As schools all over the world are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a tough spot for most parents. Added to their worries is keeping their kids engaged. Under best circumstances, the presences of indefinite school holiday are somewhat a huge nightmare.
Nightmare for Parents
If you are a parent, your bucket list of worries has increased. Regardless of the social distancing, being home quarantine, you are stuck at home. Alas even the end of the PE or karate classes of your kids, hits the drain. Without any soccer or baseball practice, your kids have the chance to become a couch/gaming potato.
Now from a health point of view, being stuck inside your home is not something you need to worry about. Well, COVID-19 should not keep you from being fit and healthy. When it comes to your kids, they surely need to burn off that energy and remain active. Being in motion is necessary for their well-being.
Difficult Times Need Tough Measures
Surely you are going through a difficult time and in such a case, it can be hard to think of exercising since the whole family is stuck indoors for the whole day. For kids and adults alike, being fit and working out can do wonders for then physically as well mentally.
Doctors and medical experts feel that since there is so much uncertainty going on and each person is anxious about the future, exercise can be one of the greatest ways of decreasing stress. Plus, it helps one to take a break from the monotony of everyday life. But since the parks and play centres are out of the bounds and closed, the real question is how one can keep their kids especially below 12 and teenagers be active in this period of isolation.
What Can Be Counted as A Great Workout?
Most of us are used to attending classes or counting the number of laps run around at the park. In such a scenario, it is tough to measure how much exercise we are doing in front of the room or at the back garden just to be fit.
Health experts and doctors feel that one needs to do a good amount of aerobic exercises for reducing the risk of getting cardiovascular diseases as well as type 2 diabetes. Even the same is with high blood pressure and other health risks. As an adult, you really need to reach 55-85% of your maximum heart rate.
Ultimately, moving your body is good. Plus running around and having fun or putting on the stereo and hitting some dance moves is great. Here it does not matter what you are doing if you are doing something.
Take Up A Routine
Now let us think about it. Can it be a great idea for setting some timeslot for the daily workouts for kids? Should we need to be more flexible? Here health experts feel that it greatly depends on the kid and the other various commitments you have. Certain kids that suffer from special needs or anxiety would benefit from a routine. However, you do have to keep in mind that this is not a one-size-fits-all.
Routines Selected Will Not Always Be Apt for Family Life and Work
Health experts feel that it does not matter when you are selecting to exercise. The exercise session should be something that you would want to do and something that is going to be fun. Here if it happens at a certain point, it will not matter.
Improvisation – Making Some Changes in Exercising
Sometimes we are more used to lifting weights at the local gym. You might like jumping on the trampoline at the leisure centre. Whatever it is, the issue is that you will not know what kind of tools to use at home for enhancing the workout. You must be creative and try to encourage your kids to join in your exercising regime.
Hula hoops are cheap, and they will not take a lot of room. Hence, they are the best thing for adding to your workout. However, you must know that really anything goes. You can fill up the water bottles or use the baked beans tins as weight resistance. Try to use the sofa for doing push-ups. Here you must be inventive with things that are around your home.
You can try boxing where all you need are pillows or pads. Well, it will not require a huge amount of space. Jump rope skipping would be a great motivation, and that too if you add up with a YouTube video.
Go Outside and Breathe Fresh Air
All you need to do is just go for a stroll to the nearby park and get some fresh air. This is the easiest method of keeping one active in the house and avoids any kind of cabin fever. Most of the medical experts and doctors feel that this can be done under the current guidelines.
It is necessary for both adults and kids to do exercise and ensure that they enjoy it. Being outside and that too in the park is really a good thing. Well, the key aspect is to avoid any kind of all kinds of close contact, however, when it is open-air and people are really keeping a good amount of distance, then there is no harm in people enjoying themselves.
Some health experts feel that you could try cycling. By getting on the bike, you can be healthy, and this is one of the great activities that you can do with your kids since outdoor spaces end up being less traffic-congested or busy.
Playing Balloon Tennis
This can be a classic sort of exercise. Of course, it is simple and even a cheap one as you will not need a few feet of living room space for doing this activity. Plus, you will not have to worry about your TV getting smashed. For this activity, you would be needing a pack of balloons, something that can be sturdy like a sofa or chair for acting like a net and last but not the least two players to whack the balloon forth and back across the room. In certain cases, parents might find themselves getting involved just for the sake of stress relief as and when you hit an object as hard as possible.
Try to Do the Keepie Uppie Challenge – Using the Toilet Roll
Nowadays, children can do more than ever. Well, they can feel the kinship along with their favourite sports star. Everyone is in the same boat when it is related to self-isolation. For emulating the skills of the finest in football, one does not require any kind of pitch or cheering crowd or even a ball. Here players substitute it with a simple roll of the toilet paper.
In this viral social media sensation, there are various footballers’ worldwide posting videos showing their attempt in doing the keepie uppie challenge and that too using just a single toilet roll. Well, this has been done with the effort to encourage individuals to stay home. Furthermore, this is one of the easiest and best methods of keeping the movement of kids’ bodies and even the best way for matching or beating their sport’s idols’ highest scores.
Try to Invest in Smart Football
Sometimes you might feel that your toilet roll stockpile can be a bit precious for getting kicked around. Well, you can try to invest in something like Dribble Up or any other smart basketball or football that is simply designed for improving one’s skills.
These games will provide one-on-one virtual coaching and even provide your kids with hundreds of challenges and work on the ball skills. Hence, it will help them to get ease past the defenders when they finally get back on the pitch or court.
Most importantly, this is something that you can do indoors. Plus, it is not something that your kids can do alone. You can yourself try to hone your footwork or the bouncing skills as and when you are in the five-a-side team when it is back up and running.
Trying to Do PE In Your Living Room
Of course, there is not any kind of physical education course that your kids can do now as the schools are closed. You can easily see that in the form of the laziness that your kids are displaying the whole day.
That does not mean that your kids cannot get access to some physical education. There are various online trainers doing a live session. Just check out those online videos. Through those online videos, you can gain the details of the various exercising regime that your kids can follow.
Plus, these videos will be having special sections that kids can do. As it is a live session and not a recorded one, there is a possibility that you can get instantly replies regarding the on-spot queries that you have.
Try Trampoline
Sometimes you might have a good amount of garden space. And the benefit of bouncing around the trampoline cannot be really counted in such instances. Here not only it will keep the kids entertained for long hours, but it would require just a single person to get involved. Plus, you can watch them for safety purposes while getting any kind of work done.
Try to Be More Creative in Your Own Backyard
The first thing you can do is make backyard activity easy as well as enticing. Here most health experts feel that you need to encourage your kids to go outside and try on some sporting equipment that they can use.
At times you can make your kids get on board some wheels. Make sure that your kids are out and riding their bikes or scooters, either using their rollerblades or skateboard right in the driveway or even up and down the road.
You even have the option to convert your backyard into a good sporting venue. Try to set some game right at the backyard like cricket, frisbee, play basketball, go for throw and catch, try the trampoline, kick a ball, play the piggy in the middle, chase bubbles, bats, hula hoops, pull out balls, Pilates mat or yoga, etc.
In addition, you can even try to mix up and really think out of the square. Go for some balloons for playing balloon tennis, volleyball, or soccer. You could even try to create some obstacle courses for kids to do outdoor or indoors using household items. This can make them to crawl over and even under things. Sometimes it can be a great way or thing to have races in the backyard. Relay races like hopping, jumping, running backward, frog jumps, using the pillowslip, walking sideways, and even doing sack races, etc.
Contacting Coaches for Some Workout Programs
During the quarantine period, it might be difficult for you to prepare some workout programs for your kid. Well, if your kid had been at the school, you will not have to worry as the teacher would have prepared the required workout programs.
Now you can contact the respective teachers and get the best workout programs but some of them might not provide the right ones. Well, you cannot blame them. They are sitting at their house and spending some quality time with their family. They might not be having the time to sit and research for the best workout programs that your kid can do at home. In such situations, do not worry.
You can always try to check out the online programs that are available for your kids to do. Try to watch the video first and if you feel your kids can follow them, and then ask them to do it.
Encouragement Is Only Solution
Lastly, your kids might not seem at first agreeable in doing the exercises or activities. Sometimes you do have to provide them a small dosage of encouragement of their favourite cartoons or chocolates to eat. You could even try bribing them with their favourite foods or activities that they like to do.
Here ultimately, you must make sure that your kids have some kind of activity or movement.
