DADS TIME
KIDS, SPORTS and FOOD
One of the things I've been wondering about recently is how, when and
to what extent to get our son involved in sporting activities. I admit that
I'm definitely a fitness freak – or have become so in the last few
years as part of a battle against age (well, I'm over forty...), undisciplined
waistline and so on. I train at home every day for an hour at least. Aerobic,
weights, press-ups, crunches, all that stuff. Of course our son wants to
join me. I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that there are sporting activities
which place too much stress on a young child's muscles and bones, so I've
told him that I don't think anything to do with weights is a good idea yet
(he's seven).
So the compromise is that he can join me in the aerobics and
keep up as long as he wants and feels okay, but that it's all right for
him to stop or sit an exercise out if he likes. He'll do two or three press-ups
and he'll go out running with me in the woods, as long as I stick to his
pace and let him rest when he wants. My aim in all this isn't to turn our
son into a muscle-bound seven year-old, but to teach him to be aware of
his body, to understand when his body tells him "I need a rest now",
to recognise when his body is just being plain lazy and to learn self-motivation
to get up and do something in the latter case. And I feel that the key is
to let him decide how much he wants to do and to help him stay within safe
limits. And there are limits: I'm a diving instructor, for instance (although
currently not active), and I worked here in Zurich, in Israel, in Italy
and in France, teaching countless people to dive safely and ecologically
for over twelve years, but I wouldn't want to take my son diving until he's
past adolescence. Maybe it's just me, but I'd feel more comfortable with
him breathing pressurised gases and diving according to safety tables which
were designed for the adult metabolism, as an adult or almost-adult.
The other side to the whole fitness equation is to try to build a kid's
awareness of food, food types, and "good" and "bad" food
types. To let him be involved in the decision about what's going to be on
the dinner table this evening. Explain that a varied diet plan is better
than the same thing (almost) every day. Also, we make most things ourselves
(except pasta). Bake our own bread (bread machine, I admit...), always make
fresh mashed potatoes, pizza dough, pasta sauces... 
We do go and eat at
a McDonalds from time to time (although seldom), and when we do, we discuss
the differences in flavour, in fat and in the feeling in your belly after
the meal, compared to making hamburgers at home on the grill with all fresh
ingredients, tons of salad and fresh buns. The difference is obvious to
our son, too. He asks for green salad with dinner, loves raw carrots, and
we have agreed that if he's hungry in between meals, he can always help
himself to an apple, but that when I start to cook dinner, no more apples.
And he sticks to that rule happily. When we give him his morning snack to
take to school (the "Znüni"), he usually wants an apple,
carrots, pepperoni sticks, pumpernickel bread or something like that. Other
kids get packets of crisps, cans of Coke, Mars bars and other things our
son calls "junk". I think that a basic level of awareness of such
matters is good in any child. If you can get your child into the kitchen,
get them to get involved in cooking and to discover that cooking if fun
(hey, you get to lick the spoon, right?) and that you can taste all kinds
of interesting things, then you've won. Yesterday evening our son told me
that any kid his age should be able to make a salad, with the dressing.
When I asked him what he meant, he went on to say that he'd have to grow
a bit until he could use the stove safely and maybe make spaghetti. He'd
have to be a bit bigger still to use a frying pan because they get really
hot and spit sometimes. And then he'd have to be almost as tall as me to
use the oven to make pizza because it's easy to burn yourself using the
oven.
He's not thinking that the kitchen is out of bounds, just that which
equipment he can use safely is a function of his age. I think that's a pretty
sensible attitude.
comment on this article
Who wrote this?
| DANIEL SCHWARZ
CARIGIET Born: 1966 in Lugano, Switzerland - Mother American, father German Family: married to Astrid, father of Oliver |
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| Occupation: Freelance photographer / commmunications consultant |
|
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