I’ve been thinking a lot about making sure my kids stay active–even though they are still at the stage where they never seem to stop moving–and in doing so I’ve reflected on my own childhood a lot. So how do you get your bookworm to be more active? My own very favorite activities have always been sedentary ones–reading, writing, art–but I was a pretty bouncy child. I wish I still had that liveliness; what could have been done to preserve it? What would have made me want to move? Perhaps even more, what made me not want to move? Many of these hold true for me as an adult, too!
Table of Contents
Lack of Interest
For the most part, I just didn’t care about being active. I don’t like being outside; don’t like bugs and dirt. I don’t like sweat. It’s icky. However, I think with some creativity, I could have been lured into it. Again, how do you get your bookworm to be more active.
I like history–I like stories in general–and I would be interested in hiking around old foundations and abandoned rail beds and battlefields if a story went with it. Boston’s Freedom Trail is a good example of a really long but interesting walk I’ve taken.
I like winter–you know, no bugs, no dirt–and I wish I’d had more opportunity to do snow sports, although several of them are unfortunately cost prohibitive.
I liked art and music, and would have loved to learn Highland Dance.
Lack of Commitment
I loved soccer and still do–I’m always game for a game. 🙂 However, I quit playing on a team after fifth grade because I found practices boring (and a little embarrassing–see below.) I wish I could have played in a scrimmage league that just played games. (Note: I don’t know if these even exist.) I might not have gotten much better, but let’s face it, I never had a bright future in the sport. I needed it to be fun. I’m a little divided in my thoughts about this–I know that discipline, including doing things you don’t want to do or don’t enjoy, is important and a big part of athletics. But I gained neither discipline nor better health, so what would I really have lost if we just played games?
Embarrassment
I hated gym class. I can’t remember ever liking it, but I particularly remember hating it starting in fourth grade. We had to run laps, and I was always the last to finish. Everyone watched–or so I thought–my slow body rounding the corners, my asthmatic body stopping to breathe. The gym teacher yelled at me to keep going, or, worse, “Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth!” I have never been able to breathe through my nose regularly, but I’m a people pleaser, and it was torture not being able to do this and being constantly scolded for it. Finally, I have very, very light skin and it turns BRIGHT red when I exercise. Alarmingly red. Almost purple. People always throng around asking if I am ok. When I was younger, I didn’t realize it had so much to do with my skin tone and really wondered myself if I was ok. Nothing like sitting in gym class dying of embarrassment and wondering if I was about to die. What could be done differently? Of course, the gym teacher could be more sensitive. My other thought will probably not be popular, but I’ve been most faithful to exercise when I can do it in private and compete against myself. Couldn’t I have done it at home and, say, tried to beat my own best running time or sit up record? Gym class itself could have focused on learning form for different exercises.
Incentive Missing?
I mean this in a positive sense–I didn’t feel I gained anything by being active– and a negative sense– I didn’t really understand the consequences of being overly sedentary.
Kids who finish last in gym class didn’t get great grades in it. No incentive there.
I would work for money, and many’s the chore I did for my grandmother, who, I might add, did not pay for shoddy work. That’s another post right there. 🙂
Another incentive that would have worked for me might have been a sense of independence, as appropriate to my age, of course. If going for a walk in the back field meant I was trusted to be alone, it would have had greater appeal. (And it did…I did go for such walks.) Another take on that is I could have been given more responsibilities that involved moving–I think I would have responded well to that.
As an adult, I look at people much older than me, those who have led active lives and those who have not, and I know which one I want to be. We want to keep up with my grandkids at a theme park. Together we want to be able to pick them up. This isn’t entirely in my control, but I also know that there is a connection to how active I am now and how active I’m able to be then. I think I would have responded to this even as a younger person, comparing where I could be physically when I was 30, but no one taught me about that in a way that struck a chord with me.
Lack of Example
I hate to bring this up because I love my parents and think they did a great job. My family loves doing things together, then and now, and I would have signed up for anything that was going on. However…not much of it was physically demanding. I think the finger is really pointed at me here–my kids need a much better example, too. I exercise by fits and spurts; I’ve done a lot of it, but there are times when I do nothing. The good news is, I think I feel another fit coming on. 🙂
These are just some thoughts from a non-athlete, for what they’re worth. I’d love to hear creative ideas on getting your naturally indoors loving child–or yourself–to move and enjoy it!
I love all your ideas and insights, Jennie, and I shared many of your experiences. My head was often buried in a book or writing one thing or another (journal, stories, etc.). My mother would literally throw all us girls out there door and forbid us to come inside, paying no attention to our wails of protest. Thanks to imagination, we would dream up something fun to play outside….and many hours later she could hardly get us back IN the house for supper. Sedentary children definitely need a nudge, sometimes a good firm one. To this day, I’m still more of an indoors person and still love to read and write (hello blogosphere!) and now it’s my husband who often gives me the nudge I need to get out of my shell. It helps to have motivated, active people around you.
This could have been written about my daughter and was very helpful. She is such a bookworm that she is perfectly happy to lay in bed all day reading. I am glad she likes to read, but feel she is taking it to such extreme that it is doing her harm and she is missing out on living. I partially blame myself. When she was very young we lived in Florida and I was a single mom and teacher who worked full time, commuted 2 hours a day and was getting my Masters so when we were home I was too exhausted to do much of anything and it was too hot for her to play outside. Plus we did not live in a super safe area where I could just let her play without close supervision. She became a book lover and a TV watcher. Now I have a house in the country in the Mid-Atlantic and she could be spending time out exploring and enjoying the weather and views and instead she stays in her room and reads. In this day and age of cell phones, it is even worse because she can have her phone (as a kindle) stuck to her face 24/7. Just like you, she has interests in history and hates P.E. and sports . We plan to make her volunteer this summer, and thanks to your blog post, I will see if I can find a photography class that may take her out to the many historic sites for pictures, and we can take her on trips for that too.