Install fitness in children when not fit yourselves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how everyone is just blaming us and attacking us rather than offering some solution for before 6pm fitness for the kids.

I have posted above, my kids are swimmers. One has swim practice in the afternoons from 4:15-6pm. We hire someone to drive him to practice as we both work out of the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how everyone is just blaming us and attacking us rather than offering some solution for before 6pm fitness for the kids.

You are the parent. If your children are unfit, the blame quite properly falls squarely on you.

[Anonymous]

A non-sport after-school activity they are interested in (dance, martial arts, etc)

A different school sport or rec sport

Walk or bike to/from school

Daily walks before or after dinner

Although honestly, I don't think a middle schooler needs to be putting in 30min on the Peloton every day like a sedentary office worker. They have a PE class, they walk around during the day, they (maybe?) walk to/from school, they are probably doing ok? But you know better than us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's stopping you from going for a walk and making DD come with you?

I work till 6, then start making dinner, cleaning, and ferrying kids to music lessons, math tutors, helping with homework. Do you know any working parents???

If I go to the gym it’s at 5am or 10pm.

NP. So basically it’s not a priority for your family. Everything that is suggested, you have a come back to.

Why isn’t homework done by the time you get home? Why aren’t your older kids doing something to help get dinner on the table?

All I’m saying is I want the kid fitness to happen after school before dinner — any suggestions of how to get that to happen?

My kids do help with dinner, but they are in hard classes and spend a lot of time on homework.

After school and before dinner has to be at a school adjacent/sponsored activity. So sports that are available there or you hire a babysitter/drover to drive them to fencing/ninja courses/whatever other activity they prefer. Academics are a priority for you and that's great but then that's the priority and recognize that there is limited time for other things especially of the kids are not self motivated to do fitness. Im not self motivated to work out but i do it 2ce a week so my bones don't all break at 60. Dh is super motivated and works out daily at 5 am. But like the PPs we prioritized jobs and locations that would enable being home early (by 5) and we make the kids do a physical activity as part of their week and also do weekend hikes and summer evenings at the pool.

[Anonymous]

My child in HS goes to the gym after school and on the weekend. DH and I get up at 4:30 to workout before work/chaos. Our MS kid isn’t as active as the rest of us and exercises inconsistently. I think that it will become more of a habit when HS starts. Habits need to develop naturally to be sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's stopping you from going for a walk and making DD come with you?

I work till 6, then start making dinner, cleaning, and ferrying kids to music lessons, math tutors, helping with homework. Do you know any working parents???

If I go to the gym it’s at 5am or 10pm.

You wonder why your kids don’t exercise when you don’t exercise yourself. 🙄

Stop making excuses. There is absolutely 30 minutes in your evening for a walk. You just don’t want to.

+1

Replace "i don't have time to exercise" with "exercise is not a priority for me." Because we all find time for things that are important to us.

And yes, we both work full time, have commutes and spend a lot of time cooking dinner and driving our kids around. Still exercise is important to us. My kids swim 2-4 days a week and play weekend sports.
As for my husband and I, we both exercise at 5am on the week days. We also do things like walk while our kid is at a swim meet or music lesson, go to the gym at least one day on the weekend.

I firmly believe if something is important to you, you will find the time to do it. If it it not important to you then you will find the excuses.

+100. I'm the parent who brings dumbbells, kettlebells a mat, and a box to my kid's soccer practice. Very easy for me to do a 20 -30 minute strength workout and then a 20-30 minute run during that time.

I often see a lot of other parents sitting on the side scrolling on their phone.

I know I probably look silly, but who cares.

[Anonymous]

I was sedentary growing up and my two teen boys are the same and have the same lazy, unathletic genes. They are very slim - also genetic.

I've tried to start caring more about my own body as I age, so now I get up at 5am and go to the gym. Yes, I'm tired, but if I don't do it first thing, I will always find an excuse later in the day. I prioritize myself, first thing!

My kids see me when I come back and they don't seem much interested still, but I hope someday a light switch will turn on like it did for me.

One idea for you is to get them fitness watches, make them go run/walk a certain amount and give them rewards. Like money, or screen time, new clothes, whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure you can say model behavior, and we’ll try but as working parents if 3 kids without local family we spend a LOT of time cooking, cleaning, and transporting for kids on top of long demanding jobs with commutes.

DD is naturally sedative, low key likes to just stay in room and read, but we want to make sure is active every day. She used to have after school sport but now upper grade she was cut from team and there are no other sports she’s interested in. A rec sport might be fun, but that’s once a week for practice and game.

I would love to just get her out walking after school for 45 min, biking, shooting hoops in our yard — but we have no neighborhood friends so this is something she would do solo and on her own initiative as we are busy working.

Since sport has ended, every afternoon she is just hanging out in her room doing homework and talking to friends etc.

How do we encourage her? Get a gym membership and encourage her to go? Kick her out of the house? Take off time from work and toss baseball around?

We worry too about triggering eating disorder too, but we are not a fit family to begin with but want better for our kids. My family has rich history of BED.

You said you have three children. Why are you only focused on your daughter? Is it because she is the eldest?

[Anonymous]

Why not pick one day to go walking as a family. One day when you don't have other things to do. Instead of saying I want to do it seven days just start with one. Then maybe twice...etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure you can say model behavior, and we’ll try but as working parents if 3 kids without local family we spend a LOT of time cooking, cleaning, and transporting for kids on top of long demanding jobs with commutes.

DD is naturally sedative, low key likes to just stay in room and read, but we want to make sure is active every day. She used to have after school sport but now upper grade she was cut from team and there are no other sports she’s interested in. A rec sport might be fun, but that’s once a week for practice and game.

I would love to just get her out walking after school for 45 min, biking, shooting hoops in our yard — but we have no neighborhood friends so this is something she would do solo and on her own initiative as we are busy working.

Since sport has ended, every afternoon she is just hanging out in her room doing homework and talking to friends etc.

How do we encourage her? Get a gym membership and encourage her to go? Kick her out of the house? Take off time from work and toss baseball around?

We worry too about triggering eating disorder too, but we are not a fit family to begin with but want better for our kids. My family has rich history of BED.

You said you have three children. Why are you only focused on your daughter? Is it because she is the eldest?

All DDs. Middle school is on 3 rec teams and elementary goes playgroud daily for recess AND 2 weekend rec leagues. Oldest has nothing active now.

We do walk on weekends, hikes or play tennis as family (badly, we are all very bad).

Sure I could go to gym at 5am but kids would never know because they are sleeping!

[Anonymous]

Focus for a second on your kinder. You will have to give up some time to make it so your child will be active and thinks of exercising as fun, multiple times a week. Find something where she can make connections with the other kids. That will help encourage her to continue to participate as she gets older.

For your older child, I would just require 1 activity that is physical and limit screens. It’s going to be hard to do more than that now without a lot of pushback.

As for yourself, it is hard but once you make it a priority, you will feel much better. Even a 30 min walk while listening to an audiobook. Or get a treadmill if you need to do it at home. Or do 30 min free YouTube videos at home. It’s hard when the kids need supervision but you’ll feel so much better.

[Anonymous]

Cook in batches on the weekend and take a walk with the kids from 5-5:45 each day.

[Anonymous]

As a kid, I thought I hated sports. As it turned out, I only hated team sports, and was limited by the relatively inexpensive options that were available to me at the time. I’ve always loved swimming, and later discovered different types of dance, ice skating, yoga, and even tai chi, as well as roller skating and weight machines. So look well beyond team sports, especially at first, and focus on fun. Skates, bikes, yoga, dancing — are all reasonably accessible. And yes, it does help to model what you want your kids to try. My Mom started doing yoga in her 50s — and that has been a great example for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure you can say model behavior, and we’ll try but as working parents if 3 kids without local family we spend a LOT of time cooking, cleaning, and transporting for kids on top of long demanding jobs with commutes.

DD is naturally sedative, low key likes to just stay in room and read, but we want to make sure is active every day. She used to have after school sport but now upper grade she was cut from team and there are no other sports she’s interested in. A rec sport might be fun, but that’s once a week for practice and game.

I would love to just get her out walking after school for 45 min, biking, shooting hoops in our yard — but we have no neighborhood friends so this is something she would do solo and on her own initiative as we are busy working.

Since sport has ended, every afternoon she is just hanging out in her room doing homework and talking to friends etc.

How do we encourage her? Get a gym membership and encourage her to go? Kick her out of the house? Take off time from work and toss baseball around?

We worry too about triggering eating disorder too, but we are not a fit family to begin with but want better for our kids. My family has rich history of BED.

You said you have three children. Why are you only focused on your daughter? Is it because she is the eldest?

All DDs. Middle school is on 3 rec teams and elementary goes playgroud daily for recess AND 2 weekend rec leagues. Oldest has nothing active now.

We do walk on weekends, hikes or play tennis as family (badly, we are all very bad).

Sure I could go to gym at 5am but kids would never know because they are sleeping!

you post is confusing. it sounds like there is exercise going on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's stopping you from going for a walk and making DD come with you?

I work till 6, then start making dinner, cleaning, and ferrying kids to music lessons, math tutors, helping with homework. Do you know any working parents???

If I go to the gym it’s at 5am or 10pm.

NP. So basically it’s not a priority for your family. Everything that is suggested, you have a come back to.

Why isn’t homework done by the time you get home? Why aren’t your older kids doing something to help get dinner on the table?

All I’m saying is I want the kid fitness to happen after school before dinner — any suggestions of how to get that to happen?

My kids do help with dinner, but they are in hard classes and spend a lot of time on homework.

Yard? Are you willing to buy a trampoline? It is one of the few exercises my kid was willing to do on his own. Everything else was a group thing or with one of his parents. You are looking for a solution that fits your needs instead of your kids. If both your husband and you get home at 6, one could make dinner and one can exercise with the kid.