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Keeping The Kids Active This Winter

By The Rescue® Team
Team RESCUE®

Keeping The Kids Active This Winter

Enter: winter. Enter: the family indoors, glued to heaters and screens like it’s their job. 

Staying active through cold weather can be challenging, but did you know that a big contributor to the peak in sickness through winter is the increase of time spent indoors near others without a source of fresh air flow?

Getting outside, or staying active inside, is all-important through winter. If you’ve got kids, it may be tricky to make sure they’re getting enough movement in, so here are our tips for motivating your children to keep active through the winter holidays.

Set a family exercise challenge

Keep the whole family on top of their game with a group challenge. You can cater to the type of activity you all enjoy – it could be broad like “30 minutes a day of moderate exercise” or more specific like “10,000 steps a day”.

Assess what resources you all have available, i.e. pedometers, smart watches, equipment or nearby ovals. If you all have devices that help track steps or exercise, you could consider creating a group within an app to keep track. Or, use a good old-fashioned honesty system.

Trying to hit your goals together could be a nice way to spend quality time, whether you’re walking together, playing a team sport or seeing who can do the most sit-ups. The level of competition is up to you. You may like to incentivise with a reward for the winner, or your family might not gel with competition and prefer simply to aim for a shared goal. 

Try something new together or teach your kids something you love

If you’re a sporty person, these holidays could be a good time to pass on some of your skills. Find a public basketball court or soccer oval, rug up and head out there together.

Or, if you’re not the active type, you could pick a new type of activity and give it a crack as a family. Yoga and bodyweight training are good options for when you’d rather stay indoors or not use equipment.

Limit screen time

Screens are often the antithesis of movement. Spending time on the couch and relaxing is a big perk of cold weather and definitely something you can enjoy as a family. If the kids are spending several hours a day entertaining themselves with screens, you may like to consider some boundaries around tech time.

Sharing the goal as a family is a great way to keep each other accountable. You could set a daily limit of screen hours and incentivise with a reward for anyone who keeps their screen time below the limit. If you can get the kids on board, you could all agree to put the phones away in a drawer before bedtime (but this might not be met with great cooperation!).

You could try encouraging movement by ‘earning’ more screen time through activity. For example, if they go for a 30-minute walk before dinner, they can have an extra 30 minutes of tv or phone time.

Stay warm 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated through the cold seasons, RESCUE Remedy® can help you regain balance, composure and focus. If you’re experiencing a negative mindset for more than a couple of weeks, please reach out to loved ones and a professional. 

Hopefully you can find an activity to enjoy even through the windy days to come – exercise is definitely one way to warm up! Stay warm this winter and look after yourself and your family. Sunnier days are coming!



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