During the 90s mothers used to drag their kids from the playground to their homes. Today, the scenario has completely turned on its head. Today’s parents sometimes struggle to get their children to go out and play in the playground. Addictive technologies and social media make kids spend a large part of their day hooked on devices, staring at screens. Watching their favourite cartoons in movies, watching videos on YouTube, scrolling through endless Instagram reels, or playing games on their phones. As they grow up, this passive screen time increases significantly to much beyond 2 hours per day. Another significant reason for the lack of exercise among students is the lack of parks, playgrounds, and open spaces in residential areas.
An optimal number of physical exercises for students can help students focus better in class, enhances their confidence and self-esteem, improves their interpersonal and social skills, helps them sleep better, and keeps them healthier and devoid of any illness and disease. However, physical exercises for students or workouts for students at home could be monotonous and tedious for children. They may prefer the more easy and entertaining activities on television, smartphones, or tablets.
Also Read: 10 Best Extracurricular Activities for Kids
10 Activities to Promote Health and Fitness In Kids
How do we get children to work on their fitness? Below are 10 activities which can help parents promote health and fitness in kids.
- Play a sport.
- Do it together.
- Technology as a friend
- Reward & Recognition
- Take sports club memberships.
- Form rituals
- Encourage walking or cycling
- Involve them in household chores
- Encourage healthy conversations at home for good mental health
- Gamify Being Healthy
Engaging in a sport is the most fun way of engaging in physical exercises for students. Otherwise exercising could be a boring and monotonous activity for children. Expose children to various sports and enrol them for coaching or engaging in sports they seem to prefer. Let them become part of social media groups of like-minded like-aged children who have common interests in a particular sport. Such group activities and camaraderie with other like-minded children can create a bond among children and then get them engaged in physical activities regularly.
Exercising could be a tedious and monotonous task. To make it a fun and easy workout for students at home, make it a fun family workout time. It could be in the form of a walk together in the nearby park, walking the dog in the society, playing a game of tennis together, going to the gym together, etc. Hide the monotony of physical exercises for students under the fun-filled wrap of family time and bonding.
Why fight technology when you can use it as your friend? Children will love to get hold of technologies such as Fitbits, smartwatches, kinaesthetic-based video games, etc. While being fun, these technologies promote physical exercises for students. Fitbit-based simple smartwatches have an inbuilt pedometer which tracks the number of steps taken by the child. They are quite affordable as well. Set them a daily target and hold them accountable for it.
Praise your child’s efforts to remain physically active. Celebrate their achievements and milestones and reward any progress you see them making with their activities. A good idea would be to create a chart that tracks their progress and offer rewards such as a special outing, a simple hug, or a high-five, cooking their favourite dish, or getting them a new ball or new shoes. However, remember to keep their focus on motivating them to do more for themselves rather than doing something only for rewards.
Sometimes it helps if you get your child enrolled in some popular health and fitness clubs in town. They work as an engaging community with a diverse set of activities and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Enrol them in sports clubs as per your affordability levels. There are sports arenas which focus on specific sports such as a badminton arena which has 4-5 badminton courts where children can take monthly membership and play. Similarly, there could be memberships in swimming clubs, dance-based clubs such as Zumba, yoga clubs, and many others depending on the child’s interest.
A daily morning walk before breakfast or 100 skips on the skipping rope could be examples of rituals which the family can follow to ensure an easy workout for students at home. Parents need to be active participants in such activities otherwise they will fall flat soon. A little bit of discipline in these morning fitness rituals can go a long way in building the children’s fitness regime for life. Another smart way of infusing physical exercise for students through rituals is by crafting out initiatives at home such as designing a living area that does not promote long periods of comfortable seating or lying down. Make rules such as if smartphones must be used, they must be used while walking. These simple rituals or rules could help promote workouts for students at home. If you have a pet dog at home, it can be a blessing in disguise wherein one of the rituals which children usually love is to take the dog out for a walk twice a day.
Be it going to school, going to play, meeting friends, or going for a hobby class instil the habit of walking or cycling in children to get to their destination. Help them find a walking or cycling buddy. Kids who walk or cycle to school are likely to feel more alert and demonstrate higher levels of focus and concentration during the day. When followed regularly it can even help deal with childhood obesity.
Assigning activities such as sweeping, mopping certain areas of the house or their rooms, putting out laundry to dry, etc. will encourage movement in children. Turn household chores into a challenge such as timing how fast they can clean their room or sort the laundry or vacuum certain parts of the house. These skills will also help them learn essential life skills.
Promoting fitness in kids also contributes to their emotional well-being and mental health. Good mental health can reduce the likelihood of depression and anxiety in kids thus improving their performance at school. Fixing meal times to ensure the whole family sits down to eat together can create a fun and safe space for kids to converse with parents and tell them about what happened at school and how they felt about it. Create a judgment-free zone for them to speak out, voice opinions and listen to each other. Make going for a family walk after dinner a tradition. This will help them de-stress and get the sleep they need.
Technology gives us immense capabilities to gamify fitness activities for students. We just have to leverage those capabilities and features. Based on the sport they pursue or based on their number of steps, set targets and reward them magnanimously when they achieve those fitness activity targets. Technologies such as Fitbit can be used to gamify fitness activities for students and make them more fun and engaging for them. Create championships and declare the winner based on who in the family completes the greatest number of steps or clocks in the most number of kilometres or burns the most number of calories.
EuroSchool recognises the importance of health and fitness in kids. We also understand that given the hectic lives led by working parents, it may not be possible for the parents to focus much time on physical exercises for students, or on workouts for students at home. With this mindset, we ensure that our students’ day at school has an optimal element of physical exercises for students built into it. Our world-class sports infrastructure allows students to have fun while also working on their fitness and other personality development traits.
