10 ways to Get Children to Exercise

Gaining healthy habits as children is very important. One of the more important habits is exercising. It helps to build a strong and healthy body, and self esteem. When I was in middle school I generally had a lousy time due to not being very book smart and not participating in very much class discussion. However when it came to P.E. (Physical Education), I was very confident and proud to say I lapped about half of the class every day when it was time to do laps. Some of them I would lap twice! So I know how great it feels to be able to depend on your body!

Baeballglove

10 Ways to get children to exercise:

#1 Start small. It is typically not a good Idea to start there training with a 5k. It won’t be fun. It will show them exercise is hard, and it will take a very looooooong time to complete.

#2 Go somewhere they typically don’t get to go! Get them exited by taking them somewhere like a different park, or field. Give them your undivided attention so they want to participate in whatever you have planned.

#3 Don’t embarrass them! It is not okay to say things like “Well, I can do better than that!” or “Jeez , are you going to do anything right?!?!” This hurts there self esteem, and will discourage them from exercising in front of someone or ever again. Instead be very encourage them to do better next time by giving pointers and wording thing nicely.

#4 Enforce a ten minute challenge. Don’t allow your child to get on the computer or watch TV until they do ten minutes of exercise everyday to earn it. Then gradually increase that number up to 30! If you don’t make a huge deal out of it, they won’t notice themselves getting in shape. (Or that you setting the timer for longer!)

#5 Go for a walk! Sometimes exercise is quite literally a walk in the park.

#6 Invite their friends! If they didn’t want to exercise before, including their friends will make it more fun for them, and less work for you.

#7 Disguise exercise as fun! Dancing, goofing around outside, swimming, and friendly competitions with a treat at the end are all great ways to make it fun!

#8 Watch some documentaries on health! They are actually quite interesting and great motivation to be healthy!

#9 Get them some equipment!  All I’m saying is if ya give a kid an exercise ball…exercise is bound to happen in some form.

#10 Lead by example! They are never going to really take what you say with them when they leave if you didn’t show them yourself it’s worth doing.

2 Thoughts on “10 ways to Get Children to Exercise

  1. So true! Today we started homeschool preschool for my 4 year old and I made sure to get in some movement in between sit down sessions.

  2. These are awesome ideas. I recall my children loved inviting their friends. The more the merrier is quite true in this scenario.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post Navigation