AFTERNOON Six Pack Abs V fans, I hope the parents out there are ready because boy do I have some healthy and fun bonding tips for you today! In the last post we covered how much more to this than just healthy habits and exercise. I tried this with my 3 children and took a little inspiration from Caillou, a kids show on Sprout. Grab a pillow case, a stop watch, and hopefully a camera. If you want to up the stakes, make a 1st place ribbon for each child taking part and a second place one for yourself.
Make teams, call yourself an all star and say you want it to be more fair so the children make up one team and you’re on your own team.
Obviously just doing a pillow case hop isn’t that tough, but for starters, let’s do that. Draw a starting line, or use something to indicate it. One child can jump while you man the stop watch. Have them jump as many times as they can, while holding their sack taut for a distance of atleast 10 feet. When they reach the 10 foot mark, they turn around and jump as many times as they can again before reaching the finish/starting line.
Find a way to lose, however before doing this exercise/activity make sure you stress the rules of playing fair. If you have a group of kids, make sure they are all cheering each other on or they get an additional three seconds added to their final time.
Another thing we can do still with the pillow cases is jumping sideways, it’d be the same idea however they are challenging their bodies more now. We want to encourage smaller, more focused sideways jumps with this to prevent injury, and for this one I wouldn’t use a stop watch. Especially for younger children (and this is a great activity for children I’d say 4+) it removes the added competition and need to hurry through the jumps.
Those medals you created, make sure to have some kind of an award ceremony and show you are thnakful for second place. Watch out, soon those kids of yours are going to be making you work for this.
I almost forgot, this activity has an additional benefit – it can be done inside or taken outside during nice weather!
Although her blog is a bit biased – or should I say exclusive -, and the topic she covers does in fact effect African Americans more, I found a great read about preventing diabetes in children. Here’s a snippet from her blog…
A Family Exercise Routine Keeps the Diabetes Monster Away From …
Just 20 minutes of exercise a day can help your kids stave off diabetes in the long term. So get out there with them and start sweating!
Why’s that important? Read the study she found below:
A Family Exercise Routine Keeps the Diabetes Monster Away From …
A clinical trial done with 222 overweight children over the course of 13 weeks found that just 20 minutes of exercise a day could protect kids from contracting diabetes.
I love studies, and her’s above is a great indicator why you need to be exercising with your children. Aside from that (being multi-racial) I am always afraid my kids will get picked on, obesity is just one more thing I can prevent! Black, White, Asian, or Latino – I would go and read Denene’s blog (click the link above the study).