Nurturing Your Family With Yoga

Kiki, who is an MD, a Yoga Therapist and a Birthlight Perinatal Yoga and Baby Yoga teacher, is an extraordinary woman. Among many medical and yoga accomplishments, she has chosen to teach yoga to children in London schools and her book Nurturing Your Family with Yoga has just been published by YogaWords. As a mother of three, the incentive to write a book about Family Yoga has come from her children, now aged 14, 12 and 8. Kiki sees children’s yoga as a continuation of nurturing, a way for children to find calm and grow in their confidence, laying the foundations for teen and adult years. Early exposure to yoga, writes Kiki, acts as powerful, preventative medicine and supports good mental, physical and emotional health throughout life.

This is a classic book, inviting parents to enjoy ‘doing yoga’ with their children. The clear, simple structure of the book, the carefully crafted yet creative and relaxed style, the beautiful settings and the inspiring photographs all make it look possible. Dream families? Perhaps, but the tips for sharing yoga successfully with children are reassuringly pragmatic. Keep it light-hearted and brief, do not worry if the children lose interest, let them create their own versions of yoga poses.

The A to Z illustrated list of yoga poses come with benefits, affirmations and reflections that highlight the messages of poses for education and happy living as yoga philosophy in practice. Developing awareness of how the different yoga poses make one feel can certainly be the root of future mindfulness and compassion.

The parenting with yoga that oozes through the words and the images of Kiki Morriss’ beautiful book is an expansion of the early parenting that Birthlight invites with Baby Yoga. Saying that “you will teach your children to be attentive by being attentive to them” is more than preaching by example, it involves a sharing of experience that nurtures the whole family.

-- Françoise Freedman

This is such a beautiful book. Not only is it practical and accessible, filled with lots of tips and ideas to introduce yoga to all the family, it is wonderfully playful and full of joy. Kiki’s passion and knowledge shine through every page.

-- Anna Wise, co-author of Yoga Sadhana for Mot