How do you get your children exercising?

bythemethod | September 5, 2008

Sport in school is rubbish – at least it is for my children. I want them to be fit and healthy and not grow up fat – like so many other children are these days. But how do you get them to do it? Exercise is hard work and hurts so how can I persuade my children that exercise is good fun? Over the next few months I will share with you my efforts at getting them motivated for exercise.

Why can’t schools offer good quality exercise?

I know there are exceptions to this and I am talking about the UK here but sport in school just seems to be rubbish. Of course it was rubbish when I was at school as well. Those of us who didn’t fall into the traditional sports expertise bracket were bullied by the P.E. teacher. Fear seemed to be the prime motivator for P.E. teachers when I was at school. I’ve never been very supple and I’m also quite tall so gymnastics was particularly hard for me – of course gymnastics seemed to be my teachers most favoured form of wet weather exercise.

I did my sport outside of school. I started hiking/backpacking quite young and I would spend most weekends walking over wild hills. It made me pretty fit which I then took in to athletics for a spell. It wasn’t that I just didn’t like sport I just didn’t like school sport. In fact I can honestly say that school sports and they bullying it entailed help persuade me to leave school early.

Thankfully things have moved on from them but from what I can see it has gone too far the other way. In an effort to make children happy we can’t have competitive sports and it’s best to keep any kind of sport activity to a minimum. I’ve even heard of schools were balls were banned from the playground.

So I’m going to try and get my children fit and healthy and into some serious exercise. They are in the range of 6 to 12 years old by the way.

How can I do this?

First of all I needed a way of getting them excited about getting fit. The Olympics proved to be a great motivator. With their interest growing as the British Team were winning some medals we sat down to watch the Athletics. They loved it – mostly. We talked together about how the British Team are rubbish and that someone ought to do something about it. Then we talked about what it would be like to be at the Olympics and even better how it would feel to win a medal.

They got excited about this thought. Now I know they are too young to be Olympic athletes at the moment and that they have a long way to go and may not even have enough talent to win but they just need a motivator to get started – I can deal with realism and disappointment later.

You should never not do something because you might be disappointed. If you never take risks you will never live a full life.

Find a club

First I tried to find a club they could join. Sadly the nearest club – there isn’t an athletics club in my town which seems daft to me – is full up and has a waiting list. If I wait they will lost interest so I have to take action.

Get involved yourself

I’ve now started helping them to train for sports. I got myself a book on athletics training and I’m building up a programme that we can work on. At this stage I just want them to play games that help train them but there will be an element of competition for them in that they will compete against themselves.

But I didn’t even want to leave it for a few days so we started going out running together. This is hard for me because I have let myself get a little unfit over the last few years. I’m now trying to catch up with some young children. They love it.

We run around together – well sort of because they go off slightly ahead (where I can still see them) and then let me catch up. Not ideal but I think when I’m a little fitter I’ll be able to push them every now and then.

So we have started the process. I expect it will be a long one but it will hopefully be a lot of fun along the way as well.