by Suzanne Rose

Created on: January 22, 2010

Good posture is very important.  It is often easiest to have good posture throughout life if you learn to have it as a child.  Because of this, it is important for teachers to instill in children the importance of good posture.  The following are some tips on how to do this.

Tell them why good posture is important.

Before you ask your children to learn to maintain good posture, you will want to explain why it is so important.  You will want to talk about how good posture can help your back and joints stay healthy.  If you are always in an unhealthy position, it could be straining on your back or even cause back pain.  Also, you want to talk about how good posture makes people look better.  People with good posture tend to look more confident than those who do not have good posture.  They look stronger.  People who are hunched over often look weaker and less confident. 

Teach them how to have good posture.

Show the children how to stand.  You can have two kids next to each other.  Have one of them leaning over in decidedly bad posture.  Have the other one standing up straight in good posture.  Then have the children compare the two, talking about how much better the one with good posture looks.  Ask them if that person appears more confident.  You should have the children practice their own good posture.  If you have a mirror in the classroom, you could have them look at themselves while utilizing good posture versus bad posture and see if they can see the difference in themselves.

Tell them to experiment outside the class.

A meaningful exercise to help them understand the importance of good posture is to have them try it in the real world.  You can do this in different ways.  One way is to have them show other people such as family members the two postures and ask the family members how they are perceived with the different postures.  Also, you can tell them to try to keep good posture, and to practice it, and to see if they notice any differences.  They can also ask other people if they notice any difference in them.  Perhaps you could ask them every morning if they did it in order to try to remind them until it becomes a habit.  Hopefully, you will instill the practice of good posture for them to keep with them through their lives.

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