For wanting to improve my child's fitness?

[Skylab12]

So my eldest DS is 8 years old. He is not sporty at all, has never shown an interest in learning to ride a bike and prefers things like reading, lego, arts and crafts etc. He's a introvert and a home body like me (and I obviously love him for who he is). Apart from daily dog walks and school runs I'm not out doing daily exercise so maybe IABU for expecting him to want to be more active? I think it stems from concern for his health. He is a bit overweight! He does cubs, swimming and parkrun, all of which he has chosen to do but he gets tired so easily with any physical activity. Today he got back from parkrun really upset because he'd gotten a bad stitch and come last. Should we just leave him be or try and encourage him to improve his fitness? If so how? I don't want to be pushy or for it to cause upset. My 3 year old DD is an absolute whirlwind who never stops so we do get out everyday when it's not school but my DS will chose to sit on the swing or take a book and read on a bench 😅

I think if he is walking the dog most days, walking to/from school, doing school PE (I hear you on the cancelations), swimming and park run, he is doing a reasonable amount for a none sporty child.

It will be his weight that is making things tough, and food is the route to minimizing further weight gain until his height and weight are more in proportion.

I didn’t mean PE. I work in a primary school and most children are running around playing and chasing at lunch time and two 15 minute breaks.

My Ds was like that. Not a natural sportsman, but too competitive and used to get upset.

You could cycle together as a family. I spent ages teaching ds to ride, then cycled with him on the common, where there are no cars, to build fitness and confidence. During lockdown we cycled every day. Swimming is another good one. Make it family fun, then enrol him in a class. Every dc should learn to swim anyway, and it's great for fitness.

Perhaps a martial arts class would appeal to him. Also good for core fitness while having fun and without obvious winners and losers.

If you want to do something fun but indoors brain breaks on YouTube are great. You can choose from loads. And cosmic kids yoga do themes. Means he might be less conscious. And they don't talk about weight, or exercise it's simply seen as fun 😊

Love cosmic yoga.

We have just started family runs once a week. My dc are normal weights but only one is sporty so I wanted to get them moving - running for health rather than to win. We did do park run every week back in 2019 but stopped and now it’s 30 minutes drive to the nearest one. We did a 3k yesterday and will do a 5k in the week. Slow but steady. Dd1&3 are fine with it but dd2 struggles because her brain gets involved. We were honest and said that in the winter it’s too easy to be lazy and we need to stay active. Most admit, I was surprised they were so up for it.

@Binjuiceisthebest hahahahaha student name?

I'd be very careful OP. Absolutely do not focus on weight loss as a goal. It actually doesn't sound like he's inactive. He's just not a natural athlete so isn't particularly good at the sports he does. (My eldest is the same). The best plan is to find activities he likes and can sustain. Learning to swim is a must and happens to be good for fitnessso make sure he's having regular lessons until he's a strong swimmer (not with weight loss as a goal just as a life skill).

A good sport for geekier introverts is climbing if there's a bouldering wall nearby and you can afford it it can be great as it's individual so you can be as socialable as you choose, it's slow paced but excellent for strength and fitness. The trouble with team sports is introverts often hate them and if you're not sporty it's humiliating as you feel you're letting down your team, even if it's low level.

Intense exercise actually has very little effect on weight (but can have other advantages). In terms of his food make nothing out of bounds but ensure it's balanced and he's eating intuitively. This is essential at his age as it's natural to put on fat and need more energy before a growth spurt. Unless a child is dangerously overweight you shouldn't be manipulating their intake. Focus on complex carbs (oats, wholemeal bread and pasta, sweet potatoes etc) plenty of healthy fat and protein. Lots of veg too obviously.

The absolute last thing to do though is make exercise or healthy eating a chore. It should be part of what you all do as a family and centred around joyful movement.

Can you walk to school and back? That's the biggest thing that impacts our DC fitness.

What about dance? My dd hates sports but loves dancing.

Of course YABU to want to improve your sons fitness levels but YABU if you plan to force him into doing extra activities or ones he doesn't like. Swimming, park run and cubs sounds enough for a relatively unfit introvert. Stick with these and work on his self esteem. Concentrate on letting him see how much he is improving rather than how he compares to others. Get an app or even a wall chart where you can plot his progress each week.
Sounds like you've got the balance right atm. Good parenting 👍

YANBU to want to improve his fitness!

I was going to mention Rugby... At DDs club all the Minis and younger junior teams start training together before splitting off as appropriate. The U9s downwards (English Yr4 and below) do lots of games like bulldog, relays, passing etc. The older teams do the tackling practice etc, but everyone gets to play in games as soon as they feel ready. There's a big emphasis on teamwork (for example they have to finish an exercise together, no one can be left behind and no one is allowed to sprint off)

Another thing my kids like us doing Just Dance videos on YouTube.

Absolutely agree with this. I hate exercise but 10 minutes of Joe doesn't feel like it and once I've done it once I very often do it again or search for another one. I have joined a hill walking group. We walk and chat so you don't realise how many miles you have actually done. Could you walk somewhere nice as a family. We do longer walks with a picnic stop in the summer. Today we did a 3 mile walk with a cafe stop. We go out in all weathers. Makes you feel so uplifted afterwards. As good for your mental health as it is for your physical health.

Absolutely I'd encourage him to be more active especially as he is growing like a weed now so can get away with being less active and not becoming overweight. The fact that he is a little overweight already would absolutely lead me to encourage his fitness and healthier eating
It's hard when they've no real interest but it's important to teach them to look after their bodies
Re weight. The saying 'you can't out train a bad diet" is really true. Focus on filling his plate with veg etc for meals and hopefully you'll see some positive results soon .

I think I’d look at his calorie intake rather than just focus on exercise and see if you can make some changes without him noticing.

This!!! Whilst it's great you and he are happy to get him fit and active, the brutal truth is that he is probably obese and needs his diet looking at - that's what's going to make the biggest difference to his size, and in turn lowering his BMI should make his park run times improve.

Throwing a Frisbee. Gets you leaping and running but it's just pure fun.

My DC love rugby but I'd question whether an unsporty child would benefit from the most physical sport possible . If it stayed as tag, possibly, but if he's U9 now they'll be starting tackle soon to prep for next season and then it'll go up to contact for U10 and be a whole different game. By the time they get to U11 it's pretty intense.

Ironically, mine do park run to improve their match fitness for rugby.

That said, in the ruck, the slightly overweight kid is king!!

My kids like the 'chase' you tube clips - gets them moving and puffed out! Try searching harry potter chase to find the sort of thing I mean and then you can get loads of different themes

Not in my experience (as a teacher).

I don't think I've ever seen children running on our ks2 playground! They're too busy chatting.

My 11 year old son is the same, slightly overweight, doesn't really enjoy sports, would prefer to read books, play video games. He is more book smart than sporty. We've always told him he has to pick a sport to do as it's good for fitness, exercise, makes friends outside of school, but it can be ANY sport he likes & we've tried a few. In the end he loves Rugby Union, he has fun, made lots of friends and his larger size helps him on the pitch as other kids struggle to tackle him. Rugby has helped build his confidence that is strong and tall and that you can still be fit by being a bit larger than anyone else. He loves going now, but it took a while to get there. Why not encourage him to try different things, Karate, Dance classes? Everyone has something they like and make it fun trying different things?

YANBU, but this post highlights to many on here why you might need to consider doing things outside of your comfort zone when you have DC, as they’ll often follow in your footsteps re introversion etc.

If he is chubby though you’ll need to look at his diet more so than exercise

Walk to school rather than scoot or bike...walking is constant whereas the other two are mostly free riding so not of benefit health wise.
Walk anything that is less than a mile...walk to the library, walk to get bits in town etc.

@Pinkflipflop85 really? Ours are football mad or rugby mad. The others play tag.