Q: I have two kids aged five and six – Irish twins if you will. Both are extremely active busy little boys. There is not much sport going on at their local school but they do play football on a Monday evening (which we have to pay for). My husband, like me, is a keen runner and at weekends one of us goes on a run while the other looks after the kids. But my neighbour, whose boy is four, recently had him run a mile for charity and that got me thinking that we're missing a trick and could take the boys running with us. I'd just always thought they were too young for distance running. What do you think?
A: There is no doubt that our kids spend more time than ever now with computers and smartphones at the expense of their physical education. To their detriment. And our schools offer precious little by way of exercise and competitive sports, leaving it to conscientious parents to find (and pay for) after school activities to make up for it.
These football, gymnastics, multi-sports clubs etc are vital for helping hone their fine motor skills, develop hand eye co-ordination and fire up their competitive spirits. I was shocked to discover at our twins’ first sports day this summer that nobody actually wins! Everybody was a winner – just for taking part. Call me old fashioned, but I always thought of sports day as a great way to help children learn about good sportsmanship and how to lose gracefully. How else do we teach them that in the field of life there are winners and losers?
Like you, I have noticed a proliferation of ‘fun runs’, where the kids get to run alongside their parent/s who may be competing in a 5k or 10k race. Or the kids run a mile at the end of the event. Which all seems like a great idea to me. Or, at least it did, until I was involved in one earlier this year and witnessed some of the crazily competitive parents involved. There were a few pretty distressed kids being shouted at from the sidelines by mums and dads with faces glued to stopwatches screaming words of ‘encouragement’. Some ran alongside their kids to pace them. Parents and kids alike looked as though they were having anything but good fun. This kind of scenario raises obvious alarm bells.
It’s a constant balancing act as a parent to try to divorce one’s own needs and desires from those of our kids. Do I want Johnny to go running with me and my husband at the weekends because he seems to have a natural aptitude for the sport, has expressed a keen interest in joining us, and seems to be more than capable fitness and endurance-wise to cope? Or, wouldn’t it make life easier for me and my husband if Johnny came running with us every Saturday! And, we’d be doing our bit to combat Ireland’s childhood obesity epidemic while we’re at it. He is a bit chubby you see and really needs the exercise. It doesn’t matter that he hates it, he will learn to love it as we do in time . . .
Beware, too, of grouping your boys together as one. Irish twins or the real thing, no twin benefits from having his or her identity and needs seen always as part of a pair. One of your boys may be interested in running, and the other not at all. One may be much slower and less able. Remember that a year amounts to a lifetime at their age, so if they do have wildly different fitness levels, accommodate them. Perhaps you can each take a son separately the first time and see how he gets on.
For their developing bodies, do also encourage activities that work different muscle groups, whether its playing football (as you already do) or basketball, bike riding, or swimming aswell. This will help guard against overuse injuries, which are common in growing children. And keep asking yourself – whatever the sport – are they actually enjoying it?
Keep an eye out for signs of exhaustion and dehydration, especially over the summer, and always take any complaint of pain seriously: stress fractures and overuse injuries happen, and can be easily missed.
Provided everybody is keen to take part, there is no reason why your sons can’t join you on a slow leisurely run at the weekends. I wouldn’t take them over 5k and I’d have lots of stops and walks throughout so they don’t overdo it. The key thing is to make sure they are enjoying themselves, to let your sons set their own pace (separately) and to give them the support they need, rather than expecting them to adhere to you and your husband’s training schedules.
And as with all things, the best way to get our children excited about running is to set a good example, to show them how good it makes us feel. Through emphasising health, fitness and family time over distance and speed, you can help your kids develop a healthy habit that can last a lifetime. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll all run a marathon together. Just make sure before you sign them up that they genuinely love the sport as much as you do – or you will kill it for them.
The Grit Doctor says . . . Everything children do at this stage by way of exercise – and there is no doubt they should all be doing a hell of a lot more of it – should be fun. For them.
