Kid-Friendly Exercise Routines: Get Them Moving With These Activities

What Is a Good Work­out Routine/ Easy Exer­cis­es For kids? Chil­dren love to move. As babies start crawl­ing, it’s tough keep­ing them still, even at meal times and dia­per changes. Once they start pulling them­selves up and tak­ing their first steps, move­ments of all kinds make kids gid­dy with joy and down­right sil­ly with happiness.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many chil­dren today aren’t as active as par­ents and health pro­fes­sion­als would like. Some kids are on screens at a very young age, which is not a bad thing – after all, they have to become tech-savvy to thrive in our dig­i­tal world. But screen time can lead to idle­ness and inac­tiv­i­ty. Even if chil­dren are kept main­ly away from screens until they are 10 or 12, there are lots of oth­er things that keep them in one place for hours on end, like watch­ing tele­vi­sion and movies. It’s well known that child­hood obe­si­ty lev­els in North Amer­i­ca are at an all-time high, and that is due, in part, to them spend­ing too much time sit­ting instead of get­ting lots of phys­i­cal exercise. The pan­dem­ic only wors­ened the prob­lem, as fam­i­lies were forced to stay home, kids could­n’t play team sports or go to school, and they spent most of their time try­ing to mas­ter online learning. But things are large­ly back to nor­mal now. Chil­dren are back in school, life has returned to nor­mal, and it’s time to focus on get­ting kids active again, both indoors and outside.  The Cen­tre For Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC) in Atlanta rec­om­mends that all chil­dren between the ages of six and 17 get a min­i­mum of one hour of exer­cise every day. In this post, we offer ideas to encour­age activ­i­ty in your child and sug­gest ways to launch kid-friend­ly exer­cise rou­tines at home or in a near­by park or in your own yard. You can even adapt some of these rou­tines to an indoor space if your fam­i­ly lives in a con­do or apart­ment with­out easy access to out­door green spaces. We also have sug­ges­tions for some of the best-struc­tured forms of exer­cise for chil­dren, accord­ing to pedi­a­tri­cians and oth­er experts. No mat­ter which rou­tine you decide to start, remem­ber that the goal is the same for all: get your child run­ning, jump­ing and bounc­ing around. Exer­cise is ben­e­fi­cial in so many ways – it helps them burn off ener­gy and get ready for a good night’s sleep; it reg­u­lates appetite, and it bal­ances mood. All in all, exer­cise is a win-win for par­ents and chil­dren alike.

1) Get Them Making The Crab Walk, Bear Crawl & Other Animal Moves

Let the kids crawl around on all fours like a bear and upside down like a crab. Encour­age them to climb dur­ing exer­cise too, whether it’s on the mon­key bars at the park or in your own back­yard. (Under adult super­vi­sion, of course). Have them stretch and meow like a cat or reach to the ceil­ing and howl like a wolf. Chil­dren delight in mov­ing like ani­mals, and these moves help devel­op bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion and strength. 

2) Buy a Badminton Set For The Backyard

Unlike ten­nis, which is excel­lent for old­er chil­dren but not real­ly adapt­able to indoor play, bad­minton is per­fect for young kids as well as pre-teens and teens. The net can be set high or low­ered for younger chil­dren. The “birdie” (called a shut­tle cock, in prop­er par­lance) is so light­weight it won’t hurt any­one even if they get hit with it straight on. And its light­ness means it won’t break any­thing indoors, either, so they can toss it back and forth with­out fear of break­ing your favourite vase! The game is easy to under­stand – bat the birdie back and forth over the net with­out let­ting it hit the ground or car­pet. The kids can play bad­minton in teams or with just one per­son on each side of the net. Bad­minton is too often over­looked when par­ents choose games and sports for their chil­dren. Yet it is excel­lent for devel­op­ing coor­di­na­tion, bal­ance and speed. (You have to run to hit the birdie, after all!)

3) Devote Some Space For Them To Run Around

On a rainy day, the kids can’t get out for a walk or game of hop­scotch, so move the fur­ni­ture away and devise games for them to play indoors. Run­ning and jump­ing are both good for them, so let them race back and forth, cor­ner to cor­ner of a room. They can even race up and down the stairs if they’re old enough to grip the railing. The goal is to get them mov­ing safe­ly and make it fun for them. When the weath­er is fair, send them out to the yard or dri­ve­way with a skip­ping rope. Like hop­scotch, skip­ping is anoth­er activ­i­ty that’s good for coor­di­na­tion and balance.

4) Yoga & Stretches

Does your child love watch­ing you do your at-home yoga rou­tine? If so, get them to join in! Any rou­tine that fos­ters focus and bal­ance is good for them, and gen­tle stretch­ing and cer­tain yoga pos­es are per­fect for this. Show them how to do cer­tain moves, and encour­age them to try along with you. Chil­dren are always glad to spend time with a par­ent in a mutu­al activ­i­ty that’s fun and engag­ing, so get them a mat and let them lie beside you. Teach them how to do push-ups, sit-ups, and oth­er moves that build strength in their upper bod­ies. Mod­i­fy each move depend­ing on your child’s age.

5) Get Them Dancing

All chil­dren love to dance, par­tic­u­lar­ly young ones, who will seize every oppor­tu­ni­ty when the music is turned on. Doing the twist and teach­ing them how to move to the rhythm of the music is good for both of you, and not just phys­i­cal­ly. It helps cement the bond between you, and your child will have fond mem­o­ries of danc­ing with mom or dad. Stud­ies show that par­ents who exer­cise with their chil­dren from a young age teach them the val­ue of move­ment with­out hav­ing to talk and lec­ture – and that’s bet­ter for everybody.

6) Running, Jumping, & Windmill Arms

If space at home is lim­it­ed, take your child to the park and let them run as fast as they can. Make a game of it by set­ting mark­ers for them to touch – a tree here, a park bench over there, as if they were run­ning in a relay race. Take one of their bud­dies or a sib­ling, so they can have a lit­tle friend­ly com­pe­ti­tion. If you have space, put up a bas­ket for them to shoot hoops in your dri­ve­way or yard. (Some mod­els can be moved when you need to get the car). Whichev­er activ­i­ties your child enjoys the most are the ones they should do most often, but try all of them at some point. As we said, the goal is sim­ply get­ting them mov­ing, build­ing mus­cles and burn­ing ener­gy for about an hour each day.

Ideas For Structured Exercises:

• Swimming

You don’t need to have your own pool! Plen­ty of cities and towns have com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres with swim lessons with ful­ly trained instruc­tors. Get­ting lessons for your child start­ing at a very young age accom­plish­es a lot: it gives them exer­cise sev­er­al times a week, and it teach­es them how to be safe around water. That’s a very handy skill to have their entire lives. Many of these cen­tres offer geared-to-income mem­ber­ships for par­ents and chil­dren, so you can do your own work­out or fit­ness class while your child receives swim lessons. Def­i­nite­ly a win-win!

• Dance Classes

As we not­ed, chil­dren love danc­ing. Con­sid­er enrolling them in a bal­let or mod­ern dance class and watch them find joy per­form­ing in an annu­al recital. Even chil­dren as young as four or five can have fun tak­ing danc­ing lessons. Con­sid­er enrolling them in a class that focus­es on their her­itage – folk danc­ing, for exam­ple. There is sure to be a dance course of some kind that your child will love.

Wrapping Up

Chil­dren mov­ing for at least an hour every day is a key con­trib­u­tor to their over­all health and well-being. We’ve all seen the big smiles and heard the rau­cous laugh­ter of chil­dren enjoy­ing play, and that’s the same joy­ful noise they make when hav­ing fun exer­cis­ing. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent exer­cise rou­tines until you find the ones that make your child happy. Work­ing up a lit­tle sweat, get­ting thirsty and down­ing a big glass of water are both signs that the exer­cise is work­ing. It’s ben­e­fi­cial to them phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, and that is, of course, the aim of every par­ent. And remem­ber: if they don’t take to a par­tic­u­lar exer­cise right away, don’t worry! Chil­dren change so much month to month, prac­ti­cal­ly day to day, that an activ­i­ty they don’t take to this year just might be their favourite exer­cise next year. What mat­ters most is that you keep them mov­ing in a vari­ety of fun and dif­fer­ent ways to devel­op a life­long love of move­ment that they will car­ry with them right into adulthood.