D A D B L O G S
A dad blog by a geek dad with two geeky kids.
Continuing from last week's post, here are more ways you can encourage kids to pursue physical activities: Second, plan activities for the whole family. Walk, jog, or ride a bicycle together. If you’re not into these activities, you can come up with others. How about gardening? You can weed, mow, and fertilize the garden together. Or perhaps dance? These activities can be fun, entertaining, and healthy. Third, incorporate fitness into your routine. You can teach your kids simple ways to turn usual activities into something healthier and more productive. For instance, teach them to take the stairs rather than the elevator; to walk short distances rather than get on the car. Remind them that the reason why you park at the far end of the lot at work or in the grocery is because you want to take every opportunity to exercise. By the way, you may want to purchase pedometers so they can monitor how many steps they are able to take in a day. This can further give them motivation. Fourth, utilize incentives. Children are naturally eager to do what they will be rewarded for. Hence, you may want to use this opportunity to make them do something for their health. For instance, give them reward points for every physical activity. These reward points, when accumulated at a certain level, can be exchanged for a particular treat like a bowling session with dad or a Frisbee game with mom. These are but four ways on how to encourage your children to be physically active. Not all of them would probably work for your kids, but if one or two would, then you’re up for some marvelous benefits. Physical Education didn’t make much sense to me in school—or at least I didn’t see it for its real value. Now that I’m a dad, I’ve totally changed perspectives. I realized that health and fitness play integral parts in every person’s life and must be prioritized at an early age. Hence, I see to it that I take my children outside at least once a week to engage in a physical activity. The great thing about kids is they are easy to please. They don’t need the perfect getup or the perfect ball to start playing and enjoying. All they need is a space and some motivation and they’re good to go. I read somewhere that children who regularly engage in physical activities maintain a healthy weight, sleep better, and come to school more prepared among others. Now, if my children could attain even just the three, encouraging them to exercise is definitely worth it. Now, how do we exactly encourage our kids to do physical activities? I can think of four: First, set the example. Personally, setting an example is one of the most challenging parts of parenting. You can’t preach without doing the exact same thing. Well, you CAN actually, but the children would end up as casualties. Telling them to exercise while you spend the entire Saturday on the couch watching TV just won’t work. If you want them to appreciate a healthy lifestyle, then you’d better show them how. More of this in the next post coming soon. Want to have a break from doing household and father duties to your kids? Engaging into sports like boxing can be one of the best ways to stay healthy while putting away all the stress elements that you just got from home and work. Ever since the many benefits of boxing became popular, more and more people want to learn the sport for their personal reasons. This is not only a combat between two players or between a heavy bag and a person. This is also a discipline composed of different routines that trains both the mind and the body. In connection to that, here are the major advantages of engaging in this workout. Quick Weight Loss – Who would have thought that the easiest way to losing one’s love handles is just 45 minutes to an hour of throwing punches inside the gym or at the comfort of your own homes? That is right because power boxing actually involves other repetitive motions like bouncing, ducking, kicking, pivoting and punching. All these increase your metabolism rate. As you sweat in every move you make, your body is releasing the unwanted fats off especially in the belly area. Stronger Bones And Muscles – Boxing is an overall workout that involves all muscle groups. It is wrong to think that your arms and feet are the only ones working in this activity. Muscles from head to foot all work together to give a boxer the best defensive and offensive moves he needs. The joints are also exercised during the fight proper or while doing some boxing training routines. Reliable Form Of Self-Defense – There will be times when you would be required to defend yourself from physical assaults. The combinations of kicks and punches can help you protect yourself or your loved ones during dangerous situations. In fact, learning self-defense is encouraged among women. Stronger Heart – Since the entire body is engaged in repetitive motions as mentioned above, one can experience a balanced heart rate. The heart is able to pump enough blood all through out the veins. More so, the heart be comes stronger when it is put to work. Relieved Stress – Generally, people eat comfort foods to be relieved of it. And the result – increased weight and even increased stress. One of the benefits of boxing is to remove stress in a very healthy and enjoyable way. This could be the right time for you to put the sweets down and wear your boxing gloves. Now that you know more about the benefits of boxing, would you like to give this a try? If yes, then you can get more information about it at http://www.boxingtraining.net . That's where I learn more about this sport. Maybe you can take a quick look and let me know if you are also interested in trying it soon. Do you know what the best thing is about woodworking? It helps develop children’s potentials. It improves the coordination between the eyes and the hands and also serves as a terrific outlet for creativity. Amazing benefits, don’t you think? The finished project will probably not make much sense to us adults; but to our children, it would open a whole new world. Why would I let my kids watch TV all day when they could do something as fun and beneficial with me? Now, you may have started to realize how cool an activity woodworking is, but you’re probably wondering where to start and how. Well, the simple answer is probably to go to the nearest craft store. You can purchase woodworking kits there. Perhaps one of the best options is the pinewood derby car—as promoted by the Cub Scouts. Building it is surely going to be fun. Using the axles, saws, bore polisher, scales, and everything else is going to be a part of the entire experience. I can already imagine how my children’s eyes would light up at the sight of all these materials. You may feel a bit skeptical letting your kids touch some of the tools but as long as you ensure all the safety guards are in place, then you have nothing to fear. You can help them with the difficult tasks but see to it that you will not end up doing everything in their behalf. Apart from pinewood derby car, other simple projects you can work on are trinket boxes, picture frames, and wooden flower pots. As for me, since I kinda miss being a young scout, I’d just go for the car. I love to spend weekends with the family and think about fun activities for the kids. Since I work long hours every week, I don’t really get to spend as much time with them as I would want to. Hence, I try to make sure that every time we get together, we do something fun and productive. Next weekend, I’m thinking of introducing woodworking to my kids. Woodworking may sound a bit too advanced for young children, but it really depends on how young they are. If they are six or older, then they can be ready for the task. Younger siblings can play as spectators so they’ll have something to look forward to when they grow a bit more. Of course, you can allow them to tinker here and there. Because I do carpentry and simple home projects, woodworking is something very close to my heart. I would love to teach it to my children because I’m sure it won’t only be fun but beneficial too, when they become adults. Besides, kids take pleasure in working with their hands. They love to build (and destroy) things so woodwork is certainly a perfect activity. It will enable them to manipulate different pieces and turn them into various objects. It will make them feel like they’re mommy or daddy hocus-pocusing things and turning them into something new. What fun! |
Hey there. My name is Jim. I'm a dad & I know some dad stuff & I like to write about them here. More about me.
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