Yoga is the GOAT for kids
The lovely connection children often find with baby farm animals at petting zoos is now being explored through a combination of exercise and mental wellbeing, known as goat yoga.
In recent years the intrigue of goat yoga has meant everyone from health influencers to famous actors are enjoying goat yoga sessions for the cameras, but it always come back to one simple message: combining a love of animals with a healthy lifestyle.
Now children throughout the City of Logan can experience the benefits of this low-impact activity during the summer school holidays with goat yoga sessions scheduled as part of the KRANK School Holiday program, run by Logan City Council.
Even the goats along for the session will be Logan locals – little Princess, Daisy and Lucky are 3 ‘kids’ from a hobby farm at South MacLean.
The baby goats were one month old when they attended their first goat yoga sessions in the September school holidays at Berrinba Wetlands, brought along by their owner Simona Tanasie – a psychologist who decided to move her 3 children to a rural setting and begin a hobby farm with goats, quails, ducks and cows.
‘The goats are naturally gentle and great with children,’ Simona says.
‘Goat yoga and animal therapy in general can really benefit children by promoting mindfulness. It’s especially helpful for kids dealing with anxiety, allowing them to regulate their emotions and take a break from their worries.’
Program Facilitator Leila Varga, with the ASE Group, says children in the September sessions, aged 5 to 17, really enjoyed learning traditional yoga poses and stretches with a trained instructor, as the baby goats mingled and played around them.
‘Some of the children were nervous to try it but they loved it, and some of the parents have found a lot of value in it for their children to be around the animals and learn about mindfulness,’ Leila says.
Having studied psychology and practised yoga for 5 years, Leila says even if the children are not physically active, they can still benefit from just learning simple breathing techniques and interacting with the animals.
‘The kids we had were really respectful of the animals and were very calm – they all did really well with the box breathing technique, which is something even Navy SEALS use for mindfulness.’
Tayla Wright, of Eagleby, says her nephew and her 2 children found the goat yoga session to be lots of fun.
‘It’s also really good for a child’s emotional regulation so we thought we’d come along and see and it was great,’ Tayla says.
Her daughter Meilah, 7, says her favourite pose was the ‘aeroplane’ and having the ‘nice and soft’ baby goats alongside her made it ‘twice as good’.
Goat yoga will be delivered as part of the KRANK School Holiday program in January 2025 and bookings are essential.
Bookings for the KRANK school holiday program opened on 9 December 2024.
For more things to do, check out these school holiday activities in Logan.
Photo at top: Clockwise from top left: Instructor Leila Varga at Berrinba Wetlands with participants Adam Ali, 10, of Daisy Hill, Meilah Wright, 7, of Eagleby, and Hunter Ashford, 10, of Eagleby. Photo: James McGuire.
