Tag Archives: kid fitness

Kid Fitness – How Does a Garden Grow?

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I love gardening. I talk about it here as a great way to get exercise whether you’re pulling weeds, mowing the lawn or planting new flowers. It’s a fitness choice that you can perform several times a week (though I wouldn’t recommend mowing several times a week unless you have multiple lawns to mow – your yard just wouldn’t like you). For kids, gardening can be a multitude of things – including a great way for them to get exercise. Outdoors and Out of the Box Getting your kids involved in gardening lets them get outside, learn about gardening, flowers, … Continue reading →

Birthday Cake – Get Out

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First it was fast foods and the short line, then it was soda and now it’s birthday cake. School districts are going to start banning anything that doesn’t fall into the ‘healthy’ part of the food pyramid, I just see it coming. What’s started this? An Illinois school district just approved a new health plan. This health plan would ban students (and by extension their parents) from bringing cakes or cupcakes to the classroom in order to celebrate their birthdays. Pause for a moment to consider that. Yeah, okay. The reason they announced this plan is that they want kids … Continue reading →

Dear Heather … Hiring a Personal Trainer for Your Child

After a brief hiatus, our weekly Dear Heather … feature is returning to the fitness blog here at Families.com So if you have fitness questions, concerns or just want to know something, feel free to send it my way and I will do my best to get your questions answered. Dear Heather, I am very worried about my daughter. She’s 9 years old and she’s already much taller than most of the kids in her class or her age. But over the summer she started putting on weight and I know she is getting teased at school. I’m concerned about … Continue reading →

Yes, Kids Need Exercise, We Get It!

Maybe it’s because I’m in the business of following fitness trends, reading and writing about them and discussing how to build your exercise program. Maybe because I work with young children and I have one of my own, I’m a little more sensitive to the issue. But could we please stop using the words “alarming,” “dangerous” and “overwhelming” when we are referring to the issues of childhood fitness, obesity and health? Yes, obesity is an issue. Yes, kid fitness is an issue. Yes, we need to be doing something about it. But parents, teachers, caretakers and many others are becoming … Continue reading →

Baseball Tips for Kids (and Parents too!)

“Mom, can we go play some baseball together?” This question was posed to me recently by my six year-old daughter. My initial response was, well, no because two people do not make a team and it’s hard to play ball with just two people. But that’s not necessarily true. If you both have gloves, you can play catch. If you have gloves and a bat you can practice hitting. So it’s doable – but unfortunately for my daughter, I’m terrible at throwing. But what the heck, let’s give it a shot anyway. In the meanwhile, if you’re looking to organize … Continue reading →

Friday Fitness Funnies: Ready, Set, Laugh!

Good morning and welcome to Friday! Can it really be Friday already? Where did the week go? Why do my legs hurt? Is it good that I can feel them this morning? How was your week? Are you ready to exercise your funny bone? I hope so! It’s been quite a while since we hosted our Friday Fitness Funnies and I thought it was a good time to bring them back as I could use the laugh! Fair warning: the rest of this blog isn’t supposed to be taken seriously. Funny, Ha! Ha! Some of the best advice my daughter … Continue reading →

Dear Heather … A Question

A reader asked the following question on my blog Coach Mom: Making Up Your Game Plan and I thought I’d put it up front so I could answer it. The question is from Families.com member Tckteacher: A question rather than a comment. Our days of homeschooling our own children are long over, but I now find myself in a position of schooling a 3rd grade child overseas in a situation where there few available resources and no community sports activities for her to join other than dance – which she is involved in. I am trying as her teacher to … Continue reading →

Heelys – Good or Bad For Kids?

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Do you know what a heely is? I see them all the time now. When I was substitute teaching at the school, I was constantly reminding the kids they needed to take the wheels out of their heels while they were in the school. Heeling is growing more popular by the day and kids as young as four and five are getting in on the heeling action. So what’s the problem? Fractures & Sprains A study was released yesterday in a pediatrics journal that detailed how 67 children had been treated for injuries directly related to their Heelys. The study … Continue reading →

Bike Riding – How to Get the Training Wheels Off

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Summer time is here and this year, it will be a momentous summer because we’ll be working diligently with our daughter to shed her training wheels, master her swimming lessons and so much more. When it comes to getting the training wheels off, it can be a real rite of passage for child and parents. Some Kids are Daredevils I know many children in my neighborhood that are real daredevils. I, myself, was a daredevil. I shed my training wheels two days after I got my bike. My motivation lay more in the fact that I broke the training wheels … Continue reading →

Spring Forward to Action: Running Tips for Kids

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Encouraging our kids to get more exercise is a parent’s duty. We need to kick them out of the house and off the video game players and out into the yard, to the park or to the playground where they can run. Where they can be kids, playing with other kids and being active. I can’t stress this enough because it’s important and with childhood obesity on the rise and the fact that the choices our kids make right now will affect their lifestyle choices for the rest of their lives. But you know that. I know you know that. … Continue reading →