Health and fitness for every body
Exercise promotes the development of gross motor skills and helps children in developing stronger bones, a healthy lifestyle, and habits for the future. It also has profound benefits for the mind and mental health as those that are active report feeling happier, more confident and do better at school. As well as their dedicated 2 hours a week where they will participate in PE at school, it’s important that you encourage your child to exercise at home. According to the NHS, children between the ages of 5 and 18 should aim for at least 60 minutes of moderate to high-intensity physical activity a day.
The trouble for most parents is that they can’t get them out of the house. Screen time is a real issue with children spending 4 and a half hours on average on an electronic device. If this is a problem that you can relate to, you might find the guidance in this post helpful. Below are some top tips that we’ve created with a private girls’ school in Hertfordshire to help parents get their children exercising.
If you’re having trouble getting your little ones to exercise, look for fun activities that you can do together as a family, like football, rounders or even an indoor obstacle course. It will feel less like exercise as they’ll be able to play and have fun whilst doing it.
It’s not fair if you’re setting out all the rules and not following them yourself. Get onboard with the lifestyle changes that you’re proposing and get active. It will set a good example for your child and help them to see that it’s not as daunting as it seems.
There are lots of forms of exercise, there’s swimming, running, sports activities and possibly one of the most underrated activities – walking. It’s possible to exercise without breaking much of a sweat and over-exhausting yourself. It’s a nice and easy way that you can start phasing in exercise and they will likely not even notice at all. You can turn it into a fun family outing and visit your local park.
A great way to increase their step count is by walking to school. It’s a daily activity that you will need to do five days a week, so it is the perfect way to get up to 60 minutes of exercise. It will save you the hassle of having to de-ice your car in the morning, fuel and having to find a decent parking space. If, however, it’s too much hassle in the morning and you don’t have enough time, it may be a better option to walk the way home. That way you won’t need to worry about running late and can take your time.
Going back to earlier, you might want to look at the different sports that your child’s interested in. It makes exercising fun as it turns it into a competitive game. Schools run a whole host of extracurricular sports clubs around the school day that are worthwhile looking into. You won’t need to worry about dropping your child to and from their activities as they take place on school grounds.
Nutrition is just as important as exercise as it fuels the body. In addition to all of the steps above, ensure that your child is eating well and enough food to supplement their exercise.
We hope this post gave some insight into the ways that you can increase your child’s activity levels. For more posts like this, feel free to visit my blog.
This is a collaborative post.
