How to talk to your kids (and yourself) about posture - Interview highlights
What would have been different in your life if having healthy, positive messages around posture was part of your family culture?
One thing is likely, you wouldn't show up in my office 30,40, even 70 years later trying to undo the physical impact of the messages around posture that don’t serve you.
Do any of these feel familiar?
Maybe a parent harassed you to sit up straight, or judged others for “hunching.”
Maybe you learned to shrink or hide in your teen years, and nobody let you know you had options.
Maybe any discussion of your body turned into criticism.
Maybe trying to fit in meant taking the shape of some gendered idea that was useful camouflage at a different time in your life.
The concept of “posture” has been weaponized across generations, which is why I generally avoid using the term at all. “Good posture.” “Bad posture.” They both end up feeling bad, because even “good” is fleeting. You could screw it up at any moment.
Even well-meaning adults make mistakes. Regardless of the intentions, kids can internalize these ideas before they even have logic, or a full sense of self.
When things like this arise for my clients, part of our job together is to unwind these patterns in a safe way that allows for freedom of movement they didn’t even know was possible for them.
Last month I invited parent coach Marcie Towle to meet with me to discuss her practice at Dragon Fire Coaching using the Nurtured Heart Approach.
We started with the question: What’s a constructive way to talk to kids about posture so they’re not shamed or burdened for the rest of their lives?
Here are some highlights from our conversation.
Methodological Synergy: Constructive self-talk and giving energy to the desired behavior
In Integrative Alexander Technique (IAT), the language we use—internally and out loud—matters. Not because we need to be endlessly positive, but because the nervous system responds much better to clarity than criticism.
“Don’t.” “Stop.” “Wrong.” Even subtle versions of these create interference. They muddy the signal. They make it harder to move, breathe, or think with ease.
With the Nurtured Heart Approach, parents learn to focus energy on the behavior they want, in themselves and their child. So in addition to using constructive language, they reward constructive behavior with attention.
Marcie: [In Nurtured Heart] we compare a person's inner wealth to an artist's portfolio. Because an artist has this idea of what pieces represent them best, and that's what they want to put in their portfolio. We have that same notion about ourselves, and guess what, it, it's formulated around where people show up for you.
The kind of attention a child gets will be the kind of attention they seek.
Marcie: So if you are the person who gets a lot of energy and scolding from the teachers or parents about your misbehavior in class and maybe the laughing from the other students, well, my portfolio says I'm the class clown.
Takeaways: Give yourself and your child clean messages, and give energy to the behavior you want to encourage.
In our conversation, Marcie and I then applied these ideas to two specific situations where a parent might want to call out their child’s posture, or how they are moving.
Scenario #1 Phone use – Curling over a phone may cause damage over time. How can a parent address it?
Crispin: When we [curve over our phones], we're actually compromising some of our functionality here at head spine… if I scrunch down here, my breathing is compromised, my thinking is compromised, I'm gonna spend even more time looking at [the phone] because I am not being my full self. I don't have my choice, I don't have my intelligence. All those things kind of dim down. So one way for people to talk about phone use is actually okay, if you're gonna look at your phone, let's be up.
Marcie: Say that out loud, model what you're doing. You know, I'm noticing that I'm spending a lot of time with my head down here and my neck's been hurting and I've been having some headaches. I'm realizing that's not good for me. And so I'm trying really hard to set certain times where I'm up and looking around the world. What do you think?
Takeaway: Model healthier phone use, and narrate what you’re doing
Scenario #2 Getting small - How to talk about hiding out in your body
When someone gets smaller in their body—hunching, collapsing, hiding—it can be typecast as insecurity. But often, that movement is doing important work.
Especially for adolescents (and honestly, many adults), shrinking can be a way of navigating visibility, attention, or uncertainty. The goal isn’t to take that strategy away. It’s to add options.
In imagining a scenario of a child with a new kind of curled-in movement pattern, I wondered to Marcie how to talk to a child about what might be hiding or protection.
If attention on their body is part of the problem, how do you call attention to it?
For parents, this can offer an opening to a conversation.
Marcie: I think it's really important to have the kind of relationship where you can talk and think things through, like I notice that you are holding yourself kind of small and I'm wondering if you might be trying to protect yourself. And protecting yourself is really important. And there might be some other strategies…. That's you showing yourself love for yourself, that you're protecting yourself.
Takeaway: Acknowledge the strategy without judgement, open up dialogue for options
In conclusion:
How we move our bodies does impact our health and outlook, and old-fashioned messages about posture laced with shame or corrections are not helpful.
“Good posture” is not a moral issue.
We do not need to hold on to these ideas, or pass them on to our kids.
Whether you’re talking to your kid or to yourself, respect and self-compassion lay the groundwork for change, and open up the channels for continued conversation.
Freedom comes from having more than one way to respond.
More self-awareness.
More choice.
More ways to be at ease without losing safety.
Check out the full conversation on YouTube. (38 mins)
