The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself

2023 National Parenting Product Award Winner

Bring the wisdom of yoga into your parenting journey.

Mom and yoga teacher Sarah Ezrin offers 34 practices to find more presence, patience, and acceptance—with your child and with yourself.

“I can say without a doubt that the most advanced yoga I’ve ever done is raising a child,” writes Sarah Ezrin. While many people think of yoga as poses on a mat, The Yoga of Parenting supports people in bringing the spiritual principles of yoga into their lives—particularly their families. Ezrin, a longtime yoga teacher, supports readers and practitioners in slowing down, becoming present with our children and ourselves, and acting with more compassion. 

Each chapter highlights a yogic posture and theme and explores how it relates to parenting, including presence, boundaries, balance, and nonattachment. Chapters include prompts such as intention setting, breathwork, and journaling. Ezrin also features the stories and insights of a wide range of yoga practitioner parents whose experiences include single parenting, grandparenting, and passing on intergenerational yoga traditions. In addition to the opening posture, each chapter includes: 

• “Breath Breaks” invitations to mindfully breathe. 
• “On the Mat” practices to show us how we can apply the lessons on our yoga mat in a more general sense. 
• “Parenting in Practice” offering and advice from parents in the US and abroad.

• “Off the Mat and Into the Family” fun exercises to help us bring the work off the mat and into our homes. 

Practicing yoga can help us become kinder to ourselves, more aware of our thoughts and actions, and more present in our lives. What more important sphere to want to become kinder, more aware, and more present than with our families?

SARAH EZRIN is a freelance writer, yoga educator, and mama based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her honesty and innate wisdom make her writing, classes, and social media sources of healing for many people. Sarah is a frequent contributor to Yoga Journal, as well as Yoga International and LA Yoga. She has been interviewed in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bustle.com, and she has appeared on NBC news. She also writes for parenting outlets, including Scary Mommy, Motherly, Healthline, and Mind Body Green.