I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Yes, Bren, you've made my point.  Don't play around; just do it!  I agree that dogs are more likely to eat their pills if the meds are hidden in a wad of cheese.  And, kids are more likely to eat their broccoli if it's smothered in cheese sauce.  (What is it about cheese?) 

Sometimes deception is the only way to go.  Ask the child to go out to the mailbox and get the mail.  (My dh does that to me all the time.  It's half a mile, each way.  I usually take the 4-wheeler.)  Sometimes it's perfectly reasonable to pay a child to do something you want him/her to do.  Don't some parents pay their kids for good grades?  Why not pay them for getting exercise?  (I'm thinking on the fly here.)

Oh, and... congratulations!  That's very good news.  There has been a lot of good news around here lately... except for LisaSDCA, of course. 

I am thinking families need to do this fitness and nutrition stuff together.  There is only so much that can be accomplished by the schools.  Parents and kids need to talk about it, and plan it, and do it. 

But I don't have a plan to offer, nor am I prepared to answer the politico-social survey yet.  (I have to think about my answers too much.)

otter

They can also tell them to SHUT UP at public libraries and museums.  It would make life so much easier for the rest of us if some parents didn't act as though their children were everybody's business. My attitude is, "I wasn't there when you go laid, I didn't enjoy the orgasm, so don't get me involved at this boring and cumbersome stage."

"Athena" the childless. :-)

Budget cuts to physical education.

Way to go Bren!

Yay Bren - the marketing paid off - good on you!

Athena - I generallly mutter in the child's direction "I don't remember the pain of giving birth to you" it always gets a lot of laughs from the adults in the area but of course not the mothers.

Also childless,

Sandy

Sandy - lol!!

Also childless brat-hater Barb.

The exercise thing is tough . . . and I say that as a late-blooming running fanatic, who wishes I could persuade my teenage daughter to run with me, even as I remember full well just how much I LOATHED physical education (and especially running) as a kid.  I do think that some, er, creativity (if not outright sneakiness) is in order to get kids moving.  I mean, does anyone remember those Presidential physicial fitness challenges fondly?  I sure don't.

My pet peeve is teenagers who drive everywhere.  We live in a very compact community (pretty much everybody at my daughter's high school lives within a 1.5 mile radius) with safe streets, and my daughter is one of very few students who walks to school (a little over half a mile in our case).  Her friends pity her.  And instead of encouraging kids to walk, the school just expanded the student parking lot! 

(Some of the same parents who buy their kids cars also buy them health club memberships so they can work out . . . after driving to the club, of course.)

 L

EDITED to fix a typo.

I had 3 ADHD children.  I can remember one of us sitting in a car with one of them if they misbehaved in a store or restaurant.  They couldn't sit still long enough to watch a whole show on TV.  We lived on a farm and they would play outside everyday.  Rain or shine.  I wish I had made healthier food choices for them but we never had pop, chips or candy in the house unless it was a very special treat.  I would actually get them a 'fun' cereal for their birthday breakfast...and that was it.  

My husband and I used to tell our kids that there were "physical challenges" on the income tax return so that they would leave us alone so we could actually do our return. For example, we would say, "Oh look! Here on line 21 it says,'Run around the yard 5 times and then do 25 jumping jacks.' " Our kids would even argue over who got to do the "physical challenge". This worked for about 3 years.....

So yes...I have lied to my children.

Mary 

Ang, that is disgusting.

We've lived in 4 states and PE has varied in quality, but in all of them the kids were tested against standards at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Some gave presidential fitness patches and some didn't. I think PE teachers (for the most part, Ang's example and a few stupid coach types aside) do try to have lessons that will improve fitness and contribute to life-long enjoyment of physical activity. They don't always succeed.

We have 3 kids, now 16, 20, and 24. They are/were extremely well behaved and you would have been happy to sit next to them on a plane or in a restaurant. (Seriously. My father says we are "bred for docility"!) When they were little we went to playgrounds all the time regularly and took walks with them on their trikes and little bikes. When the were school age we were lucky to live in a small town where the YMCA provided inexpensive, year-round, everyone plays, sports activities.

They all moved from that to one sport they trained for in middle/high school. Let me add at this point that none of them are natural athletes. No all-stars in this family. Just hard workers who are very coachable. D2 is still involved in her sport at the college level (but she picked a college where the level of sports was low enough for her to still contribute). D1 and now D3 quit competitive sports mid-high school. D3 just told me this year "I'm not a competitive sport kind of girl." That said, they are aware of the need to stay active and D1 did a lot of fun PE activities in college and now she and her boyfriend run and hike together. Not at an intense level, but they have fun. D3 works out with me a couple times a week. And I admit she doesn't have a lot of choice in the matter.  My sister and I have coerced her into trying a sprint triathlon with us. They are all well informed that staying fit and staying away from binge drinking is the best thing they can do now to lower the risk of BC later. We have always eaten fairly well, now more than ever we eat a plant-based diet and the older girls, even though they don't live with us, are adapting that in their own lives.

Make activity part of your life from the beginning of theirs, feed them healthy food without being obsessive about it, encourage them to find sports they like, especially life-long ones, have clear expectations about what people who live at your house do and be consistent with them. And give them lots of hugs!

That's my parenting advice column of the day. 

edited to change "spring" triathlon to "sprint" triathlon. There's a difference! 

Medigal, I failed Home Ec. I am HOPELESS with a needle and thread. Buttons I can do in a pinch but not well. I can cook but that didn't save my grade since most of it was the stupid A Line skirt I had to sew along with the apron (right..an apron...when would I ever wear an apron?). And we also had to sew a stupid shift-type dress. So all my successful cooking and my abysmal failures with sewing = F. Wait, they don't give F's anymore do they?

As far as PE, I wasn't really that athletic but I like playing basketball and I was a pretty good guard (even though I was only 5 feet tall when I was a senior...I grew 2 inches after HS and at 19 I was 5'2". I also played softball and I remember the neighborhood kickball games. I lived on a corner and my houses's corner was second base. I remember one time I nailed one and broke our front storm door. Boy was I in big trouble.

edited for the usual typos.

Good at varsity athletics, especially 100m. Also good at swimming. Abysmal at everything else. I both loathed and feared team sports. I had two left feet, no confidence, and I attracted balls like magnets.

School PE was horrid.  Dancing, volleyball, what was it the 10BX plan, something with a lot of pushups.  Was no way to interest me in exercise.

We didn't have bussing.  So we walked to school.  The walk home was spent exploring abandoned houses, rotten trees and any stream deep enough to soak my boots.

We went out to play - never stayed in the house.  Running around, riding bicycles, skipping, getting in trouble.  

Whatever happened to playing?

There was less processed, sugarized food available.  Cereal tasted like blah - so who would want to eat too much of it.  Chips were a BIG treat.  Maybe 2x a year.

Most children today have so much more than we did, while at the same time, have so much less.