Turn Off The Tv And Turn On To Physical Activity

Writen by Rae Pica

Imagine having no television for an entire season. Such was the case for a friend, whose mother hauled the appliance right out of the house at the start of every summer. Surprisingly, Ola and her siblings didn't miss it, as they managed to keep themselves busy in other ways. And, today, Ola is glad her mother maintained that annual tradition, as she learned not to rely on TV to keep her entertained. She and her two young daughters also tend to be more physically active than other families she knows – something she attributes directly to the amount of active play she engaged in as a child.

Could today's families survive as well without the "tube?" And, if forced to go without (say, during TV-Turnoff Week: this year April 25 - May 1), would they be physically active or simply resort to another form of electronic entertainment?

Unfortunately, children today spend the better part of their waking lives watching television. It's been estimated that between the ages of two and seventeen American children spend an average of three years of their waking lives watching TV – and that doesn't even include time spent watching videos, playing video games, or using the computer. That's the equivalent of more than fifteen thousand hours in front of the set (about a thousand hours a year) – as compared with twelve thousand hours spent in a classroom. The end result? A total of twenty-seven thousand hours – more than six years of their young lives – without a whole heck of a lot of movement.

Why be concerned? The number-one reason is that too much television results in an unfit individual – adult or child. In 1998 researchers at San Diego State University found that both parents' and children's performance levels on a simple test of aerobic fitness (one-mile walk/run) decreased as their viewing increased. The fact is, children who watch several hours of television every day have lower fitness levels than those who watch fewer than two hours.

Worse still, as the hours spent watching TV increase, so does the likelihood of obesity among children and adolescents. Researchers are discovering that the percentage of body fat increases along with the number of hours spent in front of the tube – and that obesity is lower among children who watch television for one hour or less a day. The risk actually increases almost two percent for each additional hour watched!

Of course, even children who aren't overweight or obese can still be unfit if they participate in too little vigorous physical activity. Whether it's evident on the outside or not, when the time comes for them to exert physical energy, they'll likely find their muscles, heart, and lungs aren't up to the challenge.

Once upon a time, children ran and skipped, climbed trees, jumped rope, played hopscotch, and rode their bicycles for blocks. Most likely you remember some of that yourself. Before you were old enough for school, it seems you were never indoors. You and the neighborhood children ran screaming through each other's yards and even down the middle of the streets. You raced each other to the slide and the swings, chased butterflies, and got grass-stained practicing your tumbling skills on the lawn.

Once you were in school all day, the instant the bell sounded, you ran all the way home, shed your good clothes, and were out the door again. You played touch football, hide-and-seek, and tag. And you stayed outside until forced to come in. It's no wonder no one ever worried about your getting enough exercise!

But does all that activity bring to mind what your own children are doing? Probably not. Today, because children's days are nearly as scheduled as adults' – and they are driven, rather than walk, everywhere – we need to "program" movement into our daily lives.

That doesn't have to be as challenging as it may sound. It can be as simple as putting on some music and holding a dance party in the living room. Make a game of Statues out of it by inviting your children to move in any way they want while the music is playing and to freeze into statues when you pause it. Play Follow the Leader, or break out the pots and pans and hold a parade around the house. Play a rousing game of Twister or simply go for an after-dinner stroll.

Once you've turned off the TV, you'll be amazed at the amount of time you have together and the creative ways you'll find to spend that time. Remember, though, that the most important thing you can do is to serve as a role model. Research has shown that parents' inactivity may exert more influence on their children's behavior than being active does. So, if your children see you sitting in front of the TV during all your free time – if they never see you exercising or enjoying yourself as you do something physical – your actions (in this case inactions) will speak volumes. They'll simply follow suit. Even if you tell them how important it is to be physically active, they'll have no reason to believe you. So turn off the TV and turn on to physical activity! Both you and your children will be glad you did.

Rae Pica is a children's physical activity specialist and the author of Your Active Child: How to Boost Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive Development through Age-Appropriate Activity (McGraw-Hill, 2003). Visit Rae at http://www.movingandlearning.com

Creative Thinking In The Midst Of The Mundane

Writen by Carolina Fernandez

Today's Quote: "For a parent, it's hard to recognize the significance of your work when you're immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, "I'm making my contribution to the future of the planet." But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent. Joyce Maynard

We cannot escape them. The mundane realities of motherhood present themselves at every turn.

Upon rising, it's blast off! We're faced with cooking and serving breakfast, washing resultant dirty dishes, wiping countertops, sweeping floors, packing lunchboxes, checking and signing school papers, and initialing bus passes or driving carpool.

Barely over, laundry stains rear their ugly heads and our next campaign of the hour screams for our attention. Once attacked, three loads of laundry morph before our eyes to four, stray socks and underwear mysteriously jump to the stairs instead of the hamper...and more washing, more drying, and more folding goes on ad infinitum.

Grueling grocery-store queues, bewildering bills, and time- consuming phone tag continue to fill our mornings.

And all before 9 AM!

Get used to it. The mundane--oftentimes dreadful--realities of motherhood have been with moms since time began, and likely will stay with us for, well, the rest of our lives. There's no sense despairing, no need to wring your hands, no time for wishing them away.

But take heart. There are tricks to conquering the mundane to keep you from going completely insane.

First of all, use your time when doing mundane, everyday chores to think creatively. Mindless, repetitious motions like ironing, soaping down dirty dishes, folding t-shirts...things we could do with our eyes closed in the middle of a tornado, present perfect opportunities for us to think of creative solutions to present day dilemmas. My hunch is that not many of you take the time out during the day to just sit in a chair and think; indeed, the idea--credited by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, who took a half-hour every day to ponder what he knew and what its implications might be--is highly impractical for ROCKET MOMS! Nevertheless, the idea is pure gold. (1) How can you translate it into your everyday reality? Use that time, when you are performing repetitious tasks, to ponder dilemmas, think through frustrations, sort out ill-feelings, and organize your day.

Secondly, use an "Open Road Strategy" to think creatively. Drive times with sleeping children-buckled securely in car seats and nodding off happily to Raffi tunes and Mozart for the Mind-are great opportunities to think without distractions. This practice is endorsed by John Rogers of the University of Illinois, who is developing microfluidic optical fibers, and needs this time to think creatively. (2) Don Arnone, a leader in t-ray technology, also employs this strategy, calling it "an inadvertent bonus of the realities of modern life." (3)

Lastly, use times doing repetitious exercise as your "Physically Energizing Strategy" to think creatively. As an avid lap swimmer, I often get my most creative insights while swimming monotonous after monotonous lap. I almost never think about the physical part of the swim, such as the way I move my arms or the way I breathe; I've been swimming so long that the mechanics are second-nature. Rather, I purpose to use this time to sort out problems, figure out solutions to perplexing issues, and mentally test out different angles to dilemmas. I always emerge feeling both mentally and physically refreshed, and that I have moved forward creatively.

Wishing you a wonderful day! And may your chores of the day be your pathways to creative genius!

NOTES:
(1)Buderi, Robert. (2004) "Thinking about Thinking." Technology Review, February, p. 1.
(2)Ibid.
(3) Ibid.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; ten years of homeschooling and raising four kids provide fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, in bookstores or through 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via seminars, workshops, keynotes and monthly meetings of the ROCKET MOM SOCIETY, a sisterhood group she launched to "encourage, equip and empower moms for excellence."

Please visit =>http://www.rocketmom.com

Successful Childhood Learning Starts With Reading Aloud

Writen by Brent Sitton

Popular theory in the world of education has long been that a young child is an empty slate, just waiting to have information poured into them. That theory has promoted the idea that learning by rote will make a child smarter, and thus more likely to succeed. But studies of the last fifteen years or so have turned such thinking on its ear – the new thought behind early childhood development is not to shove a book under their noses and say "learn," rather, it's to show your child how to learn, by reading with them, and forging not just an interest, but a real pleasure out of what the printed word can bring.

Let's looks at an example: "The filibuster is a strategy employed in the United States Senate, whereby a minority can delay a vote on proposed legislation by making long speeches or introducing irrelevant issues. A successful filibuster can force withdrawal of a bill, and filibusters can be ended only by cloture."

Pretty interesting, huh? No? Well, to be honest, we didn't think it would be. The fact of the matter is, if you don't have a passion for politics, a piece of information about a political process will likely go in one ear and out the other, even if you're forced to read the passage more than once. You could read it two or three times, memorize the words, and even be tested on them, but will you still remember that information next week? How about in a month?

When your child goes to school and is told to read several pages in a book that doesn't interest them, they're going through the exact same thing you just experienced. If there's no inherent passion for reading, and no passion for the subject matter, then there will be minimal retention at the end of it all.

A study of 74 schools by the UK National Foundation for Educational Research found that "fewer youngsters believe reading is difficult, compared with 10 years ago. However, there is a substantial decrease in pupils reading for pleasure. 65% of 9-year-olds and 73% of 11-year-olds said they did not think reading was difficult, compared with 56% and 62% respectively in 1998. Just over 7 out of 10 of the younger age group enjoy reading as a pastime, compared with 78% five years ago, while for 11-year-olds, the proportion has declined from 77% to 65%. Children said they preferred watching television to going to the library or reading. But the biggest changes in attitudes were among boys. In Year 6, only 55% of boys said they enjoyed stories compared with 70% in 1998."

Why? Perhaps other statistics in the same report might have some insight:

• 24% of children under the age of 4 had television sets in their bedrooms
• More than 50% of children over the age of 4 have their own TVs
• 28% have computer games in their rooms
• 8.5% of under-fours have a VCR in their rooms

The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) recommends that parents read with their child for at least fifteen minutes every day, all the way through third grade, stating, "Before you read each book, read the title and look at the cover and pictures inside. Ask your child what [he or] she thinks the book may be about. After reading the book, review [his or] her predictions. Was the prediction right? If not, what happened instead?"

The object in such an exercise is threefold: You make reading an interactive experience that a child can enjoy much as they do playing in the yard, you give the child an opportunity to ask questions about things they don't understand, and you promote creative thought within your child, where they learn to assess what they see, critically appraise it, and think beyond what they're seeing on the page.

The FCRR advice goes further, recommending a weekly trip with your child to the library, and rhyming games that make your child think about how words are put together, all of which are intended to show your child that reading is just as much fun off-the-page as it is on.

The ultimate object is to convince your child to open a book for fun, in their spare time, and thus begin a lifelong enjoyment of the written word and the information that books can bring. This doesn't just help them at school - according to the NCREL, readers "have self-confidence that they are effective learners [and] see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential."

It's important for every parent to realize the value of literacy in their child, at the earliest age possible, but it's even more important to understand the value of comprehension, and how you can help that seed take root.

Brent Sitton is the founder of http://www.DiscoveryJourney.com. DiscoveryJourney has a variety of tools available to parents to help promote a culture of reading in your household. Discovery Journey has compiled a Child Book List of children's books that not only engage children, but also delight parents. Our children's book reviews identify character trait and child behavior issues in the book to discuss as a family. Each children's book review contains 5 related fun and educational child activities to enjoy as a family, inspiring the passion for learning and reading!