to a discussion forum.

In the process of developing the online course for the last 18 months, I tried the techniques Michaela teaches. I've become a "Yoga Parent" and I'm not looking back! Truly, my relationships with my children are so much more joyful and less stressful. I hope you'll join me in this experience.

Find out more about the Yoga Parenting course here

Come back next month, when Ria will share more about taking Yoga principles off the mat!

Ria Sharon is the publisher of MyMommyManual.com, a St. Louis mom of two and the co-creator of Yoga Parenting, an online course that teaches tools to create more joyful, less stressful parenting.