Family Sports Time

Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family....Anthony Brandt

Being physically active with your kids is both fun and healthy.  I've always been terrible at most popular sports, however I do try to set a good example and participate where I can, even if it's just in simple ways.  For example, I love going for long walks with my son, we both really enjoy it and it has two extra pluses..it's very easy and it's very free!! 

Finding a sport activity for us all to do as a family is a challenge.  The four of us have different interests and abilities.  Most every Sunday we attend public swim together, but we're mostly all doing our own thing once we get in the pool.  Plus, I'm finding I cannot keep up with my son (who I have to watch pretty closely) once the slide is turned on!  This is when my 30 minute workout begins!  I climb out of the pool, then climb up 20 steps, go down the curvy slide (while keeping track of where my son is as he goes down first), crash into the water, fix my swimsuit straps and undo my wedgie, then find my son and my way out to do it all over again!  Yesterday in the course of 30 minutes we got 20 slides.  Our all time record is 32 slides!! (my son keeps track).  I know, you're getting tired just reading about it!

While all this is good exercise and it is...fun, I'd like to find another activity we could do perhaps as a team, that's fun, easy and all year round.  I'm thinking now about us forming a bowling team and entering a family league.  My husband and I used to be pretty good bowlers (though that was a long time ago!), and we can teach our kids the basics...currently they are both using a technique that looks about like this:



Of course, we all aspire to be at the level of Fred Flintstone!!

I'll let you know in future blogs how "our team" is doing.  I would also love to hear about the sports and activities you do as a family.  I'm always looking for new ideas to try out!

Also, if any of you are interested in signing your children up to learn a new sport this summer, in a non-competitive environment, where they can gain self confidence and social skills, plus improve their strength, gross motor, balance and co-ordination, I have just learned about a program called "sportball", it is all across the greater Toronto area, and they have "adapted" programs for ages 5-17, to include children with autism, asperger's, etc.  It looks quite interesting, here is the link to the adaptive programming:

http://www.sportball.ca/programs/adapted-programs/

And here is another link to read about the sportball methodology in general:

http://www.sportball.ca/about-sportball/


I'd love to hear how it goes if you decide to sign up.


Cheers,
Linda