Should you force kids to be active?

kschwab0203 wrote: »

Some kids are inherently more lazy than others regardless of the examples set for them.

Gotta make it fun. Take your kids on hikes when they're younger. Bring a baseball and a couple mitts. Go hiking. When they are young, your kids want to spend time with you. Lots of fun , active things you can do with each other. Miniature golf. Frisbee. Kicking a soccer ball around. Playing catch with them.

I guarantee they want to do these things with you and, as they get older and gravitate to a certain sport or discipline, you can encourage them and get involved. Take them to their games. Practice with them. Host team parties, whatever. It's fairly simple if YOU want to be involved with them to steer them away from sitting on their as s and getting involved.

kschwab0203 wrote: »

Should you force kids to play sports, play outside, exercise, etc?

yes.

abetterme9366 wrote: »

Caporegiem wrote: »

abetterme9366 wrote: »

I used to drag the kids out with me on runs, hikes, bike rides, tennis, swimming, anything to encourage activity. It was those bonding experiences that led me to the conclusion that they are *kitten* and I can barely stand to be around them.

But when they get older they'll remember those experiences they had with you and promptly throw you in a nursing home.

To be honest, I don't think the oldest is going to let me live long enough to get into a nursing home.

You think they'll grant you a mercy killing? I only hope I can be so lucky one day.

My kids are 6 & 9; I don't "force" them to be active. I do sign them up for activities without telling them beforehand. I signed them up for swimming, rugby, tae kwon do (those stuck); soccer and gymnastics (those did not stick). So yeah, maybe I did "force" them to be active, BUT I have allowed autonomy over the activity they chose to continue.

I DO force the kids to turn off the tv after an hour and take an outside break during the summer.

I wish my parents had forced organized sports on me as early as possible! My older brother has never been athletically inclined, so he hated being tricked into tee ball as a wee one. I wanted to play on the (quite expensive) weekend soccer team "allll my friends" were on, but my parents were hesitant to sign me up and have it be an abysmal failure because I'd missed 3 years of practice and I'd hate playing in the bone-chilling fall rain. Years of conflict ensued over my lingering desire to play on this specific team, and I got involved with every free school-sanctioned team my elementary school offered, but they finally instead registered me for field hockey in 6th grade and it really enhanced my life. I stayed in the league for 7 years and it was a wonderful community. It also helped me feel connected to my parents and proud that my dad didn't miss a single game on his weekends off. For me, organized team sports helped build a sense of accountability, sisterhood, and self-discipline. It was also part of what I understand now as self-care and shaped how I maintain my sanity through scheduled physical activity as an adult.

I think if you include your children in the conversation about what physical activities they might like, it not only helps ensure they will stick with an activity at least for the season you've paid for, but also strengthens lines of communication for them to feel safe/respected enough to say when something isn't working for them. I'm in my mid-twenties now (working as a therapist lol), and have a wonderful relationship with my parents. That being said, we really did not have good family communication skills and there was a lot of unnecessary conflict because we're ostrich people that bury our heads in the sand or jump to anger instead of exploring why our feelings got hurt.

TL:DR enjoying physical activity is a lifestyle you can model as a parent, but can be enhanced for your child through organized team sports that incorporate exercise with social activity. Finding your child's niche should be a collaborative effort and involve ongoing assessment from the financier and the participant.

I think there's a lot to be said for parents who at least expose their children to activities enough that the kids start to feel confident and comfortable doing physical stuff.

I was overweight from a very young age and obese from teens onward, but I always had fun in gym class (crazy I know especially for a chubby bookworm of a girl!). I never played organized sports and had no interest, and I think my parents knew that I wasn't gonna go that route. But I was taken bowling, on bike rides, threw a ball around with my dad, had a basketball goal in the driveway...some of that rubbed off on me and made me a smidge more "athletic" (loosely using that term) than I would have been otherwise. When I asked to go swimming, they made every effort to help me spend as much time as possible in a pool whether the above ground cheapie one we had at home or the city pool.

My husband's a lot more active than me now (daily runner and loads of other stuff) but he had a way different start...he was a chubby, bookish kid too, but his parents didn't expose him to anything active and he was always picked last, hated gym, totally uncoordinated even to this day with anything involving a ball or racket. They just sort of acted like "ok you're a smart kid, you like to stay inside and read and play video games" and that was that. He didn't even learn to swim (ever), didn't ride a bicycle until adulthood and now he refurbishes antique bikes and helps other people with theirs. But it was a long road for him!