Motivating Kids/Children to Exercise! Suggestions?

“Fun exercise” a contradiction for your kids, too? How are you motivating 6-15 year olds? Are they winning the sedentary wars, balking @ the daily recommended PC/TV/Videogame “TOTAL” time of <3 hours/day?

“Wii Cheer” etc. is good little cardio bump — but quitting after 8 minutes is certainly not. I believe that a little parental creativity/enthusiasm/involvement goes a long way in influencing kids to get active. Since I couldn’t find other forum strings under Kids/Children, please share your exercise/fitness tips!!

Thanks in advance….!

I’m off to the gym w/ #1 son (14yo/6’ 3" and already dedicated computer geek!) and I recall that one strategy helping me is the “win-win” question. (Pure gold for me personally!) I empowered him with “Do you wanna’ go @ 1300 or 1430?!”

Ask a “yes-no” question, expect a default “NO” reply! God programs them this way….

For parents, this is called a “win-lose” question!

Thanks again for YOUR ideas!

As someone who works with kids from birth to adulthood in Occuaptional Therapy I have found pretty much the same conclusion that you did —-you have to get invloved with them, I have children that try harder and last longer if I am MAKING IT FUN and playing along with them. I witness many playing the Wii with the children but become very competitive or bossy with “do this do that” and the child become very frustrated and shutsdown and quits. THe teens are a different breed I find…it has to be something that holds their intrest and it requires reverse psych. to make ti look like their idea. My son could carless about going to the gym with his dad or me and our trainer is a very “cool hip dude” as my almost 13 year old son puts it and we were going to get him to work out with him but “no way” is the reply….but one of his older brothers can stop by or his dad go outside after work and he be shooting some hoops and he will stay out with any of them for hours and get a really good work out with out even realizing it. Kids today would never have made it back when I was growing up….only a few hors on saturday morning for kids TV and th shows in the evening were true family shows. We did not have viedo games, we climbed trees, roller skated, rode bikes, played baseball football all as friends in the neighborhood. we stayed out all day and came in for lunch and supper and then might get to play out a few hour hours in the summer til dark. Hours of watcing TV…..I never even thought about. (and yes TV was invented and everyone had one pretty much…even color:)

My kids are still quite young (four and two) but I just exercise around them and they get interested that way. My four year old girl can hold herself up on a pull up bar for 8 seconds. Thats because after every set of pull ups I do she wants to try as well.

When they’re older I’m sure this won’t work as well.

I remember as a kid that my father would motivate m with things like, “If you can do 20 perfect pushups I’ll take you to the arcade on Saturday.”

For, me as a kid it wasn’t difficult. I spent all day outside just like all of my friends. We played basketball, and football, and swam, and rode bikes and skateboards. Nowadays, it seems like all of the kids have too much homework and too many organized activities to just go outside and play with their neighbors.

I think that we are going to try to limit the number of formal activities in hopes that they will actually end up being more active and creative….we’ll see!

That is a good question and it is especially difficult here with the weather getting warmer. I have always found kids to enjoy water activities and they stay cool while getting some exercise.
I think kids are really busy now and have many outside acvities that keep them on the go. Hopefully these activites are sports of some kind. I raised 3 boys they spent lots of time riding their bikes and playing baseball. I encouraged them to be outside and getting fresh air.
I think we as parents we show them how to keep active including them in our workout activities is a good thing. They will enjoy it and feel good after. Most gyms, schoold and the ymca all have very good childrens programs that will keep them active.

As a kid the TV was kept in a closet and we did not get it out unless we were watching a family show. We plan on doing something similar with our son. So far he has never been set down just to watch TV. He will watch it with us when we are catching up on a favorite show but for the most part it is off.
I agree chaddukes about working out when they can watch. My son loves doing pushups, sit ups, lunges and such with me. The pull up bar is a hit too.
As he gets older I hope that walks to the park and such are still fun. But like all have said if we do it together it makes it much more fun.
That is why I lost all the weight. I was determined to not be the big mom on the sidelines!

I have a great idea, it worked for my small cousins, they are at the age of 14 and 15.
One of them has a gps phone, they booth have bikes, so what i did is I installed sportypal on his phone. And explain them that now when they go cycling around they can see their ride through satellites ….
Now they go cycling almost every day when the weather is nice. Maybe not that big exercise, but still it’s a small beginning to take there eyes away from all the other tv games and stuff.

Kids don’t want to exercise. They just want to play with their friends. Limit their TV time drastically and force them to go visit their friends more. This usually involves lots of running around.

Limit the TV, computer, and video game time. If my son wants to see if one of his friends can play then he walks to their house rather than calling. He is excited about being able to use the cardio equipment at the gym when he turns 8, especially since some of the machines have TVs and he can’t cartoons while exercising lol

Children and teens are reward driven. Compete with them for prizes, whatever they might be. First one to 2 miles, or race ya to the school. I coach soccer so it makes it somewhat easy to get kids motivated for playing time. Find rewards that work for your kids and make them compete for them.

Sports