CE Workshop | How Yoga and Mindfulness Can Help Children Lower Anxiety and Boost Mood

Dr. Margaret Jessop, PsyD was introduced to yoga while attending UC Berkeley. It was a perfect counterpoint to her rigorous training with the rowing team. After finishing her undergraduate degree in psychology, she worked as a preschool teacher and, in hindsight, was facilitating savasana for a room of twelve 2-year-olds each day at nap time. She went back to school to study both developmental and clinical psychology and has been working as a psychologist with children ever since, with a specialization in anxiety and mood disorders. Margaret completed her 200 hour yoga teacher training during the pandemic and has been incorporating movement, mindfulness, and brain science in her clinical work and workshops for parents and children for the past eight years.

Margaret has also published two children’s books that integrate her psychological and yoga training. Hornets & Hippos: How to use Imagination, Mindfulness and Brain Science to Decrease Fear and Anger and Reach your Goals, a workbook for children 6-12, and Hornet and Hippo Count the Stars: Mindfulness-Based Stories and Activities to Calm Anxiety and Balance the Mind, which is a set of six stories and teaching content for families, schools and yoga classes for children ages 4-10. Her first picture book, where Hornet and Hippo embrace their natural curiosity and take off on a mushroom hunt, comes out this year.