{"id":112427,"date":"2025-10-30T15:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/112427\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:43:13","slug":"should-we-make-kids-run-the-mile-what-i-learned-from-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/112427\/","title":{"rendered":"Should We Make Kids Run the Mile? What I Learned from Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I ever ran for the sake of running\u2014not between bases during a softball game or to avoid being tagged \u201cit\u201d at recess\u2014was for the Presidential Fitness Test, a set of fitness assessments designed for elementary, middle, and high-school students. If you were in school before 2012, when the test was discontinued, you probably remember running the mile<\/a>, one of the five tests included. <\/p>\n

We did it twice a year, once in the fall and again in the spring. The re-testing was probably intended to show our progress<\/a>, but I don\u2019t remember receiving any kind of training or coaching to help me improve my time. <\/p>\n

Even though I was an active kid, I felt slow and breathless on the track. My legs were heavy. Halfway through, I\u2019d get a side stitch that would necessitate a walk break<\/a>, the ultimate sign of weakness, as far as my gym teacher was concerned. But the worst part was that I, along with my fellow stragglers, had a live audience made up exclusively of faster kids waiting for us to wrap up what they\u2019d done in half the time. <\/p>\n

I hated running the mile. And because the mile was my only exposure to running, I hated running. <\/p>\n

Somehow, despite this bi-annual humiliation as a child, I became a runner as an adult. I found that, in the real world, outside the confines of the Presidential Fitness Test, running is for anyone who\u2019s interested. I learned that proper training, pacing<\/a>, breathing, footwear, and hydration<\/a> (seriously, 90s kids didn\u2019t drink water like the Stanley water bottle generation does) make all the difference. And a stopwatch isn\u2019t the only tool for measuring progress. <\/p>\n

Twelve-year-old me would have never believed it, but grown-up me runs for fun. <\/p>\n

Related StoryIs the Presidential Fitness Test the Best Way to Get Kids More Active?<\/p>\n

This summer, the current administration announced plans to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test. The impetus is a desire to \u201creward excellence in physical education\u201d and \u201cshowcase America\u2019s continued global dominance in sports,\u201d according to a statement<\/a> from The White House. <\/p>\n

Besides poking at some old wounds, this decree makes it feel like we\u2019re moving backward and away from updated assessments like FitnessGram<\/a>, which was developed by the Cooper Institute to assess kids\u2019 overall health, not their athletic performance. It also gets me thinking about my own school-age kid and how tests like \u201cthe mile\u201d might affect his attitude about exercise, his body, and the sport of running. <\/p>\n

Andrea McMurtry<\/a>, a faculty member in Ball State\u2019s School of Kinesiology in Muncie, Indiana, and coordinator of the Physical Education and Health Teacher Education Program, welcomes a conversation about promoting children\u2019s health. \u201cI\u2019m excited any time the government realizes that we have a crisis in children\u2019s levels of fitness and activity,\u201d she says. Only about 20 to 28 percent of kids ages 6 to 17 get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day, according to The 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But she has concerns about implementation, especially when physical education programs are often the first casualties of budget cuts, and many schools are reducing recess times from 30 to 20 minutes. \u201cIf you\u2019re taking somebody who possibly is only moving once a week in a guided program and asking them to run a mile without proper training, that\u2019s not really the most positive and best way to approach a fitness test,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

McMurtry, who was a junior high physical education teacher for 20 years, favors a more holistic approach that includes goal-setting and consistent practice<\/a>. \u201cMy goal was that all my kids could move at a jogging pace for 10 minutes without stopping. We started with 15 seconds [of jogging] the first week of August, and then 30, and then 45 seconds. At the end of each month, our goal was to add a minute of continuous movement,\u201d she says. As part of her instruction, she\u2019d coach them on pacing and teach them about metrics like heart rate<\/a> and VO2 max<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If McMurtry were to go back and teach, she says, she might still have kids do the mile, but she wouldn\u2019t force them to run. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with walking a mile<\/a>,\u201d she says. And she\u2019d eliminate the \u201caudience\u201d element by offering activities for kids to do once they finish\u2014away from the sidelines. <\/p>\n

Having this kind of support and training might have changed my mile experience for the better, and maybe this generation of kids will benefit from a more thoughtful approach to fitness assessment. <\/p>\n

But, just like with run coaching, you need to invest in qualified professionals if you want results. \u201cIf you hire licensed and trained physical education teachers, then you\u2019re more likely to have a program that has these positive elements in it,\u201d McMurtry says, explaining that when funding is cut, a school will often fill an empty spot with, say, the social studies teacher who coaches football on the side. They may be able to coach football players effectively, but they don\u2019t necessarily have the training to create a physical education curriculum for all students. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t prioritize having people who can deliver these programs, then unfortunately, you\u2019re going to have a lot of bad programming,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Related StoryShould You Train Your Kid to Run a Mile?<\/p>\n

If the purpose of physical education is to teach children to move with competence and instill lifelong healthy habits<\/a>, we need to engage everyone, including the kids for whom running doesn\u2019t come naturally. They need to believe that activities like the mile run are for them, too. <\/p>\n

Is this where parents and caretakers\u2014particularly those who run and understand basic training principles\u2014step in to pick up the slack when the funding and programming just aren\u2019t there?<\/p>\n

Todd Buckingham, Ph.D. exercise physiologist at PTSportsPRO<\/a> in Grand Rapids, Michigan, primarily coaches adults but has worked with younger athletes. (He also has a school-age child.) He believes that there\u2019s a lot parents can do to encourage their kids to be active, but you probably shouldn\u2019t push running or take it upon yourself to \u201ctrain\u201d your kid to run a mile. Even if you just want them to enjoy (or, at least, not hate) running. <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely don\u2019t pressure them to go for a run with you, because then they\u2019ll not only grow to resent running, but they\u2019ll also resent you for pushing them to run,\u201d he says. Family walks and games that get kids running around offer better alternatives to help kids build strength<\/a> and endurance<\/a>. You can also have them ride a bike or scooter while you run. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen they can see how much you enjoy it,\u201d Buckingham says. \u201cThey may ask to go for a run with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than trying to prepare kids for these assessments, we need to create lots of opportunities for them to engage in physical activity that they enjoy. After all, their relationship to movement and exercise is what matters, not their pace or rank or how \u201cexceptional\u201d they are, according to some standardized test. Maybe they\u2019ll hate running the mile. But if they have a solid foundation for health and fitness, they\u2019ll move on and find other physical activities that make them happy. <\/p>\n

Related StoryWhat I Learned Running a Mile With My Son<\/p>\n

After talking to the experts, I wondered how my own kid would take to the one-mile assessment if the government reintroduced it to public school physical education. He\u2019s only 6 years old, so I know better than to suggest anything close to training. But maybe if he has positive associations with running, and if a mile distance doesn\u2019t seem so daunting, he\u2019ll have a better experience than I did. <\/p>\n

So, I ask him, \u201cDo you want to come for a run with me sometime?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d he asks with genuine confusion. <\/p>\n

He walks almost a mile to and from school every day, plays soccer, chases his buddies at the playground, and was recently able to hold his own on a challenging four-mile hike, so he\u2019s plenty active. Exercise is naturally built into his life. But to him, running just to run is a Mom thing. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always done on my own while he\u2019s at school or home with his dad. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust for fun,\u201d I say, sensing that I\u2019m not selling the idea. \u201cOr you could ride your scooter while I run. Just for one mile,\u201d I say, realizing how arbitrary that distance seems, especially to a 6-year-old. <\/p>\n

He agrees to this arrangement, and one cloudy morning, we head out to a long stretch of uninterrupted sidewalk that runs alongside a local cemetery. I show him my watch and how it keeps track of time, distance, pace, and heart rate, and I realize I should have led with the metrics<\/a>\u2014he loves gear, especially anything that remotely resembles a gaming console. He wants to know how it keeps track of how far we go and where we are. Also, could he get a running watch<\/a> too?<\/p>\n

Then we\u2019re off, me on foot and him on his teal blue Micro Scooter. We chat about the day ahead, and I periodically give him updates about how far we\u2019ve gone. Normally, if I were just walking with him, I\u2019d be calling after him to slow down as we approached the corner and to stay within my sightline. Now that we\u2019re cruising at the same pace, he\u2019s free to speed up. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is fun!\u201d he yells. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is fun!\u201d I yell back. <\/p>\n

When I glance down at my watch and see we\u2019ve gone a little over a mile, I ask if he wants to head home or go a little farther. He opts to go to the next bus stop, so we log another half mile before turning around. On the way back, I tell him about how, when I was a kid, they used to time us running the mile in gym class. He asks if I was the fastest kid in my class and seems surprised when I tell him no and that I didn\u2019t use to like running. Then he asks me again about getting his own running watch. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we can do this every week?\u201d he says as we turn onto our block. I wonder if having his own running watch would inspire him to leave his scooter at home and join me on foot, but I don\u2019t ask. Just the fact that he\u2019s excited to move his body is enough of a win. <\/p>\n

Running is a test of fitness, but he doesn\u2019t see it that way. For him, it\u2019s a fun activity worthy of a Saturday morning\u2014maybe even every Saturday morning. I don\u2019t know if having this kind of perspective as a kid would have improved my one-mile time, but it probably would have changed my experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cSounds good to me,\u201d I tell him. \u201cLet\u2019s do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time I ever ran for the sake of running\u2014not between bases during a softball game or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,103,61,60,68175],"class_list":{"0":"post-112427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-loveservice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}