For Children Who Refuse to Snooze

Children have worries just like the adults in their lives. Busy minds created by a busy world of school, music lessons, sports practices, TV, and video games can leave children tossing and turning. They often replay the day's events in their minds or worry about tomorrow. Patti Teel, dubbed the "nap-time troubadour" by the Wall Street Journal, helps children relax and slide into zzzzzland using yoga techniques, gentle music, and relaxation visualizations in her latest CD, The Inside Out Sleep Game.

Sleep experts estimate that 25-30 percent of children have problems sleeping. Teel's own daughter was one of them. So Teel, a former special education and music teacher, developed a bedtime routine that incorporated yoga stretches, soothing music, and guided imagery to help her daughter fall asleep. She eventually took her series of breathing and relaxation exercises into pre-schools, elementary schools, and even homeless shelters to help the young un-drowsy find dreamland.

"Many parents don't think their children get stressed, but today's problems don't go unnoticed by children," Teel says. "In a culture that focuses outward rather than inward with too many activities and overemphasis on image and accomplishments, The Inside Out Sleep Game helps kids relax, feel safe, gain self-understanding, and most importantly fall sleep."

While Teel's first CD, The Floppy Sleep Game, encouraged relaxing fun with the Flop Game, quieted the mind with a "Mother's Lullaby," and helped children find peace through a guided magical journey, The Inside Out Sleep Game embraces more yoga techniques and philosophy while still keeping it fun. Teel talks children through a wind-down bedtime routine that has them stretching and relaxing every part of their body. She helps them to learn how to focus their breathing, which encourages relaxation. She encourages children to replace their worries with thoughts of blessings: "As you fall asleep/Don't count problems or sheep/Count your blessings one by one/How high can you count?" Finally, in the gentle "Inside-Out" song, she tells young and older children to "send love out and bring it in," send it to moms, dads, and children all over the world.

Teel says she hopes the The Inside Out Sleep Game will help instill a reverence for all of life and nature and help children love themselves and others. These are principles at the very heart of yoga, and one can never be too young (or too old) to learn them. If for no other reason, this CD should be in your child's music library because every night it will reassure your child: "You are safe; you are loved; you are blessed."

Teel's bedtime CDs, which have been called "a tired parents' dream come true," are recommended for children ages 3-10. They have won critical and popular acclaim including the National Association of Parenting Publication Pre-school Gold Award and the Oppenheim Gold Toy Portfolio Award. They were listed as some of the 100 best toys of 2001 by Doctor Toy.

The Inside Out Sleep Game also includes a streaming video with Teel's sleepytime tips, which you can view on your computer. The Floppy Sleep Game and The Inside Out Sleep Game are $12.95 each and are distributed by Buena Vista Records, a division of Walt Disney Records. Copies of The Floppy Sleep Game and The Inside Out Sleep Game are available at amazon.com

Patti Teel lives with her husband and three children in Santa Barbara, California.