What More Could a Parent Do?
As parents we are constantly reminded that it is our responsibility to get our offspring to be active, to get exercise and not to lie around eating fast food while playing computer games. Many parents will probably agree that persuading their children to ignore their televisions and computer games can be impossible.
Last year I invested a significant amount of hard earned cash in a few pieces of outdoor play equipment, chosen by my two youngsters. They always enjoy a visit to the park where they can run around, swing on the swings, slide on the slides and climb the climbing frames. Unfortunately our nearest park is about 3 miles away so these visits are not as frequent as they or I would like. So I bit the bullet and shelled out quite a bit of money on a wooden swing slide playset and climbing frame which I put together whilst my wife was conveniently at the health spa.
Now I would like to report that my generosity has paid off and my children are now fit and active and can’t get enough of their new equipment.But nothing could be further from the truth. Since I installed the equipment myself (which presented many headaches, took a lot of hammering and quite a bit of bad language) they have only played on it three times. Admittedly I didn’t get the equipment until the Autumn of 2009 and since then the weather has been appalling.
At least that is the reason they give when I try to convince them that they’d enjoy a little outdoor play. It’s too cold, they say. Or they say ‘the swings are too wet to sit on’ when it’s been raining. I’ll be needing one of those spa treatments at this rate!
I’m hoping that, as we move into spring and the weather improves, they will naturally want to get out into the garden and get some much needed exercise on their new outdoor toys. I’m dreading another miserable, wet summer as this will result in my fat children just getting fatter instead of working off those excess pounds with a little outdoor adventure. Nobody ever said that being parenting was easy. Although the odd massage does go down well when it all gets a bit stressful