Fostering Family Exercise
By: Celia Kibler, President/Founder, Funfit Inc./Funfit Family Fitness Center
Categories: Family Health and Wellness
With today’s busy, hectic schedules, very often parents run out of time. Between work, school and other activities, exercising and family time is often lost. Not only can you fit in exercise, you can do it together and relieve stress and tension from the day.
How do you do it? Schedule it in with everything else. Don’t just assume you’ll find the time. Dinner time, spent as a family is invaluable and offers many benefits. You have to eat, so schedule an after-dinner, 30-minute activity to do together. Take a walk, play tag, ride bikes. Make sure everyone in the family participates, even you—mom and dad! You won’t believe how great you feel afterwards, how much it will mean to your kids and how much fun you’ll have doing it. It will even help all of you sleep better at night. Playing games with your kids is a great way to bond. It makes everyone laugh, relax and builds pathways of communication and trust.
Enroll in classes where everyone in the family participates, including the parents. Try not to always separate each other’s workout or activities--there’s enough separation everyday from work and school. Just for a moment, think about how much activity a child, who is not the “star” player, actually gets during a team sport, maybe 15 minutes if they’re lucky. Non-competitive, active games encourage participation by all regardless of skill levels and gender and keep kids and parents moving.
Be creative, be silly and don’t forget to join in. Your kids will remember it, love you for it and you will have instilled the importance of an active lifestyle in your children.