A Parent’s Guide to Having Kids Live an Active Lifestyle

An active lifestyle provides several benefits, including lowering the risk of obesity, encouraging healthy eating for optimal energy, developing social skills, and promoting family bonding time. 

Let’s look at a parent’s guide for helping your kids live an active lifestyle.

How to Inspire Kids to Live an Active Lifestyle

What to Do

It’s important that you educate your children on the importance of participating in an active lifestyle. If they understand the benefits of partaking in frequent activity, this will motivate them to make this part of their life. 

Talk about the physical benefits that come from being active on a regular basis. This includes maintaining a healthy weight, decreasing the risk of health issues like diabetes or heart conditions, and boosting one’s mental health.

You can be a role model for your children by also participating in an active lifestyle. If your children see you making it a point to move your body each day, they will be inspired to do so as well. 

Physical activity doesn’t have to be excessive or overly strenuous to make a difference. A simple family walk each day is more than enough. Even if you have small children that are still in a stroller, find ways to get them involved. Allow them a portion of the time to toddle along outside of the stroller when it’s safe to do so. 

Talk to one another about your days. You can even play games like I Spy or name an item that you see for every letter of the alphabet. This makes physical activity more fun and appealing for everyone in the family.

Don’t be afraid to offer up a reward for physical activity. If all of you participate in some sort of exercise or activity each day for a week or two, reward yourselves with a treat or a movie night.

What Items Can Help Kids Take Interest in Being Active?

There are several ways that you can help your kids take an interest in being active. The goal is to find things that they enjoy doing so this activity doesn’t feel like a chore. 

Do your kids like to ride their bikes? Make sure everyone in the family has a bike and go for a ride together each evening.

You can also do things like go for walks, go swimming, play catch in the yard, play at the playground, or even get a game of dodgeball going in the yard. Find different ways to get everyone’s heart rate up, and this will help keep everyone’s interest.

You don’t have to invest in every fitness item imaginable. After all, these things can be quite expensive. However, think about something that your kids may have been asking for. Maybe they really want a basketball hoop or a soccer net in the yard. These are great ways to get their bodies moving.

Look into different groups and organizations in your area that run activities for kids. This might be a house soccer league or a not-for-profit group that teaches kids how to train for a 5k. Don’t be afraid to get creative and find different ways to inspire an active lifestyle. Even as adults we find it boring to do the same activity one day after another. Kids will experience these emotions even more.

What to Avoid

You want to avoid physical activity and fitness becoming an obsession. It’s easy to get carried away with exercise and fitness, which isn’t something you want to instill in your kids. 

Teach the importance of moderation. A little bit of physical activity goes a long way. Also, teach your children to listen to their bodies. If they feel sore or tired on any given day, they should respond with rest. There is plenty of room for days off to allow the body to rejuvenate.

Avoid dictating to your children that they must do something specific to remain active. If they don’t have interest in a certain sport, don’t force them to participate. It helps to allow your child to choose the activities that they want to participate in.

Focusing on Nutrition

Nutrition is a very important part of physical fitness and should be taught to children as well. After all, it’s optimal nutrition that gives us energy to move our bodies. Make it a point to meal plan with your children present so they can learn about the different foods that are healthy and beneficial to the body. 

Have everyone come up with a dinner idea each week that incorporates different fruits and vegetables that provide essential vitamins and minerals. If you’re a family that does a lot of eating out or drive-thru meals, consider limiting these instances to once per month as a reward for being so diligent with healthy eating.

Inspiring your children to live an active lifestyle starts with you as their parent. If you are leading a very sedentary lifestyle, this doesn’t exemplify what you’re hoping to see from your kids. Make it a point to get active together. This not only helps keep everyone active and healthy, but it will bring you closer together as a family as well.