I don’t think dieting is a necessary step for most scenarios.  There are many situations where it is immediately thought of as the primary cure for obesity or other unhealthy conditions.  Here are the only two scenarios where I think it should be considered immediately.

• Extreme obesity.  When people see or know an obese person, they instantly think that that person needs to go onto a diet.  When it comes to kids, I do not think that it should be the first choice in most cases.  Exercising should be the first change for obese children.  Most obese kids simply do not get outside and exercise enough.  Sadly, many people simply implement a diet plan and assume that will work.  Well, if a kid diets but parks his rear in front of a screen all day long, then there is no point in the diet.  On the other hand, if he exercises and does not diet, he will probably lose some weight.  In cases of severe obesity, doing both is necessary.
• Any time a child needs to lose weight rapidly.  I know this sounds unhealthy, but it is necessary for some kids, primarily athletes.  I can think of two sports off the top of my head that require weight loss, wrestling and football.  Dieting is an important part of wrestling, because you need to lose weight quickly (before the season starts).  Not all football requires weight loss, but I know that many youth football leagues have weight limits, so if you want to play at a certain age level, you need to lose weight.  This is not true in all places or at all levels.

Although I wouldn’t suggest dieting for most kids, there are situations where it is necessary.  Next time, I am going to talk about how you should be dieting.

• Do not immediately go to the doctor.  I know this defies a lot of common sense, but there is a good reason for it.  Most high schools, such as my own, keep an athletic trainer on staff.  If there is one, the coaches will instruct the athlete to visit him first, not the doctor.  If you visit a doctor first, he will fix the injury, but will also prevent the athlete from playing for a set period of time.  If you visit the trainer instead, he will assess the injury and fix it or redirect you to a doctor.  Last winter, I sprained my wrist.  I went to the doctor because my coaches instructed me to.  I was only sent there because I needed X-Rays because it appeared broken.  Visit the doctor only if the trainer or coaches instruct the athlete to, or if there is no other option.
• Don’t overreact.  I know this is simple and shouldn’t be necessary, but it has to be said.  There are athletes I know who have parents who overreact.  They freak out at the the first sign of an injury and try to get them to take a day or two off or go to a doctor.  Stay calm, because teenagers are like bouncy balls.  We recover really quickly.  Also, don’t baby injuries or over-sympathize.  It’s one thing to feel bad for your child, it’s another to treat them like they are dying and freak out.
• Keep certain items around the house.  It is important to have certain simple things in order to treat injuries.  You should keep: a lot of ice cubes or ice packs, hot packs, medical tape, gauze, bags for the ice, and pain medicine.  It would also be helpful to have a sling, wrist brace, and ankle brace around, but not necessary.  All of these can help in simple, at-home injury treatment.

If your teen is a high school athlete, he/she will probably get injured at least once in their high school career.  So, when they get hurt, feel free to keep these tips in mind.

Now, here I am, summer after my freshman year, training for another season of Varsity cross country, with a year of college and college athletics under my belt. Wait, did I even run cross country in high school? Nope. This past year, I ran cross country, winter track, and spring track for my college. If I wasn’t even the top of my team in high school, how did I fare in college? Well, I certainly was near the bottom of the team in cross country, but I never felt left out, and put in a good deal of effort.

That effort paid off in winter, when I went to the NCAA Division III Nationals as a member of the Distance Medley Relay (DMR). At the pre-competition banquet, one of the speakers asked the students in the audience who had not made it to their high school state track meet to stand up. Over half of the athletes stood up. This meant that the majority of these athletes had probably, at some point in their lives, been told that they weren’t good enough to make it in college athletics, and yet there they were, at Nationals. My DMR team eventually earned All-American status (which means we placed in the top 8).

The reality is, your kid doesn’t need to be the top athlete in high school to be a college athlete.  Does it help to be good at a sport? Of course. However, outside of varsity athletics, there are also club sports, intramural sports, and even classes for sports. I know that sometimes a kid is pushed too hard to become a star in athletics, which is not good. But, I have also seen the other side of the spectrum, where kids are discouraged from their talent in a particular sport, being told to favor studies and forget about the idea of a future involving athletics. I think that’s a shame. Especially in Division III athletics, the participants are student-athletes, where “student” comes first, but the “athlete” is beneficial to the student (which I’ll discuss in a future article). If your child has a love for a sport, there’s a place for it alongside a college education.

I talked with my friends and quite a few of them had never done it before.  We all went on the rollerblading rink together holding hands so that if one of us fell, we would all fall.  After a couple of laps we hadn’t fallen yet so we started to break apart; once I was on my own I fell on my butt.  Now that I think about it, it was quite hilarious, but when I fell I didn’t think it was.  In fact, I was mortified!  But, I laughed it off and started talking about how klutzy I was.

The next lap around, I fell in the same exact spot and then fell while I was getting up.  Again I laughed it off and started skating again, but inside I felt like I had died.  From then on I did very well.

My mom picked me up from school and I told her my story;  she said that she was very proud of me.  I was confused as to why so I asked her why she was proud of me.  She said that she was proud of me because I got back up and kept trying, and that most girls my age probably wouldn’t have skated ever again after they fell that first time.

Personally, I think that you should never give up after just trying once at something.  I mean, nobody is perfect after trying just once, and it will take a lot of practice to be really good at something.  Nobody is perfect at everything, no matter what they say.  They might be good at one specific thing, but that doesn’t mean that since they are better than you, you should just give up.  There were quite a few people at the rollerblading rink that our school went to that were doing laps around me, but that didn’t mean I should give up.  That means that I should keep trying harder and practicing.  I say never give up on something because you never know when you will get better at it.  Never stop trying and never say that you can’t do something.

You should also be constantly trying new things because you never know when your perspectives will change on certain things.  I think you should always be open to trying new things, but that doesn’t mean that you have to like it.  You can also then say, “I tried blablabla this weekend and it was nothing like I thought it would be.”  And you never know, you might just end up liking that thing that you thought you wouldn’t like.

I started with dance when I was just three. I remember just having to copy what the instructor did, and I thought that was fun for a while. When I was four, I picked up soccer. Of course, at that age, soccer would more appropriately be called “magnet ball,” because no matter how much our coach told us not to, our entire team (except maybe the goalie) would just run after the ball. Soccer is great for kids who enjoy team play, have lots of energy, and are not afraid of getting dirty.

I was a bit restless as a child, and got bored with ballet when the instructors started getting very picky about hand placement and foot extension; I switched to gymnastics when I was six. Many parents are nervous about letting their kids do gymnastics because of the potential for injury. I wish I could say that these concerns are exaggerated, but they really aren’t. Even with great instructors, mishaps can happen (as with any sport, really). At the end of third grade, I had trouble with a dismount off of the uneven bars and ended up fracturing my neck. However, being a kid, I was back to gymnastics after a couple months of healing, and continued until high school, when the competition aspect finally became too intense for me.

If your city’s parks department runs a league for them, soccer, basketball, and softball/baseball can be quite cheap for young kids (though club or travel teams can quickly cost hundreds more) and most middle schools and high schools support teams for them. Sports that involve more instruction, equipment, or special facilities, such as dance, swimming, skiing, or volleyball, can quickly add up to much higher costs, but are well worth it for some variation from “the standards.”

I realize now that I owe my parents a huge amount of thanks for letting my try so many different sports, taking me to and from practices, games, rehearsals, etc. Each sport taught me a new lesson about teamwork, competitiveness, self-confidence, endurance, and of course, general fitness. Letting kids try new sports until they find one, or many, that they love, is by far the easiest way to ensure that children will stay active and, more importantly, happy.

The relatively weaker children are just as unwilling to share. They don’t get as many opportunities as their more advanced peers, so they view every shot as their one big chance, which they are not going to give up to the team ball hog who always gets to take the shot (or answer the question or whatever the case may be).

As a coach, as a youth leader, as a teacher – I’ve found that teamwork is the lesson universally needed by students across all backgrounds and walks of life. Recognizing the need to teach them teamwork and actually making progress in that area at two entirely different things. I have had some success in recent years with a relatively simple approach.

For the superstar who doesn’t trust his less skilled teammate, I work on his sense of pride and leadership. The kid who is the best at football feels a burden to be a leader, but often doesn’t know how. You can steer a star athlete or scholar toward better teamwork by impressing on him the need to be a leader and then teaching him how to be a servant leader to his team.

For the child who isn’t as strong at their given field, the best approach that I’ve found is to impress on them, and the rest of the team, the vital role that they play in support. Using football as an example, the quarterback cannot complete a pass if the receiver can’t catch it. The receiver can’t get open unless his teammates run their routes properly. The whole play will never have a chance unless the center can snap the ball. Every player, not just the guys touching the ball, plays a vital role in the success of the team.

When the students understand that, the team is on the way toward learning teamwork and achieving greater success.

Turning your child over to a stranger’s care for a a few hours each week can be a frightening proposition. Sure, all leagues do background checks to screen out the serious risks, but what do you really know about the coaches and assistants on the team? A background check won’t help you rout out the screamers, the overly-competitive, or the just-plain-jerks.

So, what’s a parent to do?  I tried joining the coaching staff on all my son’s teams when he first started out.  The problem with that is that at some point he needs to be on his own.  My personal experience was that my son was much whinier when I was helping coach than when I was watching from the stands with the other parents.

Many churches are now hosting All-Star sports leagues.  They have football, basketball, and soccer in most locations. The All-Star program is based on a different set of priorities than most youth sports leagues.  All-Stars stress good sportsmanship, personal character, and skills training, in that order.  Everyone gets a chance to play, everyone gets equal playing time.

Fair almost to a fault, All-Stars sports are a great segue into the world of competitive sports.  At some point, the competition really matters.  I wouldn’t want my son playing in a completely non-competitive league at 16.  If you shield your children too much and too long,  they’ll never develop the skills that they need to survive in the adult world.  But by the same token, 6 year olds don’t need to worry about winning and losing.  They need to develop a love for the game and the skills necessary to play it properly.

So, if you’ve got young children and are considering their first introduction to team sports, I’d recommend checking out your local chapter of All-Star sports.  They’ll start worrying about the score later, for now let them just enjoy the game.

There are parents whose formula of raising super kids tend to work better. This formula involves letting their children find the path to their own dreams,  and when it is found help them follow it.  Every day these parents discover new things with their children, new talents, new learning, little things that when put together can become really great. These parents let their children discover their own strengths and help them work on it.

Every child is a super kid, but it’s up to parents to see where the strength of their children lie. If we start by letting our own dreams for our children overtake our ability to see what they really have in them, we could muffle the super kid in them forever. Remember that our dreams for our children may not be their dream. If we just learn how to see the little wonders that a child learns and does every day, we will see the super kid in every child, and we will be more fulfilled as parents.

When dealing with summer heat and exercise, it is very important to make sure your child is hydrated.  According to Ms. King, “An important thing to remember is that thirst is not a good indicator of when to drink.  By the time a child notices they are thirsty, they are already in early stages of dehydration.  And at that point, it may take a while to replace these losses.  Children have a considerably lower sweating capacity than adults.  Because of a greater ratio of body surface area to body mass, children absorb heat more quickly when the ambient temperature exceeds skin temperature. So they overheat more quickly especially if they have not been out in the heat much.”

For tips on how much fluid your child needs to stay hydrated, Ms. King referenced the Beverage Institute’s guidelines. The recommended amounts are:

• 12-16 ounces- 2 hours before start
• 8 ounces- 15 minutes before start
• 4-6 ounces every 20 minutes

“Sipping fluids every 15-20 minutes makes it easier on the tummy/gut, too. Gulping a lot of water all at once can slosh around depending on the activity. If they are drinking water from a water fountain, it’s hard to estimate the actual amount although in general, the estimate is 1/2 – 1 ounce per gulp.  So kids will say they had a lot to drink and it could turn out to be very little.”

It is important not only that children stay hydrated but also that they don’t overheat.  If children are involved in outdoor exercise or sports, there are several precautions that can be taken when the temperature rises.  Some of Ms. Kings’ suggestions were:

• Adjust the practice schedule accordingly.
• Schedule training sessions to avoid the hottest part of the day (10am to 5pm).
• Avoid radiant heating from direct sunlight especially in the acclimatization period.

Don’t forget to apply sunblock and keep hydrated, and then let your kids enjoy the outdoors and exercise all summer long!

Learn more about summer fitness, including warm-ups & cool-downs, workout suggestions, hydration tips, and exercise via your smartphone.

Most importantly, Kenpo teaches you self defense.  This helps your kids in the case of a crime, if they are bullied, and many more incidents.  The need for an effective method for your kids to protect themselves in today’s often hostile and violent environment is very real.  Also, the study of American Kenpo will boost your child’s physical coordination immensely.  Self confidence and a positive mental attitude are acquired in the lessons of Kenpo, along-with self-discipline and determination to move on.  Finally, today’s lifestyles have become increasingly sedentary for kids. With television increasingly occupying more and more of many children’s time, physical inactivity becomes an ever present concern of interested parents. The study of Kenpo is a very invigorating endeavor that enables your kids to create and build energy in a focused and directed manner.

At my school, Granite State American Kenpo, classes are set up like this. The teen and adult class is for ages thirteen and older, the kids class is six through twelve, and the preschool class is ages three and a half and up.  Prices are reasonable, and if your teacher feels you are ready, you can join a club for motivated learners.  Also, there are family bonuses for families who go together.  One of my best friend’s whole family goes, so three out of the four of them train together.

So, if your child is unruly, bullied, out of shape, or without direction, he or she should try Kenpo.