What do you remember from your childhood? Many of us reminisce about playing catch with our dads or our moms teaching us how to ride a bike. We remember swimming all day with our friends and stomping through creeks looking for frogs and salamanders.
What is missing from these memories? Computer screens, faces buried in smartphones, and televisions streaming 24-hour entertainment. Technology, while innovative and enormously useful, has usurped the amount of time ths kids - and adults - could be outside in the fresh air enjoying physical activity. The sedentary lifestyle so many families have become accustomed to is toxic not only to our bodies but also to forming bonds made through exercising together.
There’s nothing so boring or repetitive as someone instructing you to “get more exercise.” We’ve all heard it, including our kids. But if you think a little outside the box and get your creativity flowing you and your kids can reap the benefits of a somewhat nontraditional approach to exercise.
- Get Down on Their Level
When was the last time you jumped rope or played hopscotch? Have your children ever experienced the excitement of a game of freeze tag? Sometimes reverting back to some old-fashioned fun doesn’t even feel like exercise. A jump rope, some sidewalk chalk, and a loud voice that shouts “FREEZE” are some inexpensive activities to get all of you jumping, balancing, and running to avoid being tagged “it.”
- Scavenger Hunts
With this activity, you can get your own children as well as the neighborhood kids scouring the area looking for clues and hidden treasure. Add a few extra details to the clues like “do 10 jumping jacks” or “run in place for one minute” and everyone will be well on their way to time well spent doing something fun and physical.
- Play Follow the Leader…and Lead by Example
Start off a follow-the-leader game with the adults telling the children to hop, jump, run, and crawl. Then allow each child to take turns being the leader and adding their own orders to get everyone moving. Encourage some creative thinking by moving like their favorite animals (crab crawl, anyone?) or asking how their favorite superhero would exercise. Imagination combined with some heart-pumping activities will ensure kids and grown-ups alike get all of their steps in.
- Throw a Dance Party
A dance party is welcome at almost any time, but especially on rainy days when riding bikes or playing outside aren’t possible. Encourage kids to make dance party music lists with songs that have fast tempos, driving rhythms, and energetic singers. This is also a great way to throw in a little education about music and dancing from other cultures. So move the furniture against the walls and transform your living room into a dancefloor.
- You’re Never Too Young…or Old for Yoga
Yoga is a great equalizer for parents and kids. The simplest moves like standing tall as a tree or bending forward like a stretching dog might elicit a giggle from your kids, but will also teach the benefits of flexibility and calmness. Yoga is an excellent activity to start out a morning with some wake-up sun salutations or ease into bedtime with the peaceful child’s pose. Allowing our minds and bodies, as well as those of our children, to center emotions and relax each muscle group can help strengthen your purpose and connections as a family.
Sometimes it is difficult enough to motivate ourselves to get adequate exercise without the added stress of making sure our children are doing the same. A few traditional games and some modern twists can engage any family with enjoyable and creative physical activities to keep our bodies moving and our spirits having fun together.
Healthy Eating Supplements Daily Activity
As important as it is to get active, all that movement has a bigger impact on your body and mood when coupled with a healthy diet. Especially when cooking for kids, it can be difficult to figure out how to make healthy food taste good enough to entice them. But the good news is that you can still make all the foods they love; you merely need to change a couple of ingredients. For example, there are numerous healthy baking recipes that use flour and sugar substitutes that are just as delicious as processed ingredients.
Baking with gluten-free flour ensures that the finished product will be identical in form and flavor to the same food made with processed flour. This enables you to make healthy baking recipes without worrying about how to make healthy food taste good to little eaters.
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