An Active Family

One of my concerns as a parent is whether or not my kids, actually our whole family, is active physically. I have no desire to be Mr. Potato Head o' Household for a bunch of couch potatoes.

This summer Jina made a committed effort to make sure the boys spent more time outdoors playing. We don't have the biggest house, but by today's standards, we have a big yard. Plenty of room for the "kiddos" to play. Toss in several "play dates" to local parks (Does anyone else remember the good old days when you played with the kids in your neighborhood, and you played at anytime that wasn't dinner time? Now kids have more appointments on their calendar than I do at work? Yes I realize I'm getting older and dwelling on the "good ol' days"!)and our kids have remained pretty active day in and day out.

During our vacation we went for a family bike ride and afterward I left the bikes down, assembled and ready to ride. Now we go for post dinner 3 to 5 mile bike rides multiple times throughout the week. The best part is that my kids look forward to it. Jared, my oldest is riding an 18 inch kids bike, with only a couple of exceptions he attacks and conquers the hills in our surrounding neighborhoods without complaint. We challenge him to keep pedaling, to push himself, and then praise his efforts and point out the accomplishment each time he tackles a new challenge. Several times he has nearly melted down emotionally and psychologically (he gets upset if he begins something and then thinks he is going to fail-I can't count how many times we've had that talk) on a tough climb, but when encouraged he pushes through and the reward is that we've ridden new routes, such as a ride through the local city park behind our neighborhood. (Hey Brian, we rode on an old gravel trail and then a dirt trail for maybe 2 tenths of a mile, he thought it was the coolest thing.)

The only issue with being an active family is that it has really cut down on my running. I didn't think it would be an issue, but those evening bike rides with a trailer load of toddlers are more fatiguing than I thought. Even so, I'll take the trade off.

Anyway, I'm typing this quickly and not sure how well my thoughts are flowing, but my point is this. It is important for us as parents to set examples for our children in the area of physical fitness. However, we can not just hope that our kids will see what we do and follow our lead. We need to create opportunities for them to be active, not just in organized sports, but also in our family activities and their daily play.