Kids Fitness: How To Give Your Kids A Lifetime Of Fitness & Health

The Good Life

Of course you want the best for your kids so they can have a good life and be healthy, wealthy and happy. And the family is their core training ground. Unfortunately, kids fitness programs or fitness games don't always figure in family activities. Naturally, this doesn't help.

Even well-meaning parents send mixed messages to kids on health issues. For example, I watched a family friend telling her two kids that smoking was a very, very bad thing. Nice message. The snag was she was puffing away herself at the same time.

As an observer, it looked ridiculous. And the look on the faces of the kids was one of complete incomprehension. How could mummy do bad things? In other words, the message was confusing, contradictory and insincere even to the kids.

Right AND Wrong

Despite being the 'right' thing to say from a health and fitness perspective, a number of unintentional 'hidden' messages were given off:

1. you don't have to practice what you preach

2. you can say one thing and do another

3. can say one thing and mean another

4. you don't have to be sincere.

Can YOU Be Believed?

Now, apart from sending disturbing messages to her kids, this mum was also undermining herself. To me, she didn't seem to be a bad person. And I doubt that her kids would think so either. They just wouldn't believe her. By not practicing what she preached, the real message was that she didn't mean it. But what kind of a message was that for her kids? How can that be taken seriously?

THREE Critical Lessons

Lesson One is fairly obvious: it's best to practice what you preach if you want to be believable.

Lesson Two is maybe less obvious. Yet it's something that everyone in sales knows: "telling isn't selling". That's why the holiday sales rep shows you pictures or a film. Why? Because when you 'buy it' yourself by believing it, you are more likely to move to the next step and buy it with your cash.

In other words, showing is more powerful than telling.

Lesson Three is also not so obvious. The car salesperson wants you to sit in the car and maybe take a drive. Why? Because to experience something yourself is even better than being shown it. And this is only achieved by active participation rather than as a spectator. Action speaks louder than words.

In other words, a superior salesperson will get you to sell what ever it is to yourself!

Teaching Children Bad Behaviour

The big lesson of all this is that if you want to be successful in making sure your kids are fit and healthy, you need to be that superior sales person. This means not telling kids not to smoke while at the same time smoking yourself. Because a daily demonstration of speaking with a forked tongue, by not practicing what you preach, is a daily tuition service to kids that inconsistency, insincerity and dishonesty are all OK.

The same goes for unhealthy drinking or taking drugs. The same also goes for eating junk food. And the same goes for exercise and fitness. Not practicing what you preach in any of these risks passing on bad behaviour.

But if passing on harmful behaviour is so easy, why not pass on good behaviour instead? And if this means taking seriously the daily demonstrations you give to your kids, then both you and your kids will be better off, don't you think?

THREE Top Tips

But what does this mean for the health and fitness? How do we draw these lessons together? Take these top three points:

1. Practice what you preach.

2. To show is more effective than to tell.

3. Actions speak louder than words.

What better way to demonstrate healthy behaviour than to practice it with your kids? This will go beyond supporting kids by just going along to see them in sporting activities at school or college. It means taking part in sporting and fitness activities with them.

Even if you prefer a fitness program of working out as a 'garage warrior' to joining a gym, and you have neither the desire nor the intention of becoming a muscle-monster, you can still help yourself and your kids to fitness in your 'gym'. Even though practically everyone seems dazzled by weights and fitness apparatus these days, it's generally safer and more effective to avoid the usual dangers of using weights and other fitness equipment and to concentrate instead on bodyweight exercises.

Family First

But in addition to that, outside the home or gym there is a wealth of fitness activities that can be done with kids. Many can be real family pursuits. For example:

· Swimming

· Cycling

· Hiking and camping

· Boot camps for specific sports

· Adventure holidays.

These are all relatively simple to arrange but they are all great for health and fitness. And an activity holiday will beat for price a 'normal' holiday that involves a continuous round of expense to be entertained and amused.

Even better, such activities helps prevent kids from becoming mere spectators of the activities and sports of others. Yet this is all the sporting activity that most people get! Better still, each one can be arranged with other families in groups or clubs.

How's that for a terrific way to meet and make friends with other like-minded and positive people? How's that for a great way to counter the bad examples all around that indoctrinate us with poor and unhealthy behaviour?

PLUS, as an added bonus, YOU get to keep fitter too!

Kids Fitness: How To Give Your Kids A Lifetime Of Fitness & Health by Jon Dyson