Thank you for joining us for episode 567 of Live Happy Now.

This month, we've been digging into how to bring more humor and playfulness into our lives.

And today, we're going to learn how to turn the chaos of childhood into moments of fun for the whole family.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm talking with best-selling author Kira Willey, a children's music artist,

kids yoga and mindfulness expert, and creator of the Rock and Yoga School programs.

Her latest book, The Joyful Child, teaches parents how to prioritize presence and play in their children's

lives and make everyday moments more fun for everyone. Let's have a listen. Kira, thank you so much

for joining me on Live Happy Now. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. You know, you are doing so

much to make childhood more joyful. You've created music, you teach kids yoga and mindfulness,

and you write some books. And I love your story about how all of this came to be. So I wondered

if you talk about that first and how this became your mission. Oh my gosh. Well, I started as a

kids music teacher, which I absolutely loved and started incorporating more and more movement into my music classes.

And that led to me teaching kids yoga.

And just incorporating music, movement, and eventually mindfulness with kids, with lots of play and imagination and just working with how they're naturally wired, which is to bounce and sing and wiggle and giggle,

was so much fun that I started creating my own songs, my own curriculum, my own activities,

and it just took off from there.

That is amazing because I think, one, it takes somebody special just to be a teacher.

I think that's a special gift and a calling because not all of us can do that.

And then to be able to take it and extend it, I think that's just an incredible, incredible journey that you've taken so many people on.

One of the things that jumped out at me as I was going through your materials is this doesn't just add joy to the child's life.

You are really bringing joy to the

parents and anybody who's participating too. So can you talk about how a family changes when they

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