Small business Sunday is a chance for Modern Mama to help small businesses, many of which are local. It is an opportunity to help highlight and feature their incredible services and products to our Modern Mama audience. Many of these businesses are fellow parents starting out and with the pandemic, could use the extra boost! Please take a moment to learn more about these amazing businesses below.
This month I am focusing on mindfulness for the whole family. This week I am featuring a local small business, Harmony Kids Yoga & Mindfulness Co.
Harmony Kids offers kids aged 3-18 tools for calming, focus, healthy habits, confidence and fun!. They offer a variety of tools to make healthy habits easy to implement in the home, school or theraputic setting. HarKids Yoga & Mindfulness Co., owner Jennie Abbot is a children’s dance instructor and a trained yoga instructor.
You can find Harmony Kids on Facebook, Instagram and the web. The website also has an online shop that offers: Breathing props, relaxation eye pillows and story books, online courses for parents, educators and healthcare professionals, Harmony at home kits, an adventures in imagination video series, yoga break for classrooms, live workshops for adults and kids and a 95 hour kids yoga teacher training course. Coming in 2021: New kids relaxation story book and a peaceful play yoga game. See below for an exclusive discount for Modern Mama followers!
Harmony Kids is based out of Langley, British Columbia – when running in-person classes but available world-wide for virtual classes, courses and products.
What made you choose this type of business?
Originally I started out to help my daughter who began having terrible anxiety over going to school when she was 7 years old. I quickly realized how much yoga and mindfulness helped her anxiety and overall make it much easier for her to cope. So I began creating a program, with help from her teachers and volunteered in schools for a year to make sure it was tried, tested and true. To date our classes have reached over 50,000 kids! I never would have imagined where we would end up and I am always excited to see what is next for harmony kids and who we can support!
What is your favourite small business (aside from your own)?
Snap Tunes, it’s a super cool songwriting-for kids business run by Laura Koch of the Kwerks. She brings songwriting to kids and they end up with a professional recording of their own song – it’s amazing what they create!
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Talk to your target customer to find out what their needs are! be ready to listen, ask questions, pivot according to what they need and want and be constantly striving to serve them to the best of your ability. Your customers deserve the best of you, and if this excites and fuels you then you are in the right business!!!
If applicable, has your business been affected by covid19? if so, how?
One year ago we had our last in-person classes in our studio, school and preschool program. after things locked down we moved all our programs online and things got very quiet over the summer. Then I started getting a huge influx of educator workshop requests, as well as started a new partnership with the institute of child psychology to create online courses for parents, educators and healthcare professionals. So one of the gifts of last year was some incredible new opportunities to share more tools and techniques with people outside of langley, and connect with people as far as Australia!
What are your long term business goals?
To bring yoga and mindfulness tools to kids across the world through their teachers, parents and healthcare support people, making a positive difference in their lives!
What are you most looking forward to this year?
Leading a workshop for the National Kids Yoga Conference, which is the biggest kids yoga conference in the world! It’s a dream come true to be invited to present and I can’t wait to connect with kids yoga teachers and educators from all over the world!
What is your funniest/weirdest/most memorable experience with a customer or client?
Working with kids there are honestly too many to count, but if I had to choose just one it would be when a teacher told me after a school yoga program ended, that one of the children in her grade 2 class was non-verbal autistic and that the yoga program was the first thing she had ever participated in. The teacher had taken photos to show her parents, because otherwise they wouldn’t have believed her. It spoke to me of how inclusive, positive and nurturing the harmony kids yoga program is and it filled me heart with so much joy.
A big thanks to Jennie Abbot for answering my questions and sharing her business with us today.
I have had a chance to do the “Mindful You, Mindful Me” parent workshop, that Harmony Kids offers. It is self-paced, available online through Thinkific and can be accessed from any device! I have learnt several great tips from the workshop that have helped me bring mindfulnes into our home. Including how to create a mindful space for the kids to relax in, rainy day tips for getting energy out and various ways to deal with emotions and come back to the “green zone”.
**DISCOUNT ALERT**
Harmony Yoga is offering our Modern Mama followers exclusive pricing on the online “Mindful You, Mindful Me” parent workshop. Follow the link and enter coupon code “MODERNMAMA50” at checkout to get 50% off the online course! (Regular $60) In addition Modern Mama folowers get the sign wall kit included, FREE!
Disclaimer: I was gifted the opportunity to try the “Mindful You, Mindful Me” online workshop. As always my opinions are my own and I take pride in providing honest reviews to fellow parents and followers. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I get commissions for purchases made through certain links in this post.