By: Ashley Sorce
No-Fuss Family Fitness
Are your kids always running around? Now is the time to take advantage of their energy and talk with them about the benefits of lifelong fitness and good nutrition.
Help your children develop positive attitudes toward healthy lifestyles now, and they’ll be more likely to carry healthy habits with them into adulthood.
Getting Started: Identify Different Types Of Fun Physical Activities
According to the document 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, children and adults should engage in physical activities for 60 minutes each day. This is especially important for young children and adolescents–to ensure they continue to build strong bones and muscles.
Try activities such as jumping rope and dancing to keep your family excited about exercise. Every family is different so work with yours to create a list of physical activities everyone enjoys doing together, then brainstorm a list of new activities to try, such as bicycling, gardening, hiking, or kicking a soccer ball in the park. As your family thinks of new activities, keep adding them to the list.
Decide When to Play Together
Choose one or two activities to participate in each day. One simple activity you can do together is to take a walk after dinner. Walking is an excellent way to help digest a meal and strengthen muscles, and it provides an opportunity to share about each other’s day. List the activities on your calendar and mark off each day’s activities together so everyone can look forward to the next day’s activities.
Determine Your Fitness Goals and Keep Track of Them
As with any type of exercise you begin, it’s important to consider the ages and current fitness levels of all participants. Then you can work toward increasing the intensity and duration of different activities. For example, during the first week, your family might take 30-minute walks each night after dinner, followed by dancing to your child’s favorite CD in the living room. The next week, increase the time spent walking and pick up the dancing pace a bit.
One way to track your family’s fitness goals is to write them down and put them on the refrigerator or in some other highly visible location. Review your goals periodically. After a goal has been met, set a new goal to work toward. Remember: The most important goal is for all family members to participate in physical activities regularly, so it’s important that any goals you set are attainable and that everyone is motivated to work toward them.
Discuss the Importance of Good Nutrition and Healthy Eating Habits
Children need adults to teach them about foods that are healthy for their bodies as well as to model eating healthy foods. Talking about good nutrition with children can be as simple as explaining the need to eat foods from different food groups to ensure their bodies receive the different vitamins and minerals needed to stay healthy. Create menus with your kids that include foods that are healthy and that everyone enjoys. Then, take your kids shopping and let them locate different foods and teach them how to read food labels.
Maintaining Your Plan
• Get active. Remember to participate in some type of physical activity or activities for a total of at least 60 minutes each day.
• Have fun. Your kids are much more likely to participate in physical activities that are fun, so make sure everyone enjoys the time spent together.
• Eat healthy. Eat fewer foods that are high in fat and calories, and more foods that benefit the body, such as fruits and vegetables. Involve the entire family in selecting and preparing meals so everyone understands how to make healthy food choices.
One of the best things you can do for your children today is to help them develop the knowledge and lifestyle habits that will help them live happy and healthy lives tomorrow.
Teach your Child to be Active for Life
These days, kids are spending more hours sitting at a computer then being active outside. Inactivity can have a dramatic impact on your child’s health. Teach your kids the importance of staying active and healthy with these six tips.
Encourage physically strenuous activity.
Young children should accumulate at least one hour of daily physical activity–running, jumping, climbing, lifting, pedaling vigorously, etc. Motivate your kids by your own example and play games or do chores with them.
Help your child increase their endurance and stamina.
Stamina comes with effort and increased exertion over time. Some children will naturally go and go, using every ounce of effort they have. Others need to be encouraged to exert themselves and stretch their capabilities.
When your child plays with others, encourage games that will get all of the kids physically involved.
Some group games involve a high level of activity, others are mostly waiting for turns and watching. Think of ways to adapt play to increase activity. For example, divide a large group into smaller groups so children can have more frequent turns.
You can be active indoors too.
Try to turn learning activities into active opportunities. For example, when asking your child what he/she learned or read in school, ask them to act out the answer instead of just discussing it.
Engage your child’s senses.
Young children are sensory learners. They need to engage all of their senses to truly process information. Consider activities that reach beyond seeing and hearing to involve your child in touching and tasting.
Explore new physical skills with your child.
Children like to challenge themselves and try new things. As parents, we sometimes overprotect our children from this and hinder their exploration and development. Instead, encourage your children to practice challenging tasks.
5 Time Management Tips for Your Busy Family
Find a great planner.
Planners have been around forever, but they are really the most genius way to keep it all together. Every paper that comes home from school with a date on it, instantly gets written in the planner. What’s for lunch on Wednesday? It’s in the planner. What night is garbage night? Family night? Look at the planner. It’s all written down in the planner, and if you want to further organize your life, try color-coding groups of events. Assign a color to school, work, play, etc.
Make family night a priority.
Family comes first and with the hustle and bustle of all things entertainment, family functions, school activities and sporting events, important family bonding can quickly become obsolete. Making sure to pen it in each week and learning to say, “No” to other obligations that may come up on the same night, is extremely important to us spending quality time together on a weekly basis.
Solve the schedule equation.
While a planner is a great at-a-glance resource, what about the specifics of your day? Trying to juggle homework, sporting practices, making dinner, baths, one-on-one time, story time, etc. can be difficult. Try a daily schedule where you break down the day into half hour increments. This way you can plan what each member of your family needs to get done in a day, ensuring everyone stays on time.
Create a meal plan.
Hang a grocery list on the inside of your pantry door, ensuring that when something runs out, you can write it on the list. Use a pocket folder or coupon divider to collect coupons for the corresponding food items on your list. This not only gives you a thorough list of what you need, but it can also prevent you from buying unnecessary items at the grocery.
Set up a dump zone.
Use a memo station to act as the dumping ground for bills, children’s homework, and important paperwork. Set aside a convenient time, like Sunday night before your week begins, to comb through the dump zone and reorganize for the upcoming week. You can also have a dumping basket nearby as well to collect non-paper items that need to be relocated later.
Re-Find the Joy in Parenting
Take a break from technology and hide the clock.
Have you ever noticed how much easier life feels when you aren’t rushing to get somewhere? Watching to see when the next nap might begin? Or frantically returning emails over the weekend?
Reconnect with your joy.
It’s easier to find joy in parenting when your life is filled with joy. Sign up for a cooking class, stop by a bookstore and browse your favorite aisle, put on some feel good music, or soak in hot, bubbly tub. Or invite a neighbor over after your children have gone to bed and share some laughs over much needed adult conversation.
Preserve the relationship with your child first.
Getting out the door rushing and screaming is no fun. Notice how connecting with your child before heading to the car may just make the whole day a little brighter. Or how lingering a little longer outside with your baby girl while she watches the leaves rustle and listens to the birds seems well, to sweeten the “parenting pot” a whole lot more. Commit to feeling good.
Practice “good-enough-ed-ness.”
Let go of standards of perfection, and trying to keep up with neighbors, colleagues, Pinterest, or your ideal self. Simplify your life because life is messy.
And finally, give yourself time for self-care.
A second cup of hot tea, an extra yoga class, a long shower on the weekend — find the activities that make you feel nurtured, refreshed and ready to caring for your family.