Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Parenting

5 Fun Ideas to Keep Your Kids Busy This Summer

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It’s summertime and the living’s easy, unless you have kids at home sneaking screen time and moaning about being bored. If your kids need some motivation to get off the couch and have some fun, here are 5 fun summer activities for kids.

1. Have a Cooking or Baking Competition

Full confession: my family loves watching people cook as much as we like to cook. My kids have watched all the Great British Baking Show episodes and they love to throw around words like fondant and marzipan, even though they’ve never eaten either.

If your family has binged on the Great British Baking Show, Nailed It, The Final Table, or another cooking show, your kids may be thrilled to recreate one of these popular shows.

Depending on the age and abilities of your kids, they may need you on hand as an assistant chef. But if your kids are older, hand over your kitchen and serve as a judge. (It’s not a bad job, if you can get it.) Pro tip: Make cleaning up part of the contest.

2. Create a lemonade stand

Nothing excites kids like drinking lemonade and making spare money, so setting up a lemonade stand could become a favorite past time. Here are the simple steps for your budding entrepreneurs to get their business off the ground.

Supplies needed:

  • Outdoor table and chairs
  • Poster board
  • Markers
  • Lemons
  • Honey
  • Ice
  • Paper cups

Instructions:

  1. Set up the table and chairs in the front yard.
  2. Make a sign.
  3. Whip together lemonade. For a healthy recipe, combine 4 cups water, juice from 5 lemons, and 1/3 cup of honey (or more for desired sweetness).
  4. Pour it into paper cups, and add ice and lemon wedges
  5. Sell your lemonade for $.75 or $1 a cup.

Your kids will get to know some of the neighbors and wile away a hot afternoon. Plus, they may just make a little arcade money.

3. Send them on a treasure hunt

My friend Marianne shared a brilliant idea that she’s used to curb her kids’ boredom. It will take a little crafting on your behalf, but it will delight your kids and buy you an afternoon without hearing the words “I’m bored.” Plus, you may just get some homemade cookies for your efforts.

First, decide where to hide your clues. And remember, the goal here is to keep your kids busy. Try these wonderful ideas, from Marianne:

  • Hide a clue in a book they have to read to find it.
  • Hide a clue in a garden they have to explore.
  • Hide a clue among instruments they have to play.
  • Hide a clue in a card game they have to play before turning the card over.
  • Hide a clue in a tree they have to climb.
  • Make the final clue a bag of chocolate chips and a recipe.

Next, write the clues. Rhyming clues set a fun tone, and don’t worry, you don’t need to be a poet laureate. These examples may get your creative juices flowing.

  • To figure out your next plan, read chapter one of a book about a dragon clan.
  • To see what you need to see, climb to the top of the cherry tree.
  • While playing a game of Speed, search for the loving queen.
  • Your next clue is not inside a toy. To find it, you must play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

You get the idea! When you’re done, hide your clues, sit back, and watch the fun ensue.

4. Create duct-tape crafts

If you have a pair of scissors and a few rolls of duct tape around the house, you have all the tools you need to keep your kids busy for hours. Meanwhile, you may encourage a love of crafting.

Here are a few of the fun crafts your kids can make with duct tape:

5. Film movies

Lights! Camera! Action! Inspire your kids to become mini writers, directors, and actors. All they need is a smartphone, and a tripod will improve the end result if you have one. Apps like iMotion, the Lego Movie Maker, iMovie, Magisto, and Telestory can help your kids create and edit their video stories.

If your kids aren’t sure where to start, here are some ideas to inspire them.

  • Recreate a favorite movie scene with toys or Legos.
  • Make a music video by playing a favorite song and lip-syncing and dancing.
  • Film a sports video with commentary and slow-motion replays.
  • Recreate a journalistic interview show.
  • Do a stand-up comedy skit.

More Ideas

If those ideas don’t sound fun, there’s plenty more to keep your kids busy this summer. When you hear, “I’m bored,” be ready with these ideas:

  • Create a sidewalk chalk mural
  • Paint rocks
  • Run in the sprinkler
  • Make popsicles
  • Have a paper airplane contest
  • Invent your own board games
  • Build bird feeders
  • Learn a musical instrument
  • Learn to sew
  • Go geocacheing
  • Go letterboxing
  • Fly a kite

Buck Boredom This Summer!

It’s amazing how quickly kids go from celebrating summer to complaining about being bored. Use these fun ideas to help your kids get creative and enjoy some screen-free summertime fun.

[Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post, originally published July 2, 2019]

Count Down to Christmas with Random Acts of Kindness

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My kids start counting down to Christmas the day after Halloween. I know they’re not alone. Many of us have an eye on the calendar this time of year (some with glee and some with a nervous glance at the to-do list). A Christmas countdown calendar is a great way to give you and your family a visual reminder of how many days are left before December 25.

A few years ago, my family started a kindness countdown tradition, and it’s become one of my favorite parts of the season. The holidays can get a tad overly focused on receiving. (Sorry about the 10-page list from our house, Santa.) Random acts of kindness put a little more of the focus on giving.

Count down to Christmas with Random Acts of Kindness #holidayRAK #kindness

This season is stressful enough, so my family sticks with simple, inexpensive acts of kindness. But we hope they make a difference to someone’s day. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Picking up trash around our neighborhood
  • Leaving $5 in a library book for a stranger to find
  • Paying for a stranger’s coffee
  • Taping a dollar to a random vending machine

My kids aren’t always thrilled about every activity. But I try to make it fun, and they usually get into the spirit of it.

Random acts of kindness aren’t entirely selfless. It feels great to go out in the world and do some good.  Researchers have found that volunteering and doing small acts of kindness actually improve the health and well being of the giver.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The last month of 2020 needs some cheer! Check out these fun ways to countdown to Christmas with random acts of kindness. https://abbyquillen.com/holiday-kindness/” quote=”The last month of 2020 needs some cheer! Check out these fun ways to countdown to Christmas with random acts of kindness.”]

Want to take part? Feel free to use our Holiday Kindness Countdown and/or download and print my 2020 Christmas Kindness Calendar (link). Don’t feel like you have to do everything on the list. Pick and choose what resonates, or come up with your own random acts of kindness for the holidays.

Kindness is contagious. A person is more likely to give when he or she sees someone else giving. Share your random acts of kindness on social media, and more people may get excited about adding kindness to their holiday traditions. Use the hashtag #holidayRAK, and we can follow along.

Random acts of kindness Christmas countdown

Download and print a 2020 Christmas Kindness Calendar

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published December 1, 2016)

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How to Raise Kids Who Love to Read

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Novelists Stephen and Tabitha King raised a family of wordsmiths. Their sons Joe and Owen are both published novelists, and their daughter Naomi, a Unitarian minister, writes daily prayers.

When Joe (Hill) published his first novel Heart Shaped Box, he explained why he wanted to join his parents in the storytelling vocation: “It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch. This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least.”

Gathering the entire family to read aloud probably sounds quaint in an era when some families communicate mostly via text message and others can hardly find time to eat together once a week. But like the King’s our family enjoys read together as a family a few times a week. Here’s why. Reading together has tremendous benefits for both kids and parents. It can:

  • Create lifelong readers

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has surveyed adult reading every year since 1982. In 2012, they reported that only 54 percent of adults in the U.S. had read a book that wasn’t required for work or school during the year.

Kids may learn how to read and write in school, but schools clearly aren’t creating lifelong readers. Books compete with an ever-growing contingent of television shows, video games, and hand-held devices for attention, and the sad reality is, books are losing.

The good news? It’s easy for parents to encourage kids to read for leisure. All we have to do is read! Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, calls it the “sponge-factor” of education.

“Parents can encourage reading by keeping print books in the home, reading themselves, and setting aside time daily for their children to read,” advises Common Sense Media.

Reading aloud as a family is an excellent way to foster a lifelong love for the written word.

  • Develop focus and listening skills in both parents and kids

“Is Google making us stupid?” Nicholas Carr asked in an Atlantic Monthly article. “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. . . . Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” 

We’re probably all a little too familiar with Carr’s sentiment.

Concentration is a powerful tool. It enables us to work efficiently, stay task-oriented, and enjoy our leisure time. But modern life encourages distraction—from the running news feeds on cable news, to the always-beckoning sirens of email, Facebook, and Twitter, to the skimming paradise that is the Internet.

Don’t be surprised if you find it hard to sit and focus on a story for even a half an hour a day. But practice makes perfect. Reading and listening to others read is a fun way to develop  listening and concentration skills. Our kids, who don’t remember life before the Internet, need to develop and practice these skills even more than we do.

  • Build kids’ literacy skills

Reading with parents exposes kids to materials they might not be able to tackle on their own yet. It helps kids increase vocabulary, work on pronunciation, speak confidently, and gives them a chance to ask questions and build comprehension skills. Reading well is also the foundation of writing well, which might explain why all those King kids are professional writers.

  • Provide more reading and bonding time for families

A family reading tradition allows you to spend more of your day cuddling with the people you love the most and reading.

  • Fuel the imagination

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. . . . Imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution,” Albert Einstein wrote.

Unlike television or video games, reading forces us to paint pictures in our minds. Kids are naturally imaginative and creative, and they’re masters of make-believe.

But a lot of adults are so swamped with the details of daily life that we don’t have time for creativity. Nearly everything around us is the result of someone’s imagination – desks, computers, houses, skyscrapers, sewing machines, novels, clothes, etc. An active imagination is perhaps the most powerful tool we have as humans. Reading every day is a great way to exercise our imagination muscles.

  • Encourage relaxation and restful sleep

In just six minutes, reading can reduce stress levels by 68 percent, according to one study. It’s more relaxing than listening to music or drinking a cup of tea.

Some sleep experts warn that using any electronic device before bed can rob us of a good night’s sleep because the light from the screen halts production of sleep-producing melatonin. They recommend shutting TVs, laptops, PDAs, and cell phones off an hour before bed. Reading together by lamplight is a perfect, relaxing, sleep-friendly pre-bedtime activity.

  • Allow parents to reread favorites and explore new titles

It’s been fun to revisit many of my favorite children’s books with my kids and to discover new titles. Our kids explore the world through books, so we’re especially excited to read more diverse books.

Here are some popular kids’ book series to read aloud as a family:

  • Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
  • Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and its sequels by Judy Blume
  • Henry Huggins or Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary
  • The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R Tolkein
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy by Trenton Lee Stewart
  • Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull
  • Magic series by Edgar Eager

And here are some diverse, contemporary middle-grade books to read aloud as a family:

  • George by Alex Nino
  • Front Desk by Kelly Yang
  • Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish by Pablo Cartaya
  • Charlie and Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane
  • Ana Maria Reyes Does Not Live in a Castle by Hilda Eunice Burgos
  • Zoe in Wonderland by Brenda Woods
  • Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
  • Eagle Song by Joseph Bruchac
  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  • The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy

Tips for creating a family reading tradition

  1. Get comfortable. Pull out the pillows, drop into your sofa, or stretch out on your porch swing or Adirondack chairs. Make some snacks and cuddle. Family reading time shouldn’t be a chore. It should be a fun, relaxing leisure activity that everyone in the family looks forward to.
  2. Choose fun books with engaging story lines. Don’t feel like you need to plow through the classics. If you’re struggling to find a good book, go talk to your local children’s librarians. They read a lot, and they have loads of resources to help you find the perfect book. They can help you discover new authors who write like your favorite authors, find books in a particular genre, and access lists of award-winning books.
  3. Be dramatic – Create voices, read expressively, and practice your pacing. Show your kids that books can be even more entertaining than TV. If you need some inspiration, pick up some audio books at your local library and learn from experts at reading aloud.
  4. Give everyone a turn reading. When kids are old enough, let them take turns running the show.
  5. Get creative. Incorporate crafts, drama, or puppetry into what you’re reading. When I was in third grade, my dad read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey aloud to my sister and me. Those may sound like ambitious books for elementary school kids. But we followed along and loved every second of it, partly because he encouraged us to make costumes and act out scenes. For the Iliad, I played Hector and my sister played Achilles, and we spent weeks making swords and armor for the big battle scene. (I wish someone had told me how that ended before I chose to be Hector.) I still have an intimate connection with those two books. Years later, I aced the grueling exam on the Iliad in my freshman college literature class.
  6. Entertain younger kids. One of the challenges of reading as a family is appealing to different age groups. Pick a book that engages most of the family, and provide special toys for younger kids to play with just during reading time. Babies and younger kids benefit from seeing and hearing parents and siblings having fun reading, even if the story line eludes them. (Of course, they’ll need some additional one-on-one time to read books at their own level too.)
  7. Read together because it’s fun, not because it’s good for you. Resist the temptation to make everything into a lesson for your kids. Talk about what you read, but don’t drill them with questions.
  8. You don’t need kids to have fun reading aloud. My husband and I read aloud to each other long before we had a baby. Some couples read books on marriage or tackle religious texts. We stuck mostly to short stories and novels. Reading aloud is an entertaining way to spend time with anyone you love.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

[Editor’s note: This is a revamped and updated version of a post originally published on July 21, 2009.]

Does your family have a reading tradition? When and what do you like to read aloud together?

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I Gave Up Podcasts for Two Weeks. Here’s What Happened.

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What’s not to love about podcasts? They’re educational, entertaining, and free. I’ve been a fan since I downloaded my first one on my iPod Nano back in 2008.

I’ve listened to countless hours of Radiolab, This American Life, Invisibilia, Serial, and S-Town. I’d recognize Jad Abumrad’s voice in a crowded room.

I’ve also listened to amateur podcasts about arcane topics. I may admit to streaming them if I remembered the titles.

I’ve discovered interesting books and authors through podcasts. I’ve stumbled on topics to write about and people to interview. Podcasts helped me stay entertained during long nights pacing with crying babies and harried days at home with two little boys.

So why would I take a break from podcasts? In December, I was assigned to write an article with the title: “Is it Bad to Listen to Podcasts All Day?”

My immediate answer was, “No way! That’s my dream life!”

But then I dug into the research and reflected on my podcast habit.

My total listening added up to about one to two hours a day, or 7 to 14 hours a week. That put me in the super listener category, according to Edison Research. I usually listened when I was doing something else, like getting ready in the morning, cooking, walking, or driving.

I thought of my listening habit as a good thing. I love learning new things.

But as I revisited the research on multitasking, I wondered if trying to listen to podcasts while I hustled through life was causing me mental stress and fatigue and was actually dumbing me down. (Multitasking does that.)

Plus, some of the podcasts I was listening to were about how to live a more mindful life. And multitasking is, ahem, the opposite of mindfulness.

So I decided to do an experiment. I gave up podcasts for two weeks and replaced them with silence. Just me and my wandering mind. What happened next amazed me.

I felt relieved.

The first time I stepped out the door for a walk without glancing at my podcast feed felt like a vacation. Then I had the same sensation when I got in my car.

I wasn’t expecting to feel relief, because I thought of podcasts as something I enjoyed. But, like most people, I’m bombarded with choices and decisions constantly, which is draining. Not having to scan through feeds and find a podcast was refreshing.

Plus, it felt great to turn off the chattering in my ear (even if in this case, the chattering was entertaining me with well-crafted stories and occasional profound insights).

I live with two chatty little boys, who enjoy listening to Taylor Swift songs at high volumes. Our house is noisy when we’re all home. When I’m home alone, I read, research, and write a lot, so my mind is a busy place.

Quiet sounded so good.

Of course, this shouldn’t have surprised me. I’ve experienced enough quiet in my life to know it’s restorative.

Silence is regarded as holy in most religions. Spiritual people of all traditions herald the importance of quiet contemplation. Mother Theresa equated silence with prayer.

And scientists have discovered the power of silence accidentally when they used it as a control in research. In one study, researchers discovered that a two-minute silent pause in a piece of music was more beneficial for the body and nervous system than relaxing music.

In another study, two hours of silence a day caused mice to grow new functioning neurons in the hippocampus region of their brains. Imke Kirste, the lead researcher, theorizes that if the same results are found in humans, someday silence may be used to treat conditions like dementia and depression

But sometimes you have to immerse yourself in quiet to remember how healing it is.

Everything got easier.

When I turned off the podcasts when I was doing housework, the residual backlog of dishes and laundry at our house disappeared. I zipped through making dinner, even complex recipes. And I felt calmer and more engaged when I was with my kids. (I didn’t usually listen to podcasts when I was hanging out with my family, but I often felt in a hurry to get back to the chores so I could listen to one.)

Writing also felt easier. I attribute this to having more free time to think. The brain goes into its default mode when it’s not concentrating, where it wanders and self reflects. This state is just as essential to learning as concentration. In my well-intentioned attempts to learn more, I may have been shortchanging myself of going into this just-as-important brain state

You may think that listening to a podcast while doing something else isn’t really multitasking in the way that driving and talking on the phone is. But listening to a podcast is actually hard work for the brain. The brain is five times more active when listening to a story than when listening to a list of facts. Add sound effects, multiple characters’ voices, and a relatively fast pace, and the brain is busy.

When people were hooked up to MRI machines while they listened to Moth Radio Hour for a study, “Widely dispersed sensory, emotional and memory networks were humming, across both hemispheres of the brain,” according to Benedict Carey of the New York Times.

In hindsight, it’s funny that I thought I could listen to a complex story at the same time as I was making a new-to-me recipe or navigating an unfamiliar route in my car.

But that’s the strange thing about multitasking. We think we can do it, even though the brain can’t focus on two things at once.

Research suggests we lose 40 percent of our productivity and are four times slower at learning new things when we multitask.

I certainly felt 40 percent more productive when I stopped. But this seems to be a lesson I must learn repeatedly. I hope I finally got it this time.

Real life was more interesting.

What could be the downside of listening to a steady stream of well-crafted narratives and conversations designed to make you feel a deep sense of awe? Real life and real conversations can feel a little ho-hum. There are relatively few earth-shattering revelations, profound insights, and moments of realization in everyday chitchat.

Worse, listening to podcasts can give you the illusion you’re already socializing, which makes real socializing feel less essential. Pamela Druckerman, a self-confessed recovering podcast addict, writes in the Atlantic: “Podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly “meeting” new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods, and tell when they were flirting with guests.”

I hadn’t thought much about these downsides of listening to podcasts until I gave them up. Within a couple days, I felt more eager to run into people and chat. And when I was conversing with people, I felt more refreshed and engaged.

Plus, when I went for walks without a podcast, even around my neighborhood, I was blown away by all of the beauty: murmurations of starlings, fog twisting through the hills, delicate patterns etched across iced-over puddles. Had I really been missing all this before? Oh right, my brain was busy listening.

I felt happier.

I felt notably calmer. I slept better. I felt more present and engaged with my family. I noticed fewer moments of stress or anxiety.

Plus, at times, I had a feeling of spacious expansion that I haven’t felt since I was a kid. One day I was bringing books up to my son’s room. It was raining, and I laid down on his bed and listened for awhile before I returned to my chores. Another day, I sat down and read poetry, which I haven’t done for years.

My time was mine again. I could just focus on what I was doing. Or just be.

Of course, changing any habit can be hard, and giving up podcasts was no exception. I felt symptoms that felt like withdrawal (similar to when I quit drinking coffee awhile ago). I especially felt antsy when I was cooking, which is strange because cooking requires a lot of focus (and some inherent multitasking). Fortunately, preparing food in the quiet got a little easier as time went on.

Going Forward

Of course, podcasts are fun and interesting, and I miss some of them. Will I listen going forward? How much? To what?

I’m not sure yet. But I know I’ll be more mindful about what I trade my quiet for. Plus, I’m swearing off multitasking (again). Lesson learned (again).

Will taking a break from podcasts (or social media, radio, or television) change your outlook as much as it did mine? There’s no way to know except to try. If you do (or if you have in the past), leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

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4 Lessons Dogs Teach Us About Life

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We adopted a mixed-breed puppy five months ago. She’s jet black with white patches, and we named her Flower. Two little boys, a puppy, and two elderly cats make for a special brand of pandemonium — and a lot of joy. I grew up with dogs, but I’ve spent 15 years with feline companions. So Flower astounds me. “She listens! She seems to like us! We can actually train her not to do something!” Our cats, quintessential introverts, have no interest in such things.

Pets are a huge responsibility and expense. Americans spend 60 billion dollars a year on them. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what we get from these intimate inter-species relationships. Here are a few of the lessons Flower has been teaching (or reminding us of).

You don’t need words to communicate

Dogs are experts at reading non-verbal cues and tone of voice. They watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and can supposedly read us better than chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest primate relatives. Scientists say humans and dogs evolved as companions over tens of thousands of years, and some theorize that wild dogs instigated the inter-species relationship by learning to understand our gestures.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Dogs watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and read us better than primates. #dogs” quote=”Dogs watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and read us better than primates.” theme=”style1″]

For a long time, people assumed dogs were not as highly sensitive as they seem but were learning to recognize a cue, such as an angry voice. However, a more recent study suggests dogs categorize humans’ varied emotional responses, which helps them attune to our moods. And the ability seems to be intrinsic (not learned). In any case, spending time with a dog is an amazing lesson in how much we communicate without opening our mouths and how much we can learn about people by paying attention.

Empathy is powerful

One afternoon on the way to the dog park, Flower was a bundle of energy. It had just rained and the winding trail was slippery. As we rounded a curve, Flower saw the gate to the park, lunged for it, and pulled me down. Flower forgot all about the dog park. She turned around, ran to me, curled into my lap, and started licking my face.

I spend a lot of time with two little boys who are still learning the ins and outs of empathy — “It doesn’t matter if you’re sad, right Mommy?” But empathy seems to come naturally to Flower. And she’s not unusual in the canine world. A dog is more likely to approach someone who’s crying than someone who is humming or talking, according to one study. Relationships — human or canine — can be challenging. A little empathy goes a long way.

Puppy Power

Movement is fun

Dogs are excellent movement coaches. Flower never puts exercise on the end of her to-do list after a litany of chores. Moving is one of her favorite things, second only to food, and she never takes for granted the simple joy of walking or running or playing ball. Her zeal for moving helps us all add more of it to our days. Moreover, she reminds us that it can be our favorite part of the day.

Categories Don’t Always Fit

Adopting a dog can supposedly ward off loneliness, not only because you have the dog as a companion, but because the dog invites more social interaction with other people. It’s true. Our walks these days are filled with happy conversations with strangers. People love dogs.

Many passersby are curious about what breed Flower is. She is about as mixed-breed as dogs get. We usually list off a few of the breeds we’re relatively certain she has — English Pointer, Australian Shepherd, etc. But that answer usually does not suffice. Quite a few people are convinced they know what category she’s actually in. From Jack Russell Terrier to Bulldog to Border Collie, we’ve heard lots of different ideas. We humans sure like our categories, don’t we? Flower’s a good reminder that dogs (and people) don’t always fit in one.

I loved having a dog companion when I was a kid, and it’s fun to see how much my boys already love Flower. (Unfortunately, our cats are not such huge fans.) Training a puppy is not easy, but it has a way of reminding us what’s important. Besides, watching Flower chase her tail never gets old.

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Want Healthy, Happy Kids? Walk With Them.

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Walking has always been my favorite mode of transportation. Yes, it’s usually the slowest way to get somewhere, averaging fifteen minutes per mile. But it makes me feel clear-headed and invigorated when I get to my destination. Thus, I’ve long preferred striding, strolling, or sauntering to driving, riding, and even biking. That’s why I’ve commuted by foot to school and work most of my life, even when I was nine months pregnant.

My kids don’t exactly share my zeal for bipedal locomotion.

“You know, the car is faster,” four-year-old Ira patiently explains as we amble toward his preschool.

“One block, Mom. One block. Then we’ll turn around,” seven-year-old Ezra declares as we maneuver our puppy out the door for an after-school jaunt around the neighborhood.

I’ve never seen research on the topic, but the mental health benefits of walking seem to diminish rapidly when a child is trudging beside you complaining. So I’ve allowed and even encouraged the boys to grab their bikes on walks in the past. Wheels tend to help them move along at a nice pace, and their complaining wanes.

However, this year I’m on a mission to get my kids walking more. I love bikes, but I’m convinced walking, the upright movement that distinguishes us as human, is an under-appreciated key to good health. Moreover, not walking — 35 percent fewer kids walk and bike to school than they did in 1969 — may be causing a lot of problems for our kids (and the rest of us).

Walking is Anti-Sitting

Walking is not as vigorous as running or playing. But it may actually be the moderate intensity of walking that makes it so good for us. Why? It doesn’t tire us out, so we continue to move around for the rest of the day. However, those vigorous bouts of high-intensity movement we usually call “exercise” often encourage us to sit more. In one study, exercisers were 30 percent less active on the days they hit the gym. That’s a problem because varied all-day movement seems to be the ticket to optimal health.

You’ve probably seen the headlines that sitting too much increases cardiovascular issues, even when people exercise vigorously several times a week. Excessive sitting is bad for kids too. Just three hours of uninterrupted sitting caused the blood vessels of girls, aged nine to 12, to restrict in a study. Unfortunately most kids sit a lot. Worldwide, children sit for about 8.5 hours a day.

[clickToTweet tweet=”On average, kids sit for 8.5 hours a day. The antidote? Walking. #walking #kidshealth” quote=”On average, kids sit for 8.5 hours a day. The antidote? Walking.” theme=”style1″]

What’s the antidote to sitting? Lots of walking. Walking is not only good for our hearts and organs, it’s good for the entire body. Riding a bike gets the blood flowing, however, the hips stay flexed, our shoulders hunch forward, and our tails tuck. However, walking, when done in proper alignment, is the opposite of sitting. The movement elongates the spine and tones the pelvic floor. Biomechanist Katy Bowman calls it a “biological imperative,” because we must do a lot of it to maintain a healthy body, especially a healthy skeleton.

Want Healthy, Happy Kids? Walk with Them. #health

Walking Builds Healthy Bones

Experts say childhood is the best time to invest in healthy bones. According to the National Institute of Health, bone mineral density peaks around age 20 for boys and 18 for girls. Healthy bone mineral density both makes kids less at risk for childhood fractures and less likely to experience osteoporosis and fractures later in life. Alarmingly, more kids may have low bone mineral density than in previous eras, according to Orthopedic Surgeon Shevaun Mackie Doyle, perhaps because they get less activity and exposure to sunshine.

Biking gets kids outside, offers cardiovascular benefits, and is great for the environment when it replaces car trips. But it’s not so great for bone health, according to a number of studies. In studies, cyclists, especially those who ride on smooth terrain, have the same or even lower bone density than sedentary control groups. (Swimmers also have similar bone density to sedentary people, likely because both groups don’t bear their own weight while they’re moving.)

Walking not only builds healthy bones, it encourages kids to run, jump, skip, gallop, tromp, and tree-climb, all of which are superb bone builders.

Walking Improves Quality of Life

Walking isn’t just important for our bodies. It boosts mental health. It helps people attune to the environment, rather than their worries, and has been shown to increase the size of the hippocampus and improve memory. Walking to school helps kids focus for the rest of the day and has been shown to reduce the need for kids to take ADHD medication, according to a British study.

Daily walks also boost immunity, decreasing people’s chance of getting a cold by as much as 30 percent. That may be especially alluring to parents as we enter another cold and flu season.

Maybe you’re already convinced about walking’s superhero qualities? Warning: your kids may not be. Mine complain walking is boring and say it makes their legs tired. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make it more palatable.

How to Help Kids Love Walking

“You know, Mom, that was sort of fun,” Ezra remarked the other day after a one-and-a-half-mile walk to a school-related meeting. This walk is straight uphill, and a few months ago, he would have balked at the idea of it. So it was an exciting moment for me. However, getting him to this point required some effort on my part. The following tactics have made walking more fun for my kids and may help your kids enjoy walking more too.

  • Go Somewhere Fun

Whether it’s a playground or a birthday party, having a destination gets kids moving. One popular hike in our area is a winding uphill trek, but every kid I know hustles to the top. Why? There’s a swing up there.

  • Walk to School or on Errands

Walking is best when it’s used as a mode of transportation. That way, it becomes a seamless part of life, and kids and adults alike are less likely to think of it as optional “exercise.” Let’s face it, exercise is too often an activity we don’t enjoy that encourages more sedentary behavior for the rest of the day. It’s better to make walking routine.

  • Bring a Friend

Nothing seems to gets a kid moving like another kid. The instant a friend joins us, complaining vanishes as the kids race each other to the end of the block and scramble up trees.

  • Play games

A game of Red Light, Green Light or Follow the Leader is a sure way to get kids excited about a walk. We’ve invented our own walking game called Force Fields. Basically, there are imaginary “force fields” we can fall into in as we walk, and someone has to rescue us with an imaginary rope or magic dust. The game relieves my kids’ fatigue and boredom quickly, and they have a great time thinking up variations, such as “whirlwind force fields” and “quicksand force fields.”

  • Expect to Carry Little Ones Sometimes

Little legs tire faster than ours, so our littlest kiddos will probably need to be carried sometimes. It may be tempting to bring along a stroller or backpack, and I do when we’re going a long way, but these tools can encourage more sitting than walking. So on shorter walks I leave them at home and expect to carry my four-year-old occasionally. Here’s what I’ve learned. When I resist carrying him, everyone is miserable. When I happily let him climb up on my back, he’s usually back on his feet and running around within a block or two. And the good news is, carrying little ones is something we’re built to do, and it makes our bones and bodies strong. Think of it as strength training with built in hugs.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Walking builds healthy bodies and brains. With a little creativity, kids can love it. #kidshealth” quote=”Walking builds healthy bodies and brains. With a little creativity, kids can love it.” theme=”style1″]

Conclusion

Many adults are looking for ways to feel better, relieve musculoskeletal pain, and connect with our kids. At the same time, we’re worried that our kids get sick too much, spend too much time on the couch with electronics, or have trouble focusing at school. The solution to all of those problems and many more is free and accessible to nearly everyone. Walk!

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. #quote

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Do you walk with your kids? Have you found ways to make it enjoyable for them? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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