Key Tips for Encouraging Your Children to Be Active and Play Outside
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Regular exercise and activity for children is nothing short of crucial, for positive development with respect to motor skills and bodily growth, and for social improvements besides. Outdoor activities are the path of least resistance to ensuring your children are hitting recommended exercise milestones, and are especially good for contributing to overall well-being and development. How can you encourage your kids to get out and be active?
Understanding UK Physical Activity Guidelines
A good starting point would be to understand best-practice guidance on milestones for children’s physical activity – even if only to gain an understanding yourself of what a balanced regimen looks like for those of your children’s age. The NHS is a great resource for this, suggesting that children and young people should endeavour to exercise in two different ways each day, for an average of an hour each day. The trick, of course, is making such endeavours an appealing prospect to your young ones.
Creating an Inviting Outdoor Environment
One simple way to incite exercise-friendly activity in your children is to make the outdoor spaces for which you are responsible as appealing for children as they can be. You might do this in your home’s front and back garden, by setting up play zones for your children and their friends to utilise. If you have extensive treelines or flowerbeds, you may also be able to incorporate natural elements.
Incorporating Family Activities
You cannot expect your children to inspire themselves to exercise every day, of course – and what better way to maintain momentum than by creating a good example yourself? Rather than leaving your children to their own devices each day, you could also fold in some family-oriented outdoor activities that promote physical engagement; nature walks, cycling, and traditional lawn games like cricket or rounders could all be part of a rich and varied activity schedule.
Encouraging Participation in Sports
Speaking of cricket, your children could also benefit heavily from being enrolled in local sports teams or clubs, in order to promote regular physical activity and teamwork. A little investment in some quality cricket bats could go a long way to fostering a lifelong love of the gentleman’s game, and hence inculcating a desire to get some decent exercise almost incidentally to the playing of the sport.
Limiting Screen Time and Encouraging Free Play
Finally, it would be difficult to talk about exercise in young children without also talking about the elephant in the room: screen time. Excessive screen time is a net negative, even if it provides you a little reprieve from nagging every now and then; by reducing your children’s access to screens, you afford them the opportunity to find their fun in the great outdoors – and find some exercise in the process.
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