great advice

thanx for sharing x

TriYoga in Santa Cruz has classes for kids and for babies (Mommy and Me).  The teacher is great--- friendly and fun and when she isnt teaching yoga she works with foster kids (big big heart)
Call 464 8100 and find out when the next classes start-- they're on Tuesday afternoons for bigger kids (5-9 I think) and Thursdays for babies (even prenatal).  Really great way to exercise AND calm down!

I think children also look at parent's routines, so if we could show and encourage our children healthy living, I hope future children would get healthy too.

I think parents need to be better aware about the causes of obesity because it is truly an epidemic.

I remember the standby while growing up "Go outside and play" which usually meant "get out of my hair for a moment and give me some peace and quiet!!"

We make sure the kids understand if we step out of the house and call their name they are to respond IMMEDIATELY (even with a "here!" from the bushes) or they will be spending much of the rest of the day indoors.  So far they are pretty good about it.  Luckily we're in a place where we can feel they are safe in the yard.

We also are telling them that if ANYBODY comes up the driveway (even if we are expecting somebody) they are to come into the house and let us know.   This serves the purpose of alerting us but also of getting them away from the car if it is somebody we don't know or aren't expecting.

To help make outside fun, we have some outdoor play sets (thankfully from tag sales where things cost maybe 5% of new!), bikes and stuff but my wife also took quite a bit of time to make paths throug the bushes that were just their size so they could go exploring, or play hide-and-seek or whatever their imaginiation thinks of (which, mind  you, can be veeeery interesting!)

A great thing with eating healthy is that they will tend to lean towards the healthier foods when given a chance and the junk food will not taste "as" good (burgers and fried foods will taste greesier because they're not "used" to it).  My favorite example of this is at a party we went to there was a HUGE bowl of potato chips sitting next to a vegetable platter from the supermarket.  Our kids didn't even TOUCH the potato chips, instead they ate up a good portion of the vegetable platter (without the dip either)!

We used the TV as a baby-sitter in the beginning, but we noticed that she (at about 2 or 3) was getting crankier and crankier and we didn't know what was going on.  At the same time she was turning on the TV and walking around, using it as background-noise.  So we unplugged the TV and almost immediately her mood improved.  We cancled Cable TV that week and haven't had it since (3-4 years and counting). The kids get occasional movies from the library so they are not totally lost on what their friends are watching. Of course when we went on trips and stayed in hotel rooms and we used the TV for a moment of down-time we realized that they were being re-introduced to commercials!

We have had somebody ask if our oldest was home-schooled because her immagination was so much more original than re-inventing TV characters or TV characters that operate as XYZ with no flexibility!

Great advice!

wow, that was real great advice, good work

Great post and I totally agree with you. Things like nutrition, exercise and sedentary pursuits like television and video games need to be actively managed by caring and involved parents. Encouraging our children to rely on their imaginations for entertainment in lieu of seat time on the couch is only going to benefit them later in life (and help them sleep better at night). Your point about fast food is also really well put. As parents, our goal should be to ensure that only things with real nutritive value make their way into our children's tummies. Fast food is not only low in nutritional value, but it is loaded with sugar, trans fats, sodium and a whole host of chemicals and preservatives (am I sounding preachy yet! sorry if I am...). We all know it is bad for us, and yet people still resort to fast food for real food replacement. Fast food is not an option in our home and neither is television (going on three years without one!).