Keeping your kids active when sport is out of reach<\/a><\/p>\nClub sport can be a fun and healthy way for kids to develop important life skills, but it can be expensive. The good news is you can replicate the benefits at home or your local park.<\/p>\n
“The movement is more varied \u2026 they are performing movements sideways \u2026 jumping, landing, sprinting.<\/p>\n
“[These] allow development of other qualities that are really important like muscle strength, power, and bone density \u2026 and social skills.”<\/p>\n
Whereas longer distance jogging or running is a repetitive movement, involving long bouts of continuous activity, Dr Bennett says.<\/p>\n
That doesn’t mean running is bad, he adds, it just means the risk of “overuse injuries”, such as shin splints, is greater. And kids aren’t getting the same variety of benefits.<\/p>\n
That’s why it’s important to be mindful how far our kids run, and for how long for. And that it doesn’t replace play-based activity, Dr Bennett says.<\/p>\n
David Lubans, director of Global Sport and Movement Collaborative at The University of Newcastle, describes play-based running as being like “spontaneous, interval training” that comes naturally to kids.<\/p>\n
“Games kids play with a sporadic nature, [are] more aligned to what they are interested in. They don’t just do continuous training, unless coached to.<\/p>\n
“They move because it’s fun and doing it with friends and playing games.”<\/p>\n
He says young kids especially are less motivated to take part in something that is sold to them as exercise or fitness.<\/p>\n
What age can my child start running?<\/p>\n
Readiness varies between kids, but Dr Bennett says children five and under shouldn’t need “structured exercise”.<\/p>\n
“Potentially even older, like six or seven, I would be a little bit hesitant to put anything strict in place.”<\/p>\n
He says an indicator of when they might be ready for more structured activity, like running, may be when play becomes less “natural or organic” than it once was.<\/p>\n
That might look like “going for a walk as a family, and having a bout of running in-between, or little running races. It doesn’t have to be a continuous run for a kilometre,” Dr Bennett says for example.<\/p>\n
He says a rough guideline from seven onwards could be:<\/p>\n
Ages seven to nine: children can start going on runs lasting 20 to 30 minutes, up to three times a week.Ages 10 to 12: children can increase this to three to five runs per week that last 20 to 40 minutes at a time. However the distance should be capped at about 5 kilometres.Ages 13 to 17: teens can progress running on a more individual basis.How to minimise the risks of running<\/p>\n
There is nothing “inherently dangerous” about kids running, but it’s important to make sure they work up the fitness and strength over time, Dr Bennett says.<\/p>\n
“If they want to run 5km, we don’t just say ‘let’s do it’, we try some walking and running intervals, and increase gradually.”<\/p>\n
Professor Lubans says the message should be “gradual and progressive”.<\/p>\n
“Don’t expect too much too soon.”<\/p>\n
He says the biggest risk is children developing an aversion to exercise.<\/p>\n
Dr Bennett warns kids who specialise in an activity too early in life do experience “much higher rates” of burnout.<\/p>\n
“That does turn them off \u2014 we see that whether it’s long-distance running or a sport.<\/p>\n
“We really want our kids doing a variety of activities all the way up into adulthood to get varied development of physical capacity, and exposure to different activities.”<\/p>\n
He also warns pushing them into any kind of sport or activity can “turn them off exercise more generally.”<\/p>\n
Avoiding diet talk around kids<\/a><\/p>\n“A parent counting calories in front of their child might lead to a child being preoccupied with food, calories, and weight.”<\/p>\n
Keep it fun and positive<\/p>\n
Louise Baur, a professor of child and adolescent health at The University of Sydney, says there are a range of activities parents can role model to make running types of exercise enjoyable for kids.<\/p>\n
“Children will enjoy games of tag or chase, red light\/green light.<\/p>\n
“Think of a range of types of activity: bush walking, dance moves, scavenger hunts, obstacle courses, walking the dog, water gun battle, shooting hoops, trampolining.”<\/p>\n
How we talk about running and why we do it also matters, says Dr Bennett.<\/p>\n
“Make it a really low-stress, low-pressure environment.”<\/p>\n
Professor Lubans says to focus on running together to connect and socialise.<\/p>\n
And choose a pleasant environment (not a 35-degree-Celsius day for example) out in nature, he suggests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you enjoy running and your child has shown interest in coming along, you might be wondering when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1348,499,103,61,60,1786,4740],"class_list":{"0":"post-377824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-exercise","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-parenting","14":"tag-running"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377824","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=377824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}