Can family yoga and kid-friendly spa treatments bolster the holiday bonding experience?
It was the promise of junior mani-pedis — or even kid-friendly facials — that brought them here.
“Them” being my precociously bourgeois two kids (they could tell sushi from sashimi by seven). “Here” being a converted prayer room in a 16th-century building just overlooking Florence, where me, my partner and our charges recently lay on our backs, swaddled in cashmere blankets, a cascade of shimmering tones from a horseshoe of quartz crystal bowls mollifying the domestic tension that had erupted at lunch.
Wellness is going family friendly. Once, parents in luxury resorts would drop their offspring off for a pickleball lesson before, swaddled in their fluffy in-room gowns, sneaking off for some physical and spiritual pampering. Now, the premium travel milieu is beginning to think: “Why should wellness be for adults only?”
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“Wellbeing is an integral part of everyday life, not just an indulgence – so more families understand the importance of cultivating a healthy lifestyle and positive habits from an early age,” explains Marta Borchi, wellness manager at Collegio Alla Querce: the hotel in Florence, located in a former boarding school, where my own household experienced a practice associated with Tibetan healing.
“When introduced at an appropriate age, sound baths can promote relaxation, improve sleep quality and reduce anxiety,” she adds.
“Because sound is also a creative stimulus, these experiences activate areas of the brain linked to imagination and creativity – essential components in a child’s development. They can also enhance focus and concentration, helping children who are easily distracted find calm and presence.”
She’ll get no quarrel from Thea Wong, group director of wellness at COMO Hotels and Resorts, which offers family-friendly yoga and other experiences at properties including COMO Alpina Dolomites, COMO Shambhala Retreat and COMO Maalifushi properties.
“Through activities like family yoga,” she explains, “we offer adaptable practice that allows toddlers, teens, parents, and even grandparents to participate, committing to health together and strengthening the family’s collective ability to pause, breathe and connect.”
Families in Australia wanting to latch onto the family wellness trend might also make a beeline for Vomo Island Fiji: “Treatments such as a mani-pedi ritual or a massage in one of our double spa room enable parents to make memorable moments with their children – something special and indulgent,” says Karen Marvell, Vomo Island Fiji’s Sydney-based director of sales and marketing.
“The children’s massage uses continuous, flowing, light massage. The oils used – because children’s skin is more delicate – are organic Fijian coconut oil and Vitamin Rice Oil, all natural and free of fragrance other than nature’s own.”
A short hop to the south, meanwhile, Six Senses Fiji offers children’s wellness through its “Grow With Six Senses” program.
“Parents are becoming increasingly aware of the health hazards caused by excessive gadget use and screen time,” says Jyoti Kodwani, founder of wellness initiative The Sacred Chakras and a visiting practitioner at the resort.
“So they want to introduce their children to a retreat-like atmosphere, encouraging them to experience nature and mindful activities early on. It helps children understand balance and calm from a young age.”
Adapting the treatments for kids, Kodwani says, is crucial. “In Flying Yoga, we use the hammock to bring in playfulness and meditation. The playful movements create joy and trust, especially when practised as a family. It becomes more about shared connection than just exercise.
With Singing Bowl experiences, every family has its own energetic pattern – certain shared emotions or tendencies that create a unique ‘vibration’. We work with specific frequencies that help release collective emotions such as fear, anger or stress. When families meditate or experience sound together, their nervous systems start to synchronise, bringing a deeper sense of understanding and connection into their home life.”
Half a world away, meanwhile, my own family’s chakras didn’t stay realigned for long once the kids found out there wouldn’t be time for the spa’s more vanity-geared offerings before we left for the airport. But it was a unique bonding experience: and we all felt something intangible and profound taking place.
Being the secular grump I am, I’ll stick to calling stuff others call “spiritual” simply “positive effects on neuroplasticity and emotional regulation”.
But being also a family man, I’ll happily raise a glass of cucumber-infused water to a clearly progressive emerging trend.
