Raising Active Kids that Play

I was raised as an "active kid". There weren't many weekends that I didn't get to spend massive amounts of time in my father’s high school gym (no, not a teen dad, but a high school principal and football coach), shooting hoops (of which, PS, I was terrible at but still ran around and loved it just the same), using the batting cage, soccer fields, and doing sit-ups and pushups for fun. I downhill skied, played soccer, Little League, and used to write my mother notes (which she still has) that said things to the effect of "If I clean my room can you please take me to the pool tonight?" complete with a crayon drawing of me swimming laps. My mom sat in the bleachers and read while I swam. I was a good swimmer but I don't even remember if there were lifeguards or not.

The difference between then and now is that I don’t think my parents ever thought about the idea of raising an active kid. I played in that gym where my father worked, a lot. This wouldn't happen today; I bet... the word liability is running through my head right now. If I wasn't in the gym, my mother just opened the door - and I mean, literally opened the door and let me play until dark all over my small town neighborhood. I played Pickle between two perfect trees in a neighbor’s yard for the better part of 1987. I rode my bike through a trail over and over again mastering jumps over roots until dark pretty much from '86-'89. I biked to a giant open secluded field that belonged to a local college to practice sprints and use their soccer backboard to kick against - alone through my entire high school years. I was shy, surprisingly enough, and when I practiced sports I wanted to be alone. So I was alone, outside, a lot. I created full 9 inning baseball games in my head, passed with Mia Hamm in my yard (ok fine, again, in my head), and was a Tour de France bikerider every summer. I was active, yes, but I more importantly, I played.

My kids are still young; 5 and 2.5 years old. They are never alone. I just started letting my youngest go get the mail - my driveway is maybe 20 yards long and is in a nice suburban area. I am ok for the first 5 seconds she's outside, then I start to panic and I have to go creep on her my looking out the window and I am still there five more seconds later to open the door and embrace her and breathe a sigh of relief that she's back in my arms - and I close the door. Really? Really. It's the world we live in now, sadly. I grew up in an open door world but my kids are growing up in a closed door world and I think about creating time for them to be active on a daily basis.

In this current new world, it means that there is no more "open door" policy. Every active action has to be created by me as the parent, or a caretaker, school, or program. I've read several articles about how this is downright sad and is impacting our children negatively beyond how you may think. We are controlling their moves and movement, always with them and creating for them, thinking and then deciding what they should do, driving them to game times but not play times and specializing in one sport without other to balance off of. In short, we've taken the playing out of playtime.

Let’s take me for example... my entire garage screams active family; I can see from my vantage point right now... 7 bikes (we are a family of 4, by the way), 6 surfboards, 2 jogging strollers, 5 skateboards, 3 scooters, 4 sets of dumbbells, too many balls to count, 4 golf bags and clubs, too many sneakers, cleats, and golf shoes to count, 2 yoga mats, 2 baseball bats, 4 tennis rackets, 1 pair of roller blades, 3 baseball gloves, 2 white water kayaks with 1 paddle, 2 wetsuits, 1 drysuit, 1 wakeboard and tow rope, a basketball hoop, soccer goal, and one newly made small kids bike ramp. Out of my sight line, I know there are 4 pairs of skis and boots in a wardrobe in the corner and a weight bench up in the attic.

Ok, so we're active, clearly, and for the most part we drag our kids with us when my husband and I "play" in turn teaching them to ski, run, bike, catch/throw, skateboard (all Husband), play tennis and surf (Husband duty, again). Where we may fall short is in not letting them have a playful imagination. I think, if I'm being honest, we are almost too hands on in the active department and because we live in this closed door world a lot of what they do is from my mind and created by my direction - and as adult my world isn't as playful as theirs should be.

My kids don't know yet what Pickle is (my favorite active-game-memory from my childhood neighborhood) they are too young now, true - but will they even know when they are older? Will they play an unstructured baseball-based game in the neighborhood that simulates a game time situation of a run-down between bases? Or will they be too busy at baseball practice to even have time to play baseball? Will I encourage a game of Pickle within a naturally created distance between two random great trees? Or will I insist on measuring out the "bases" so we have the right distance as sanctioned by the Little League? Where's the fun, creative, imagination and PLAYfullness in that? God, I hope I hope I don't do the later - but I can't be sure. Every month my kids get older I can feel myself getting a little more sucked in, a little more jaded into the closed door world of "youth sports". And let me tell ya, it's not always a good world.

I recently agreed to let my daughter "move up a level" in gymnastics. She went from "training" one day a week for one hour - to two days a week for a total of four hours. This may not seem like much - but she's five and I have every confidence that she will NOT be super star, so I debating letting her do it. Now, before you go jumping to conclusions and think I am a terrible mother for what I just wrote riddle me this. I do think my kid is a super star and I always will - it was pretty much what they made me oath when I took her home from the hospital. Every good mother should think her kid is the best thing in the world and I am no different. But do I realistically think she will be a gymnastics super star? No. Despite the fact that her coaches tell me has "it", I still think we'll decide not to want "it". She may have some ability but that’s only 10% of today’s games. I want my kids to have a life. A life of active-ness, yes, but a life of variety and passions (yes, passions, plural).

In our closed door world we have unfortunately closed our minds as well. We are so one-tracked that we are over-specializing our kids - how dangerous and...boring. I had a rule when I was little that I was not allowed to play the same sport two seasons in a row. I hated this notion and I hated my small town for not offering soccer year round so I could have fought the good fight against this family rule. If I could have chosen, I would have played soccer twelve months a year and Sundays, too. But my father wanted me to be an athlete and active - which to him meant well rounded and above all, healthy. Healthy meant training and moving your body in many ways so as not to "burnout", "overuse" or "injure" yourself. I thank my father every day for this gift that I hated. Mostly because I am healthy and well rounded.

I played competitive soccer in college and while other teammates showed off their ACL scars, I had none. When they couldn't box out because they had never played basketball or couldn't judge the direction of a huge punt from the goalie because they never shagged fly balls, or when they quads killed because they didn't sit on a wall in the winter months every day after school singing songs to pass the time and burn while in a wall-sit with the ski team - I was fine. So many studies and articles from reputable doctors and hospitals are seeing knee and elbow overuse injuries from kids as young as 12 that used to only occur in professional adult athletes. And these injures are not a strained knee - they are full blown blow outs - requiring major surgery. Not only do I not want my kids hurt but I also don't want them to grow up playing one thing only to realize at 17 that they can no longer do that due to injury or just plain realize they are bored and want to move on. What a waste of childhood, bodies, minds, creativity and action.

Do you know how often I play a soccer game? Never. I do, however, run swim, bike, jump, handstand, play tennis and shoot hoops. All the things I swore I didn't want to do if I could have just played soccer year round.

And do you remember the bike ramp I listed as the most recent addition to my garage inventory? Well, I've sat back and virtually ignored my kids while I write this - and you know what they have done? They've take that ramp that my husband and I intended as a bike ramp and yes, used it as a bike ramp but they've also built a spring board for "gymnastic vaulting", a "raft to sail away on" and sit in while "the crocodiles come", a chair to sit in while "watching the planes and fireworks", a balance board to "pretend snow board", and a "campfire" all the while moving their little bodies and minds so very actively and dare I say playfully. 

I think I will ignore them more often and let them imagine and play actively while I sit here and just observe through the open doors of the garage bay...and maybe teach them how to play Pickle.