When Tatiana Peña became a young mom, she struggled with anxiety. One thing that helped her was yoga.
Today, Peña is a City Connects Coordinator at the Mary A. Dryden Veterans Memorial Elementary School in Springfield — and she’s sharing yoga with students at her school.
“Yoga comes down to being in control of yourself and your emotions, to being present in the now. When I realized the importance of breath, meditation, and yoga I gained better control of myself, and that is the part of yoga I want to share with my students because yoga is seldom just the poses,” Peña says.
“The art of mindfulness and yoga was introduced to me in 2015 when I was working towards my master’s degree in social work.”
Peña started offering yoga to third, and fourth graders as pop-up sessions, taking a child-oriented approach.
“We start with an icebreaker, typically a question of the day or a ‘do now.’ The question might be what kids appreciate or it could be a scenario that they respond to,” Peña says.
“I like to focus on the whole child– knowing that spirit, mind, and body are all interconnected, it allows the program to flow. We tap into fun and feeling safe. It’s a time where children can just be, and it’s pretty fun to see the students be unapologetically themselves. The arts – be it movement, sound, and art — are built into the program. We always end with 15 to 20 minutes of time on our mats. The students learned from the first day the seriousness of being on their mat and honoring it.”
The best part for students is that they were able to build their self-regulation skills and their social skills with peers in a positive safe space.
This year, Peña has started offering the program to fifth graders who face what could be stressful situations. They will take the MCAS this spring, and they are in the process of “balloting,” participating in a lottery to see which middle school they will go to next fall.
“A lot of kids have been here since preschool, so transitioning to their next school can be hard,” Peña explains.
Peña plans to collect data to see if yoga and movement help improve students’ anxiety.
The biggest surprise for Peña is that she expected students’ initial response to yoga to be tinged with age-appropriate silliness.
“But it’s something they actually look forward to. They are so eager to learn and try new poses and help one another out. They love encouraging each other, too.”
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