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Keeping your family healthy is usually a priority for most parents. We all want our kids to play outdoors and eat their peas. Unfortunately, we live in a time where it seems to be harder and harder to do. There’s no denying that with the rise of screens, it can be a challenge to encourage your kids to be more active. Kids are less active because they often spend more time indoors on screens than outside playing.
Along with trying to help your children make healthy choices with what they eat, by far the best way to make sure that your family is healthy is to get everybody doing regular exercise. Unfortunately, that’s often easier said than done and it can be difficult to convince kids to engage with exercise. But if you just get creative and use some of these great ways to keep your kids active, the whole family will be healthier and happier.
Sports
Getting the kids to join a sports team is a great way to make sure that they’re getting regular exercise and they’ll meet a lot of new friends as well. It’s also a cheaper option than joining a gym, for example. If they join a baseball team, they’ll only need a couple of high school baseball uniforms which don’t cost that much and that’s it.
Most sports don’t require too much equipment so it’s a cheap and easy way to get your kids exercising. Sports are also good for other areas of development like teaching your kids the value of teamwork and fairness.
However, it’s important that you’re not pushing them toward a certain sport. If you’re going to get them to engage, it needs to be something that they’re actually interested in. So, let them try out a lot of different sports and pick one that works for them.
Introduce It Into Daily Life
Staying active isn’t just about doing scheduled exercise, it’s about small daily changes as well. Encourage your kids to walk or cycle places and take the stairs instead of the elevator.
You can even get them doing household chores. It doesn’t seem like exercise but
Make It A Family Activity
Kids learn by example, so if you’re always telling them that they need to be active but you aren’t following your own advice, you’ll have a lot of trouble convincing them. That’s why you should make exercise a family activity.
I am not an active person, but I LOVE family activities. When it’s something that I’m doing to have fun with my kids, it doesn’t seem so much like exercise!
We love to go to the zoo to see the animals. We get a nice day-long walk and learn about animals!
Why not go on a big bike ride or a hike together? Or get involved in some team sports together. If you do that, your kids will follow your example and they’re more likely to exercise regularly. It’s also a bonus because it helps to keep you healthy as well.
By teaching your kids the importance of exercise from an early age, you can make sure that they develop good habits that they’ll carry over into later life.
Encourage Your Kids to Be More Active Indoors Too!
Part of our issue with being active is we don’t live in the best area. Weather is also a big factor in getting outdoors. A great way to encourage your kids to be more active is to create fun ways to be active inside!
There are many fun ways to do this. There are a
For little kids, having an indoor trampoline has changed our lives! Our kids love their little trampoline. The great thing about it is that they can get energy out whenever they need to. No outing to plan. They can even jump for 5 minutes before dinner so they’re not wiggly and antsy at the table!
A dance party is another fun, easy way to get kids active. Little kids love it, but, honestly, it’s fun for every one when you throw on some music and dance as a family. My family still loves to do this and we are all adults now!
Yoga is another great indoor activity to do together! Little kids love to make shapes with their bodies and get to spend time with you. It also is a great bonding activity with older kids.
Get Active!
Whatever you do to keep your kids moving is great! The important thing is that they move!
What’s your favorite way to get your kids moving?
Great suggestions!
I love these ideas! I especially love your tips for being active indoors as well. Sometimes it’s hard to get out and I always end up feeling like we weren’t as active on the days that we couldn’t go outside. Super excited to read your list of indoor activities as well 🙂
Yes me too! I just try to be better about doing active things on those days now. Dancing is always easy when you don’t know what to do to get them moving!
Great post with so many amazing ideas!! We love dance parties at our house! 🙂 I also love your suggestions to get active as a family! Thanks for sharing!
These are all great ideas to stay active together as a family! The small choices you make really do add up. We started having dance parties a few years ago when our kids were stuck at home a lot when we had a newborn and weren’t up to taking them out as much as we would have liked. Years later they still LOVE dance parties and get so much energy out Ü
I love watching my kids dance around! It is just the cutest thing ever!
These are all great ideas. I second the trampoline! We have our kiddo hit the trampoline to get out some extra energy which is super important during the winter months.
Yes! We got ours for Christmas and I’m so glad we did!
I love these!! It’s so important now, with all the screens around our children, to encourage them to be active and play.
Love this! It definitely helps to do activity together as a family! I didn’t have an indoor trampoline for my older son but I think it’s a great idea and will get one for my little guy. And yes, chores are a great way for activity to be part of your kids days….today my son was scrubbing rugs in the kitchen and was legit sweating! lol Thanks for this post!!
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