Fitting a regular fitness routine into your busy schedule can seem impossible. With most parents working 40 or more hours a week it’s hard to find ways to worry about fitness. The reality is that America’s families are struggling to stay fit. Teaching children to find time to be active is more easily accomplished when you lead by example. How can you find time to get your children to their sporting activities while making time for your own? Forget about exercising and have fun!
Make Fitness Fun
Families should have a collective lifestyle. If togetherness means spending every evening and weekend enjoying a Netflix marathon, fitness habits take a back seat. It’s much harder working together to build a life that revolves around being active and healthy.
Every family needs to make together time a priority. Coupling that with fun, high energy fitness will help families stay active together and teach kids that play isn’t just for children. Currently, only 30% of children between the ages of 6 and 17 get 20 minutes or more of vigorous exercise daily. Although, a full 60 minutes of daily exercise is recommended. For most people, exercise is a chore, but play is a biologically vital activity. Getting off the couch and replacing an hour of screen time with play time will benefit your entire family.
Visit Your Local Park
Scout out a local park that has a baseball field or big open space and coordinate a regular kickball game with other parents. Many parks will even allow you to reserve spaces, so don’t be afraid to call ahead! Make sure your goal is clear, everybody plays and everybody has fun! Teaching your kids the difference between living an active life full of play and ‘exercise’ is sure to be priceless.
Fitness for Different Ages
Depending on the age ranges, you can adjust the game play to make things a little more fair. Here are some easy alterations that you can blend together or you can make up your own.
10 Year and Under:
- Toddlers run bases and adults kick
- Pair adults and kids to play bases
- Designated hitters
10 Years and Up:
- Adults (over 16) vs kids
- 50/50 adult child split
- Adults in the outfield kids in the infield
Fitness For Groups
Since, we’re talking about turning one classic playground game into a family activity, why not explore a couple more? If you can’t get enough families to join your kickball game, don’t be discouraged! Pick an activity and make a goal around it.
It takes approximately 10,000 hours to master something and that’s time you’ll spend having fun, getting fit and being together. So this year, let’s master Double Dutch, perfect the talent of badminton, become the elite team of capture the flag or have a household hula hoop contest. You’ll soon discover that the more you play together, the more open everyone will become to spontaneous play.
Finally, reach out for more information if you’re a park or community space looking to promote fitness for families!
