6 Great Ways to Stay Fit with the Kids

by Shilah Anderson

Alright, we are all aware that most of us moms (or dads) have read endless FB posts, purchased tons of books, and pinned about a million pins on “ways to stay fit”. It’s also probably true that it’s the same group of us that have engaged in maybe only one or two of these ideas. (Ugh)

That’s normal you say, we are all responsible for ourselves and our bodies. But what about the kids? Are your children getting the exercise and active time that they so desperately need every day? We’ve been asking these same questions and wanted to present some solutions: 6 great fitness ideas for the family and kids. But first, here’s some really terrifying data that will only magnify your desire to raise healthy kids and become healthier yourself.

The FAT Stats

Child obesity isn’t ever a topic that’s fun to discuss, but you might be more apt to discuss it if you knew that your child had a 49% chance of being obese if he/she lives in the state of Louisiana.

In the state of New York, child obesity rates are thirty two percent; thirty six percent if you are from Texas, and there is almost a twenty two percent chance of your child being obese if you live in the state of Utah. Why are these rates so outrageous? Well, in Utah alone the percentage of adults who are overweight is upwards of 35%. Not to mention that the percentage of adults getting absolutely no physical activity (AT ALL!) daily, is almost twenty one percent! Imagine what that means for our children.

Children do as we do. They learn from what we do. Their lives are based around our habits, patterns and schedules right from the start. How we raise them is most likely what they will compare their lives to through the rest of it all. Are we giving them the baseline for a fighting chance at success?

Ask yourself, does your child fall into the widespread statistic of children who are watching 7 ½ hours of TV a day? OK, so maybe your children aren’t watching seven and a half hours, but are they watching more than two hours daily? If so, it sounds like you and your children could greatly benefit by reevaluating your family fitness habits.

Making Fitness Fun

We know this is a growing issue right here in our own home town, so we wanted to start a conversation about possibly making these habits easier to accomplish, more fun for the kids and family together, and more achievable with the busy day-to-day family schedule that so many of us face.

Here are 6 ways to make exercise fun and stay fit as a family. Please comment and share your own personal ideas on how this can be more achievable for mothers and fathers everywhere!

6 Ways to Make Exercise Fun & Stay Fit as a Family

1. Weekly sports night

When kids grow up and you look around and all you see are children multiplying, it’s definitely time to try and hold some traditions. Children love traditions and families thrive on them. Start small, like a sports night once a week. This will not only bring your family a bit closer, but it will also keep your children (and hopefully yourself) more active.

I know it all sounds so cliché but these “sports nights” can be anything from a fun obstacle course that you created during the day with the younger children as a daytime activity or if your kids are all younger it can be as simple as sidewalk chalk hopscotch or tic-tac-toe. You can get a great game of baseball going with kids who are older or, if you don’t have much of an opportunity to be outside, there’s always active video games! There are no excuses here people…get moving.

2. Simon Says Stretch!

Exercise and staying active begins in the mind and it begins early-on like most habits do. Children follow examples because its human nature. What a better example to leave than taking care of your body. A fun game of Simon Says Stretch can not only become a great time with the kids but it teaches the importance of stretching and staying limber. A limber body will bounce back well before a stiff one.

3. Nightly walks

Getting outside in the early evening with the family can be an awesome way to stay fit together. Imagine, dinner is done, the table is cleared and bellies are full. Instead of allowing your children to slump to the TV for their nightly shows, set aside a week night where they are expecting to get active with the family. Going for a walk is great after a nice well cooked (and eaten) meal.

You can make it fun as well! Go geocaching with the young ones or go on an evening hike with the older kids. This will also help them have a great appreciation for the outdoors the rest of their long healthy lives.

4. Walk instead of ride

You can also help your young ones get on their feet early by simply giving them the exercise they need during your everyday activities. For example, at the grocery store, let them walk! Many stores now have mini carts for just these reasons so take advantage of them.

Remember, you are still in charge, if things get out of hand, put them in the cart. But it also helps to simply talk with them before you go to the store and make sure they are expecting the rules and for them to be enforced. Kids need and enjoy boundaries…but if you give them some freedom, they might surprise you.

5. Dance parties

It’s the simple things that can make the sweetest memories. On those particularly stressful days when you are about to pull your hair out because the house is a mess, your kids are out of control, your laundry still isn’t done and its almost four thirty in the afternoon, just dance. Turn up the music and let it all go.

Take ten minutes to dance like you have never danced before and shake off all that stress! Watch your kids when you do this, you might find that your little ones will want to be close to you and they will suddenly want to obey you because they love you. And boy is it great to watch them dance!

6. Get in the garden

Gardening can almost be considered a long forgotten art. But if you have a yard and places to garden this might be one of the BEST ways to get your kids and yourself moving.

While they are really young, let them dig in the dirt and play next to you as you garden. As they get a little older (even preschool age) begin to talk to them about what you are doing and allow them to help you. You will be surprised at how interested they can become and how much of a regular exercise this can be together.

There are so many ways that you can make sure your children are staying fit while you stay fit with them. Like anything, it takes you making those efforts in making sure these things happen and that traditions take root.

Like mentioned before, the activities can change as children get older but if you start with them while they are young, the chances of them having a desire to keep it up and to lead an active lifestyle are much greater. What do you do to keep your family active?

Itsy Bitsy Spider Activity Craft

by Shilah Anderson

We couldn’t leave one of the long-time favorite children’s’ learning songs “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, out of our mix.

One of the ways children (and adults) learn, is through tactile motions. What a better way to have the children remember a song like this than through actions! Well, since somebody already did a pretty good job of that, we thought it might be fun for the kids to create something as well.

Doing crafts and activities help children maintain memory and learn different and important skills. We decided to create a fun little activity/craft (craftivity) for the kids to help them put actions and processes to memory while practicing tactile skills and motions that are important to their development and growth.

Try this awesome craftivity with them and you just might have some fun too! My son absolutely LOVES this one.

Itsy Bitsy Spider Craftivity

What you will need:

Black tissue paper or black construction paper, two black pipe cleaners, glue or stick on googly eyes, tape (and or Elmers Glue), an empty paper towel roll (or A4 sheet of paper to roll into a tube), a regular drinking straw (not the bendy kind , or in my case a bamboo skewer), yarn or string, scissors, and a hole-punch.

How to create:

1. Take your black tissue paper or construction paper and wad into a small ball. Make sure it’s only about half the size of whatever tube you have (or will) make. Squish the ball so that it’s more flat and round to make the body of the spider. If you need to cut or tape loose ends to make smooth, do so.
2. Cut two black pipe cleaners into four equal length pieces each for the spider’s legs. Tape or glue them onto the sides of the body of the spider. Or, you can do what I did and while I was crumpling and folding the paper I made a small opening all the way through the spider so I could thread the legs all the way through to the other side!
3. Take two googly eyes and stick (or glue) them on the top of the flattened ball body to make a cute little bug-eyed spider!
4. Get your empty paper towel roll and punch two holes at the top on either side for the straw to go directly through the top of the roll. If you are using A4 paper, roll and staple or tape to create the “water spout” and do the same at the top with the hole-punch.
5. Thread the straw (or skewer) through the two holes at the top of the “spout”.
6. Take your yarn or string and tie one end around the straw in the middle section where it runs through the spout. Measure out a lengthy piece (enough to lower your spider down and up through the spout so he can pop out the other end) and then thread it down through the spout. At the other end, glue or tape the yarn to the spider. (I ended up using double sided tape to tape to the spider and then to the string. It worked like a charm with a little bit of pressure.)

itsy bitsy spider1
7. Get ready to have some fun! The kids will love rolling the straw to lower the spider down and up the spout. If you need to, tape the spout to a wall or other vertical surface so that the kids can do it all on their own. Seriously, it’s two and a half hours later and my son is back at it again! He LOVED this craft!

To make it even more fun, sing or play the song (below) with them while they are able to visually see their spider going up and down the water spout!

Like a lot of Boysenberrykids’ songs, you’ll find the good old original melody with an extra message specially written in. We always want our kids to keep their heads up and we hope these special metaphors of not giving up and knowing that the rain can’t keep them down just might stick with them. It’s a great song for ALL of us to know.

Sleeptite – Perfect Lullaby for Baby to Fall Asleep to

by Shilah Anderson

This is my new favorite lullaby song for the baby! Its mesmerizing music box tune is perfect for my sweet little one to close her eyes to.

I’m a huge advocate of letting babies fall asleep on their own, and this is just the perfect tune and sound for her to have in her mind before she drowses off. I like to play it for her (with just sound) as I lay her down, but my 2 year old son loves it too! The fun “artist” drawing keeps him intrigued till the end. Watch and let us know what you think!

The Importance of Play in Childhood Development

by Shilah Anderson

We are lucky to live in this beautiful land blessed with freedoms, organized human rights, and a constitution that protects those rights (or did). But even still, each coming generation is more and more threatened by violence, poverty, exploitation and child labor, and in many cases a blatant lack of parenting.

Each one of those threats takes something from us. Steals our right to be or do something. One of those rights (I’m speaking of specifically) beginning to be more scarcely practiced, is that of play in our children.

Child’s Play – A Right

Children’s play. Futile, you might think in the grand scheme of things (especially when talking in terms of human rights) but it’s more important than you might think. So important in fact that it has been sanctioned by the United Nations High Commission as a right of every child.

In this day in age our rights are constantly challenged and degraded not only by terrorists or those who seek to cause physical harm but by ourselves. By our schools. By our Educators. By those who we have deemed worthy to lead us.

Though these threats aren’t necessarily malicious in nature, most are in response to the poorly assessed view of ‘falling behind’ other countries in our overall education. Because of this, our public school systems have opted to accelerate academics, which in turn has removed play from the elementary classroom almost entirely.

Falling Behind in Play

This insufficient idea that our population’s education has fallen short due to the amount of play we allow is outrageous. Proof of this is in the competition itself while some of the more learned or excelled countries, in terms of literature, math, and science, support and thrive on early childhood play. For example, a regular world leader in all three of these subjects, Finland, doesn’t begin formal schooling until the age of 7, where even then a day of school is half that of a regular school day.

Sadly, this is just one of the factors responsible for this negative impact on our children’s play. Unfortunately, even in non-poverty stricken, very adequate lifestyles our children have been found to be limited from enjoying these rights of play and important development.

We are responsible for the lack of playtime our children receive. With our current way of life, we have adopted more hurried patterns that end up putting more pressure on our children to go and do and be what, when, wherever, and however we demand. What we don’t understand is that when we deprive them of the developmental benefits of play, we are in actuality, limiting their abilities and advantages to a better educated body and mind.

Proof in Play – Childhood Development

Children who are given opportunity of regular unstructured playtime have been shown to excel academically and socially. Play is actually what “prepares a young brain for life, love and even schoolwork” (Sergio Pellis, University of Lethbridge). These interactions of unstructured play develop the pre-frontal cortex. They learn negotiation skills, problem solving skills, how to regulate emotions and other social skills when given regular playtime.

Play allows children to become the master of their skills. It allows them to experiment, to explore and to develop fine motor skills. Play very well may be solely responsible for determining whether or not we have active and healthy children.

Nowadays, spending less than 30 minutes a day in unstructured outdoor play overall, our children have become more obese, more anti-social, lost the ability to focus for a time on a single topic, and behave more poorly than ever before. And that being said, the U.S. is the hands down leader in prescribing ADHD medications to children.

Connecting with our Children

Being able to communicate with our children, gaining trust and respect are extremely important roles we play as parents. But how can we expect them to be able to communicate and create these relationships if they aren’t giving them the time they need to adequately develop the skills they require to do so?

Think back to when we were the kids. The days of playing outside with our siblings or friends till mom calls us in for lunch are no longer. We struggle communicating with our children because we can’t identify with what they are going through. We don’t understand that they aren’t properly able to develop conflict resolution, role playing, and language skills due to lack of imaginative play opportunities.

Children naturally work hard at creating fantasies to cope with troublesome situations. While working, or playing hard, they are stimulating and influencing the connections made in their brains. These connections naturally build upon their ability to outwardly express what they are learning and what they are teaching themselves through their play.

For example, creative expression and movement through music have been known to help build outlets for children to express themselves appropriately in all sorts of situations. Music gives children the opportunity to connect to the world they live in through developing their own feelings and observations. It allows them to recognize differences in timing and rhythm and helps them develop their own patterns of sound or movement.

Play is the new Work

Our busy and demanding lifestyles have resulted in merging professional work and home life and the lines separating the two have become more and more blurred. In recognizing that the opportunities coupled with our more “immediate and entitled” lifestyles may give us more freedom, we also need to realize there are other freedoms we may be sacrificing in the process.

Creative growth is a lot of work. We could learn much from our children, and about them, if we only sat back and watched them play. We might even come to the conclusion that if we played more ourselves, our own work might come to us with greater ease.

We may not be able to do a whole lot about our public schools systems, or the growing dangers of allowing our children to play freely in the outdoors. But we can absolutely re-define our own boundaries to help make sure our children are getting the time they need to play and develop.

What are your thoughts on play?

Top 10 Socially Shared Parenting Blog Posts on AhaParenting.com

by Shilah Anderson

As parents, we all know how rewarding this job can be but there is no question about how difficult it really is. So it comes as no surprise that there are multiple polls taken annually about how and where to get the best parenting advice.

While plenty of blogs make the cut into the ever propitious world of top parenting blogs, they are not all created equally. One of our favorites is Ahaparenting.com. We think so highly of them that we’ve compiled a list for you (using Social Footprint) of their top most socially shared posts.

While Ahaparenting.com’s search results in Google (13,900) don’t come close to the largely promotional sites like Parents.com (420,000) and Babycenter.com (2,470,000), and though its social campaigns aren’t as heavily boosted, the professional and easily applicable information given is outstanding to say the least.

Dr. Laura Markham, founder of Ahaparenting.com, was trained as a Clinical Psychologist at Columbia University. Dr. Laura has several notable achievements in parenting including author of the book, “Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting”. And so, without further ado…the top ten parenting blog posts.

#10

Why Kids Hit Siblings and How to Help Them Stop – (5,792 total social shares)
This title may be self-explanatory to some, but others might need to take a closer look-see. The great part about this post is that it’s in response to a desperate plea of a parent looking for answers. Immediately without judgement of any kind, Dr. Laura’s response identifies and empathizes with the mother’s situation, relays her concerns back in a way that presents another point of view, while validating her position as a parent. She then flawlessly gives 7 steps on how to gain your children’s trust and connect with them so as to help prevent these types of actions in the future.

#9

Your 10 Step Plan to Stop Yelling – (6,642 total social shares)
This post reinforces the concept of respect going both ways. As parents, a lot of the time we have this idea that because we are the authority, our kids HAVE to do what we say and if they don’t, they are disobedient. It can’t be stressed enough how well Dr. Laura analyzes the difference between obedience and morality (“Morality is doing what’s right, no matter what you’re told, while obedience is doing what you’re told no matter what is right”). These ten tips will help you connect with your child and build on the relationship first, while also recognizing your triggers and allowing yourself to have some fun with your children.

#8

Easing the Transition to the Toddler Bed – (10,037 total social shares)
There’s no surprise that this post jumped almost four thousand social shares compared to #9. Good parents are always looking for advice and ways to be better parents, even with the little things. Transitioning a toddler to a “big bed” is a BIG step for a child and while it might seem insignificant to a busy parent, how the transition takes place can make all the difference in the long run.

#7

How to Handle Your Anger at Your Child – (10,442 total social shares)
Admitting when we are in the wrong is a difficult thing to do even for the humblest of persons, but admitting we are wrong in the midst of our anger is near impossible. This post tells it how it is from the beginning. Presenting well backed-up research about the effects of abuse or dangerous expression on children just to get your attention and then presenting a plausible solution in controlling anger. These 14 steps are an excellent guide to refer to while learning to “be” the person you really want to be with your children and family as a whole.

#6

What to Say Instead of Punishing to Teach a Lesson – (11,936 total social shares)
Apparently our mothers weren’t absolutely crazy when they told us that “maintaining a clean house is easier than cleaning a dump”. This concept can be carried over into many different aspects of life, including parenting (Go figure!). The idea of “preventative maintenance” is presented in this article alongside teaching lessons. The funny thing is, we can’t tell if we are learning to maintain our own actions or helping the children maintain theirs! What do you think?

#5

What’s Wrong with Timeouts? – (13,284 total social shares)
We were blown away at how well this article produced a craze of comments (3,679!) In this day in age, parents are constantly trying to find the best way to discipline their children. We have always understood that when we do something wrong there are consequences, but are the ones we are designating for our children the best consequences in order for them to learn from their mistakes? Check it out and decide for yourself.

#4

How to Use Positive Parenting – (13,328 total social shares)
A lot of parents may understand discipline and punishment to be one and the same, but are they really? We aren’t here to tell you if they are or not but this article has some excellent insight on possible differences. We all want good relationships with our children right? But are we willing to do the work for these positive relations? Learn how to positively correct and re-connect with your child in times of struggle.

#3

Helping your Toddler Learn to Put Himself to Sleep – (25,146 total social shares)
We are getting pretty serious about the number of social shares here. Coming in at #3 is a post that may help parents worldwide, gain their sanity back! It doesn’t give an answer to all our problems regarding the lack of sleep our children may or may not be getting (alongside us), but it really does give some great advice to try; at least try! These 15 tips just might help level the playing field.

#2

Obedience: Why Do You Have to Tell them Five Times? – (55,189 total social shares)
We have to hand it to them, this article really does remind us of the fact that we and our children are not one and the same, but two totally different people in two totally different stages of life. Have we trained our children to not listen until we yell and threaten? Apparently there are reasons for this, and along with these reasons, there is a plausible solution that just might not involve threatening or punishment. How would you handle these situations?

#1

Parenting your Strong-Willed Child – (799,639 total social shares)
The number one post found on AhaParenting.com (numbers don’t lie) is nothing short of perfect. Even if you only have one child, they are more than likely to be very strong-willed and raising strong-willed children can require much more sensitivity than most people understand.
If you are still with us, we know you are good parents. And if you are hoping to help yourselves be even better as well as provide the best, most thriving, atmosphere for your children to grow up in, this number one post deserves a few times over. Prepare for some bitter sweet though, since Dr. Laura doesn’t sugar coat anything for her readers.
We know that some might consider raising children in this day in age ludicrous. But good parents see it as something much, much different. It’s an opportunity for all to grow and learn and develop into the best human beings we can be. It’s a labor of real love and when we do our best, the outcome can become even better.