Children Should Play Outside...How do we do this ?
I think this article is right on the money and is desperately needed. We are seeing more and more children at earlier and earlier ages becoming obese. But here is my problem. How do we do this ?
Let me throw this contrast your way.
When I was growing up we would run home from the bus. Throw our bookbag on the table, grab a snack and run back out the door to play "kick the can" for the next three hours. Running all over the neighborhood, into and out of others yards etc. Most kids today don't even know what "kick the can" is. Then we would eat and if we had our homework done we could run out again and play for another hour before the sun went down or bed time.
Today, kids are lucky to get that much physical exercise in a week. No I still think with a lot more effort and money kids could get that type of physical exercise. Sure put them in organized activities all the time. Well for those who have larger families expense becomes and issue. Well, maybe we should just have them play more in the yard. In this day and age you can't trust that some pedophile or other freak won't be trolling around the neighborhoods "asking your kids to look at his baby puppy" as happened in our neighborhood recently.
The real solution to having kids get more exercise is getting rid of video games and TV and making our world safer for kids so they can play outside. Both of these things sadly or happily are controlled by parents. Get to work folks
posted by Dr. Steve @ 11:52:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I could not agree more with this post. As children we played hours upon hours outside. We found gravel, pebbles,grass, flowers, balls, sand/water, and all sorts of other stuff to play with. We were given no choice - that's the way it was.
Children today have way too many choices in my estimation and oddley enough they are still "bored". It is difficult because we don't feel as safe as we did when we were kids, the weather here in Tx is very hot in the summer and who wants to play outside under such conditions. Everything and I mean everything costs money, and then organized activities only last an hour or so.
Some of the things I do to get my kids moving:
* tell them to jump on the trampoline.
* take a walk with my kids
* go on a bike ride
* a good park
* swimming
* miniture golfing (Shankz is inside if it's hot)
*bowling
*play in the yard
*turn the sprinklers on and jump/run
*jump rope
*catch ball/throw hoops
etc..
All of it, of course takes some effort. Thanks for this post!
vj
Man... I hate it outside... do I have to do this? (whine)
Can't we just run in circles inside... with the AC?
I just took the kids on a walk and took a little neigbor girl with us. She is 7 yrs old and this was her very first walk ever. I ask her what she likes to do for adventure and she responded saying, I like to sleep, eat and watch TV. This explained to me why this little, very pretty girl is already so overweight. Her parents are split up, her mother works all day and she is taken care of by her grandparents. I felt so sad for her.
vj
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