The Better The Odds Are That They Will Stick With It Through Life

Summer of 2010 IS the time to make wellness and fitness a priority in your family.  Your entire family will reap the rewards of getting more fresh air, more exercise, more energy, increased concentration and confidence… not to mention a healthier body.

Here are a few ideas to help your family make fitness and wellness work in 2010:

Pick a Form of Exercise that Doesn’t Seem Like Exercise.

Sounds simple… but many families get caught up in the busy-ness of fitness.  Children need to stay active, but that doesn’t mean they have to be rushed from one sport to another with barely enough room to catch their breath.  That is a quick and easy way to make your child dislike exercise.

Instead, choose exercises and activities that you can `disguise` as fun.  Find things they love to do.

Things they can do by themselves, or with a group of friends.  Things that adults and children alike can take part in.  Make it fun and it won’t even feel like exercise to those involved.

Get outside and play

There is nothing better to improve a person’s mood than some fresh air and sunshine.  Remember the good old days when there were no televisions, computers, ipods or cell phones to distract us as kids? We went outside and played…often for many, many hours.  Coming inside only to refuel for the next round.  See what has happened with all the distractions and lack of exercise ?  Obesity has skyrocketed amongst our children.  Find some simple games and activities they enjoy…that are outside.  Let them `re-discover` outside play.

Learn a new skill

Children are absolute masters at learning a new skill.  It’s only when we get older that learning new things becomes more of a chore.  Challenge your kids to learn something new.  Maybe a new type of sport.

Or a new form of strength or endurance exercise.  Stretching their comfort zone will help promote mental AND physical wellness. The side benefit: their thriving levels of self-confidence.  The more they learn how to do, and do well, the greater their confidence and trust in themselves to try and master even more new skills.

Make it fun

Making permanent lifestyle changes like fitness must be done in a careful manner.  Have you ever been forced into trying something that was NOT fun ?  Chances are good you never went back to try it again…right ? With children, they need constant and immediate positive feedback.  And the easiest way to do that is to give them fun things to try and do. Make everything you do a new game.

Or a challenge with recognition.  Have them work on new muscles.  Try new sports.  Make your backyard the most incredibly fun place in the world for them to use their imagination.  Make it funny. Make it creative.  Make it stretch their comfort zones.  Playtime is meant to be fun…not a full combat performance match.

Last…use your child’s playtime as your chance to get closer to them. Take part in the games.  Help create the play areas.  Create new worlds for them to  explore.  It as much your responsibility to make their active playtime a part of your busy lifestyle.  When you take time out of your day to play with your child, they take note and love you even more for it.  The littlest of efforts on your part can be huge in their world.  You want them to remember the fun times you had playing with them…not the times you were absent from their life.

Finding it difficult to get the children away from the television, the play station or the computer?

Why not have a swing party and make it every bit as enticing as those passive ways of entertainment?

First, as ever, one will need the correct outfit. Get every child to put on something that they think their favorite bird will wear – also a good time to teach them a bit of ornithology, every child should have at least one favorite bird. You can provide the feathers.

Cheap feather boas are available at most second hand or other costume stores. Off course no bird outfit is complete without the proper hat. Get them to decorate a few standard party hats with feathers, sparkles and colors and make sure they are securely fastened with elastic as nobody wants them to fly off in a moment of super speed swinging exuberance.

The swings of course need to look just as enticing. Streamers flying in the wind and a few balloons will undoubtedly to the trick.

Next you will need music. Anything with a good beat will do to get the swings going and a few good tunes, as with dancing, can only improve the joy of swinging.

When you get them up and get them going you can perhaps start a game similar to “I spy with my little eye” to find objects they can only see when they are up there. It would be good to relieve eye-strain caused by staring at so many different screens of some many electronic gadgets.

If your children are more the super-hero type, why not develop that theme. There are very few super heroes who cannot fly. It goes without saying that it will be is very prosaic, not to mention down-right dangerous, for superheroes to get stuck in traffic.

A little super hero training course involving lots of swinging practice might just do the trick.

Don’t forget to conjure up the most fabulous possible costumes, even if it involves the underpants being worn on top, and other props like sparkle dust (essential for most heroic deeds) and magic wands to get those swings going faster and further than normal powers will allow.

The perfect garden for some swing magic

Once you have the right swing set, consider making your garden the perfect place for children to happily swing away.

Many flowering trees look so much more beautiful from the top. Imagine travelling through the air under a canopy of leaves and branches creating patches of dappled sunlight and shadows.

On you way back see a patch of flowers either all one color or maybe imagine the excitement of passing a rainbow along the way, created by a bed of multi-colored flowers. Imagine passing a path of yellow daffodils breaking through the frozen earth and providing an earthbound swish of sunlight to remind kids that summer is, indeed, coming.

You will probably need a tree. A patch of grass is also a good idea. It might have to provide a soft strip for possible emergency landings as even the most experienced sometimes loses balance and either by necessity or stupidity need somewhere soft to fall. Grass just does so much better than pebbles and sand.

A good swingset must have the best possible view and that might not be the one of the neighbor with the dubious lifestyle’s swimming pool. Imagine what your kids might see when they are up there.

Also for the sakes of all involved never underestimate how far little boys might think they can jump when the swing is at its highest.

We all know that five year olds are convinced that they are invincible and accept that the best possible practice is to keep obstacles that might prove otherwise out of their way.

Children are remarkably sensual beings, so think of planting a few fragrant things around the swing. The blossoms of orange and cherry trees have a wonderful smell as do a variety of creepers – roses, magnolias, honeysuckles and jasmine.

Their wonderful exotic smells and beauty will make it easy for children to believe they are on a magic carpet ride, Alibaba style and they will one day have the active imaginations and creative spirits to thank you.

It is good for adults. It is good for children. It can provide a great time for dreams to start, to get bigger and give everybody a moment away from earth, and its constant pull, to think, to dream and let imaginations run wild.

When they swing, children get a chance to imagine what it would be like to be bird. Why not suggest to your child that they imagine what that would be like. Imagine having no clothes, but instead boasting a lovely self-cleaning outfit of fabulous feathers.

You get to sleep in a tree without having to join a hardcore environmental group and you can see the world like few humans does – from the top.

Not so high, like what you see when you are in an airplane but only from a small height, you can still see the buttons on people’s jackets, the sparkly bangles that they are wearing, and off course you can try to nick them if you want to be a crow.

Swinging can also give them a chance to escape the pressures of being  perfect in today’s demanding world. However awkward one might feel while on earth, normal little niggles like legs that are too short, stick-out teeth and ears and noses that are possibly on the big side don’t matter when you are swinging. You only need a good run up, possibly a helping hand to push you a few times and get you started and a little leg power to keep you going.

Swinging gives everyone a chance to fly.

To get them in the habit of playing on the swings, why not make up stories about super heroes who use swings to magically catapult them to places where their marvelous powers are needed to heal, save and correct.

Swinging creates a whole new world especially as you can encourage the children, after getting off the swings, to investigate the true nature of the little treasures they have spotted from above.

Everybody needs to escape temporarily from the world and only focus on those swing essentials: how close the clouds are and exactly what shade of green the big tree in the backyard has provided to play under today.

The benefits of any rhythmic exercise have been proven over and over. It is good for both the body and the mind. Can’t imagine getting your three old to meditate? It will surely be a miracle if anybody can get it right. Why not put them on a swing. It will be so much more fun and provide the same benefits.

Why you shouldn’t stop swinging when you turn 10

(just make sure first that the swing set takes the weight of someone who is older than 10):

1. Swinging should be what one does on a proper swing set. Nothing else.

2. Every now and again it is a truly excellent plan to escape real life, even if it is for only ten minutes. If your feet are not touching the ground, you can’t worry or be too grown-up for your own sake.

3. When you can’t think of all the things that usually keep your mind occupied, it gives you a chance to dream up all sorts of glorious schemes, fantasies and dreams.

4. It doesn’t matter if you are an IT-girl, a normal mommy or the world’s coolest person. Everybody looks the same when they are on a swing.

5. It is way more fun than going to gym and you don’t have to wear spandex or shoes for that matter.

6. If you really can’t let go, it is in any event a good idea to see what your garden looks like from the top as you might either be shocked and catapulted into action or pleasantly surprised. Also check those top windows for dirt while you are at it.

7. Rhythmic exercise like swinging has been proven to clear the mind, help with lymph drainage and alleviate of depression.

8. Swinging with your children, will give you an excellent chance to learn how they see the world. You might be surprised to notice that they see, feel and think completely different to what adults do. Maybe swinging with them will allow you to adjust your vision to fit with theirs.

9. Ever saw a bird with a nervous breakdown? Overcoming gravity every now and again must be good for you.

10. It is probably the most romantic fun you can have with your clothes on. If you are still skeptical go see how many impossibly romantic movies have a swing on a porch somewhere in the script.