If you are someone who loves all things fitness and exercise, it’s only natural to want to pass this passion onto your kids so they can experience all the wondrous benefits you have. While you don’t want to be that parent who forces kids into sports and activities they don’t even enjoy, you still want to show them how an active lifestyle can benefit them.
And the best place to start with this is your own home. As much as clubs and gyms can give you all the equipment you need, they aren’t for everybody. So how can you make your home a place where your kids will generate a fascination with health and fitness? Consider these ten fantastic ways.
Create an Exercise Space
Every home needs an exercise space, but not all homes have a spare room to set up a home gym. This doesn’t mean you can’t have an exercise space, you’ll just need to get creative.
If you want to ensure you and your kids have somewhere for bodyweight exercises, yoga, or other activities, you need to make the space. You might have plenty of unused floor space that you can use, while multifunctional furniture can also give a room two purposes depending on how you set it up.
Prepare Meals Together
It’s not just exercise and activity that will contribute to a healthy home. You should also think about what you put in your body.
Preparing meals together will help introduce your kids to taking care of themselves and should limit the number of requests you get for takeout. If you make meals together and involve them, they won’t be so fussy when it comes to trying new dishes, which develops a more sophisticated palate.
Normalize Activities
The earlier you introduce kids to activities, the more likely they will be to get excited about activities as they get older. Families that do things together, whether bike rides or walks find their kids will continue these habits later in life.
Normalizing activities is also a great way to get your kids interested in sports. The more they are exposed to, the more options they’ll have, meaning they can try different sports if soccer or basketball isn’t for them.
Keep It Clean
You wouldn’t work out in a dirty gym, and the same goes for your home. Your healthy hub should not just be what you eat and what you do, but also how you take care of the home.
Of course, some parents are far too busy to do it all themselves, but you can consider cleaning professionals to help you keep on top of your cleaning chores. It’s also worth getting your kids involved so they know how to take care of a household after they move out.
Hold Each Other Accountable
One of the biggest rules surrounding health and fitness is being accountable, so you must know how to hold your family members accountable for their health.
Everyone is allowed a lapse now and again, but these lapses should never become a habit. If you want to generate a healthy culture at home, you must support one another through accountability to keep everyone on course. This can be tricky with kids, so make sure you find a balance between looking after their health and letting them be kids.
Don’t Let the Weather Disrupt Your Routine
It’s so tempting to see bad weather outside and decide it’s not worth going for a run or doing the activity you planned. However, if you decide this once, you’ve given up on every future activity, too.
While it’s never pleasant exercising in the rain, you can wear waterproof and other protective gear. Of course, if the weather is too intense to venture outside, there’s no point in risking your health, so look for other activities to do from the comfort of your home.
Supervise Kids During Their Activities
It’s important to let your kids discover what they like doing. While you can introduce them to some activities, they will always gravitate to what they like, and this can start from a very early age.
In their early years, they will need to develop motor skills their way, and you can encourage this by letting your kids explore while supervising them to prevent any accidents
Make the Most Of Your Yard
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere with a backyard, you shouldn’t neglect how it can help your household become a healthy hub. This will give you some of the freedom you cannot get inside the house, and a little fresh air is always something to embrace.
Whether it’s shuttle runs, jumping jacks, or yoga sessions, there are plenty of things you can do in your backyard that can make your family activities more fun. Even quick cricket or golf chipping practice gives you something to do, just make sure you don’t hit anything too hard.
Give Each Other Space
As much as you want to encourage your kids to be healthy, you don’t want to be overbearing. Therefore, it’s important to recognize when you need to give them space and give them this space.
This is often true of teens going through hormonal changes, but even younger kids will want a break from activities. So, if they look like they need to relax, just let them.
Try New Things Regularly
It can be easy to stagnate with some activities, which is why encouraging your kids to try something different is so important.
They will try all the traditional sports and activities, but these are not the only things they can do. By showing them how many activities there are, they can find something that they’d never discover otherwise, and your kids might find something that is just what they’ve been searching for.
Hub
Most kids will find out what they love eventually. They will see sports on the TV, or will develop an interest in activities they experience as they go through life. It’s not necessarily important what they do, but rather how you help them get all the benefits from these activities so they can live a happy and healthy life.
