Stronger Together: What Our Yoga “Chains” Teach Children About Teamwork and Mental Health

In our Children’s Yoga classes this week, we’ve been playing a simple but powerful game: children sit or stand in a Yoga circle and work together to pass a ball around in different poses. Sometimes they balance on one leg, sometimes they twist, sometimes they reach behind them – but they always have to stay connected.

At first, it looks like just a bit of fun coordination practice. But there’s something deeper happening.
Each time the children pass the ball, they’re also building an invisible chain – a chain of attention, trust, and teamwork.

The chain as a picture of teamwork

When one child focuses, balances and passes the ball carefully, it helps everyone else. When one person wobbles or gets distracted, the whole chain feels it – and someone offers a hand, a steady gaze or a smile.

We pause and ask:

  • What happened when someone rushed?

  • What helped when the ball almost dropped?

  • How did it feel when the person before you took their time and really cared about their pass?

Children quickly see that what each person does affects the whole group.
The chain is only as strong as the way we treat each other.

This simple game gives them a felt experience of teamwork:you matter, your effort makes a difference, we are stronger when we work together.

From Yoga circles to real-life relationships

The “chain” we create through this type of Yoga practice is more than a fun activity – it’s a picture of the relationships in our lives.

In our classrooms, a friendship group or a professional work team, are we not constantly “passing the ball” to one another? this may be reflected in how we speak to each other in the morning, whether we listen or talk over someone, whether we notice if someone is struggling and offer help. (Dare I say in our Families?)

When relationships are kind, reliable and respectful, we feel safer and more able to be ourselves. When they are shaky or unkind, we feel it in our bodies – tension, worry, irritability. Children don’t always have the language for this yet, but they can feel it in this experiment, and Yoga gives them an experiential way to experience it through the body first.

Why strong relationships matter for mental health

Research and experience in schools both point to the same thing: Strong, supportive relationships are one of the biggest protective factors for mental health.  When children feel seen, and that there is someone who listens, someone who notices how they’re feeling, and someone who believes in them even when they make mistakes, they are more able to bounce back from difficulties. This is what we often call resilience.

In other words, resilience doesn’t just live inside any of us, but perhaps it also live in our connections, with one another

  • A child with one or two steady, caring adults in their life is more likely to cope with change and stress.

  • A pupil who feels they “belong” in a class is more likely to take part, try again and ask for help.

  • A teacher who feels supported by colleagues is more able to support the children in front of them.

Our yoga chains are a child-friendly way of saying:

“We need each other. And that’s a strength, not a weakness.”

Quiet, focused teamwork: more than just calm

In Yoga we talk about a state of quiet, focused alertness – not sleepy, not hyper, but steady and present. When children experience this in a group, something lovely happens: they become more aware of their own body and breath, they also become more aware of the people around them, and they start to coordinate – matching each other’s timing, offering stability, waiting their turn.

This combination of self-awareness + awareness of others is at the heart of emotional intelligence. It’s the same skill that helps them later to notice when a friend is upset,wait before reacting, and choose a kind response.

‘Yoga of-the -mat'! our Yoga teams are not just learning poses; they’re learning that:

  • Connection is strength.

  • Teamwork supports resilience.

  • Strong, caring relationships are a foundation for sound mental health.

Every time a child takes a steady breath, passes the ball with care and smiles at the next person in the chain, they are practising the kind of relationship skills that will support them for life – in families, friendships and future workplaces. And that is exactly why we keep making those little Yoga circles, again and again.