“Children can’t bounce off the walls if we take away the walls” Erin K Kenny
If you have a child anything like mine, this quote will resonate strongly. If we don’t get outside daily, my son goes crazy. We are now in Stage 3 Lockdown and one of the four reasons that people can leave their homes is for daily exercise. I have seen lots of questions about what constitutes exercise. I want to stop and reflect on how our children exercise. Children don’t exercise in the way that adults do. They don’t go for a 20 minute run or an hour walk. Children exercise differently. They build strength, balance and endurance differently. They develop their proprioception, flexibility and vestibular systems differently. They exercise through play. How can we make exercise playful, but still beneficial for kids when they are at home or when out and about in nature? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Strength - Encourage your children to climb. Children build strength through climbing. It might be rocks, logs, trees, walls, fences, ropes, rope ladders, anything you can find. Kids naturally love being up high and will generally only climb as high as they feel comfortable with. A great rule is “If you can climb it on your own, you can climb it.” This helps children develop risk assessment skills and problem solve on their own. They learn that they can only go as high as they feel comfortable with. It might take them longer to get going, but it is worth it in the end.
Balance and proprioception – Outdoors this might involve balancing on rocks or logs, running up and down hill, walking and running on different types of surfaces (grass, tanbark, gravel, concrete, dirt). Get your children to take their shoes off and practise walking or running without shoes on. This helps build all the little stability muscles in their feet. Have fun trying to cross a local creek without falling in. Grab a plank of wood and create your own beam to balance on in your garden and vary the height or angle for more difficulty.
If you are stuck indoors, you can set up masking tape on the floor and add in other obstacles such as cushions, chairs (can go over or under) or boxes. To help develop your child’s vestibular system (which they need for balance), you can set up a trapeze for spinning at home or do rollie pollies down a hill nearby. Here’s an example of a homemade trapeze (Bunnings also has them for about $34 if you aren’t sure about tying knots).
Endurance/stamina – Kids don’t often like going for long walks or runs, but prefer incidental running activities, sometimes known as “Fartlek” or interval training. All the classic chasing “Tag” games are great for developing speed. These can be informal games like pretending to be a monster chasing your child or can be organised games like hide and seek, 40-40 or sardines. Setting up treasure or scavenger hunts around your house or local area is another great way to get your kids moving! My son loves pretending I am the coronavirus chasing him at the moment (I guess it’s his way of dealing with his emotions, particularly of fear).
Flexibility – Children are naturally flexible so we don’t really need to do much to support them in this. However we have started doing Yoga for Kids each morning and have been finding it a great, calming way to start each morning, both for my son and and me.
We can still find joy and have fun, even though we are in lockdown. Our children don’t need to bounce of the walls. Now that many of our distractions have gone, let’s use this time to get fit and have fun with our closest ones, either in the bush, local park or in our gardens. While I have been mourning the loss of many things that I love doing, I have also been really enjoying having the time and motivation to exercise every day. Let me know if you have other great physical activities for kids outdoors!
Links to running games:
https://www.playworks.org/game-library/sardines/
https://happylearners.info/pdf/40-40.pdf
Link to Yoga for Kids: