How to exercise with kids? It is possible – and can even be enjoyable! 4 Ideas!

Our last blog titled How to Protect Young Families From Illness – Are We Missing Something Obvious? highlighted the need for improved physical activity amongst families as well as steps we as parents can make in an effort to be more proactive with our young families. If you’ve not read it yet, I would suggest checking it out prior to reading this article – to answer the question “Why should we exercise with kids?”

Ok – so you read the last article, or at least know the general statistics demonstrating how imperative it is we start now to raise change the declining physical activity levels of our generation and the one to follow. You’re pumped! You’re ready to make a difference for yourself and your family! ….But how do you do it? Where do you start? What is exercise for kids? How much is enough? I hope to answer these questions for you below through providing a few scenarios parents may find themselves in.

Leah and I know this is a tough thing to do. While we both worked full-time professional jobs, living in a traditional house, raising our kids, it became more and more difficult to carve out the time for our family to exercise. Now that we are on the road, we have found it is still difficult to find the time and motivation to exercise! Only one of us works at a time now, yet the other parent is at the RV with the kids 100% of the day, without a vehicle! Suffice it to say, we can speak from many different parental scenarios when we say finding time to exercise with kids is difficult!

Scenario 1

You work a full time job – 40+ hours including the likelihood of some commute. You belong to a gym so you attend before or after work to get your traditional strengthening and cardiovascular workout it. That is a great for your health, but what activity are your kids getting? And here comes the parental guilt…you are missing out on more time with them!

Scenario 2

You are a stay-at-home or work-from-home parent. Here the job is never done! I know it is easy to say it is not work as there is no direct income coming in – but it is WORK raising young ones! In this scenario you try to do traditional exercise with your kids present – but they are kids with a never ending list of needs competing for your attention… so you put them on their devices or turn on the TV to occupy them… you’re still missing time with your kids, allowing the screen to babysit them… here comes the guilt again!

Don’t get us wrong – our kids certainly know how to use their devices – they are useful for a break now and again!

Scenario 3

You are one of the above, yet the guilt of missing time with your kids, knowing they are not getting enough physical activity becomes too much. So you decide to involve them by sticking to traditional exercise, yet with them. Maybe you try to use them as weights, or to do the movements along with you. Maybe you even encourage doing a exercise video together, or with them in the room. Another road block… “I’m bored” starts to get louder and more frequent. Or maybe you don’t want your young child to be negatively influenced by the body image messages often portrayed on many online workouts…more guilt, seriously?

Let’s see how long it takes before you become a human jungle gym!

Scenario 4

You turn exercise into PLAY! Here we go, now the kids are interested! They are interacting with you, laughing, jumping, running and out of breath. And so are you!

It is a fact – hard play is the best type of physical activity for kids under the age of 10. This is the type of exercise they should be getting at least 60 minutes of each day! If we as adults are able to step away from our traditional thinking of exercise, and meet our kids at their level, we can do it with them. And it is exercise for us as well!

Top ways to successfully exercise with kids

1. Choose an active game to play: tag, soccer, freeze dance
2. Add in Stop/Go’s to your walk: go on a walk, holding your child(ren)’s hand. Spontaneously run, then stop and walk…then run again…and stop and walk. For some reason they love this!
3. Play pool games: with a kid that is competent in water, the pool is a great place to carry, lift, toss and play tag
4. Give Flip Fit a Try! based on making exercise play, you have a new workout every time using imagination, body weight and games to achieve a great workout with your kids

Leah experienced each scenario above many times over before she had the idea and I had the creative ability to make Flip Fit – The Fun Family Fitness Game. It is now being used from coast to coast by parents committed to improving their health as well as the health of their families. As it is the size of a standard deck of cards, it can be brought along on any adventure, trip, or whipped out of the “game drawer” for easy use anywhere you have a little space.

In closing, I am not knocking any of the above scenarios or ideas for exercise. Any exercise is good exercise, and parents need that release of exercise alone, with head space to think. However, your kids also need to exercise, and they rely on you as a role model to begin to form their own healthy choices as they develop. What has worked for us is to use the above ideas regularly as a supplement to our own weekly exercise routine.

Children need to be taught, and they crave to be taught by their parents – their ultimate role model (even though they’ll rarely admit it!). This includes exercise and healthy lifestyle. We invite you to make a commitment to your family starting with just a few times a week, for 30 minutes, you participate in family-focused physical activity. Our next installment should continue to light this fire for your family as we will cover the numerous benefits of exercise for kids in general as well as when done together with parents.

Enjoy Your Journey!

About the Author

Matt earned his B.S. of Kinesiology with a Biology minor from Indiana University in 2005. He went on to earn his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Indiana University in 2008. He is also a Certified Personal Trainer as well as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

Matt and his wife Leah, also a Physical Therapist, have taken their life on the road to pursue more time with their two children (8 and 5 years old) while enjoying life together. Alternating travel PT contracts allows Matt to pour into the development of his children through homeschooling part of the year and engaging in an active life with his family.