Top Tips to Encourage Physical Activity in Children

Encouraging your child to be more physically active isn’t as hard as it might at first seem. First of all, children are generally full of energy, much more it seems than adults and so all you need to do is guide them into using that energy.

Physical activity is extremely important for children. It helps to build muscles, coordination, and concentration whilst also helping to maintain mental and emotional health.

It’s never too young to begin fostering a love of exercise and activity in children as it can become a habit that helps them to stay healthy and active throughout their entire life.

According to the NHS, young children (under the age of three) need around 3 hours of physical activity each day, with children older needing at least 1 hour per day.

With very young children, simply using things like a baby walker, walking around and playing is good enough, but as children get older, it can feel more challenging, especially as they start to play video games that can lead to long periods of time without movement. That’s why we’ve put together these top tips to help get your children up and active:

  • Explore the outdoors – Whatever the weather, try to explore the outdoors a few times each week. This can be as simple as visiting the local park or playground, but don’t forget to take advantage of any other outdoor areas around you such as open fields, nature reserves and woodlands to help your child burn their energy. You don’t even have to worry about structured play, so long as it’s safe to do so, let your child roam and explore, they’ll soon wear themselves out whilst benefitting from fresh air and making their own choices.
  • Meet up with friends – Bringing other children into the mix is a great way to boost energy levels and activity. Arranging a group meetup at the playground, park, swimming baths or soft play centre is a great way of getting your child active and keeping it social. Children are usually more excited to play with others and won’t notice they’re even exercising. It’ll also give you time to socialise with other adults.
  • Bring it inside – Remember that exercise isn’t limited to outside. There’s plenty that you can do inside whether it’s a dance party, home yoga class, a game of twister or simply doing the housework. They all count as exercise, so get moving.
  • Join a class or group – How about a swimming class, gymnastics or dance club? Check your local schools, community centres and Facebook groups for classes near you that your child might enjoy. Not only will they stay active, they’ll learn new skills and make new friends.
  • Set an example – Children often copy what they see, so be a positive role model. Go for walks together, do yoga or an online fitness programme at home, go swimming. Simply being active yourself is often enough to encourage your child to follow suit.

How do you keep your children active? Share your tips and advice in the comments!

Locomotor skills

Over the last 30 years children have spent increased time indoors, and less outside. Time outside is important for physical development because it encourages gross motor skills. Children need wide open spaces and encouragement to run. Jumping and climbing can be learnt in soft play areas but there’s a world of difference between jumping onto a cushioned mat and jumping in the real world, or climbing padded steps or a net and climbing a tree.

Over the last 30 years children have spent increased time indoors, and less outside. Time outside is important for physical development because it encourages gross motor skills. Children need wide open spaces and encouragement to run. Jumping and climbing can be learnt in soft play areas but there’s a world of difference between jumping onto a cushioned mat and jumping in the real world, or climbing padded steps or a net and climbing a tree.

So, what do we need to run, jump and climb? Well, these actions require pretty much the same skills, albeit used in separate ways. They need balance, and by doing them more children develop their own balance system. They need core strength, and strong leg muscles (and arms too for climbing). They require spatial awareness on a large scale, and hand/foot-eye coordination.

But these skills aren’t the only things needed to be able to run, jump and climb. They all require courage and perseverance too.

Encourage these all important skills by jumping down from low heights like a step or a tree stump, then moving on to hopping like a frog, a bunny or a kangaroo. Jumping on the flat from standing is trickier – jump over drain covers or into hoops laid on the ground. Once that skills has been mastered you’re ready to jump up onto things. Play hopscotch too, to develop stability and strength.

To encourage running play chase or run races. Children will usually run naturally to keep up with their peers, but if you have a reluctant runner try to meet other children in the park or another open space and help them join in.

Parks often also have frames, nets, or rope ladders to encourage climbing. Help little ones master climbing skills by going up the steps to the slide, pulling themselves up on a platform or hanging on to a scramble net.

How do you develop locomotor skills?

The experience trap

Can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job? It’s the catch-22 for the new nanny or maternity nurse. Good news is there are things that you can do to get you started and help you become a nanny.
1. Work for free

Okay so it’s not the highly paid job of your dreams but volunteering to help friends or neighbours, or even trying to get in touch with training companies who offer work experience schemes in childcare, will help you get that foot in the door. What’s most important is a reference and there’s always someone who will appreciate an extra pair of hands in return for a reference. This is particularly good for getting experience of newborns or twins and is a short term solution while you look for work.
2. Think outside the box, or country

Au pairing abroad is another way to get experience with children and get paid while doing so. Some families don’t even require any childcare qualifications or experience, but babysitting and voluntary work with children demonstrate your commitment to working with children and will give you a leg up to help you get a job. You can be an au pair for the summer or a full year, so it require a bit more commitment but gives you more experience in return. If you want to go on to be a nanny then look for families with children under 5 as most families will want experience in that age range.

3. Do a course

 You can either do the course at college or as an apprentice working in a nursery. If you already have a level 3 qualification consider doing a nanny specific course. Or if you need to work and earn there are plenty of online courses that could help you secure the job you dream of. Check out some of the ones we have suggested here Training for Nannies – Nannyjob

How to recognise when your nanny’s had a bad day

I’m sure we’re all familiar with those days that just don’t quite go to plan. You know the ones. Maybe the weather’s bad, one of the children is unwell or the television stops working. Any one of these can turn an okay day, into a really bad day where nothing gets done and you just want to collapse at the end of it.

How would you feel then if your partner or significant other came home to what they deemed a messy house and asked you what you’ve been doing all day whilst they’ve been at work?

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Car Safety Advice for Nannies

A typical aspect of being a nanny involves driving the children you care for to and from activities, appointments, grocery shopping etc.

As a child-carer, your job involves catering to the well-being of the child in your charge. You need to have certain safety measures in place to ensure that everyone makes it from point A to point B safely.

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Seventeen self-care tips

It’s the Christmas comedown, winter blues, that time of the year when you feel generally sorry for yourself, and you need a bit of TLC.

Taking time to look after yourself and recharge is super-important for nannies. You can’t nurture your charges and be infinitely patient if you’re feeling down in the dumps. Try a few of these to put a spring in your step and show yourself some love.

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Persistent lateness and how to deal with it

It’s 10 minutes past finishing time and no sign of your employers, no call, no text. It’s 40 minutes past your contracted finish and your employer breezes in saying “Sorry! See you tomorrow.” It’s been 3 hours, you’ve put the children to bed, cancelled your plans for the evening and made a half-hearted attempt at tackling the ironing pile when your phone beeps – “Dinner nearly through, home in an hour or so”. Sound familiar?

Using the highly scientific research method known as ‘asking some people we know’ we found that this problem is shockingly common and there seem to be three main reasons for employer lateness, which require different tactics to resolve.

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Recognising dyslexia

By this point most Reception children will be well on the way to decoding simple words, and Year 1 children reading more fluently, but if your child is lagging behind have you considered that they might be showing early signs of dyslexia?

Put simply dyslexia is trouble with writing. Some people say that invert letters so p becomes b, or b becomes d. Others switch letters around in the middle of the words so theory becomes thoery, teohry or threoy. Other common signs are being able to pronounce a word but not connecting it with the object it represents, so being able to sound c-a-t as cat, but not connecting it to the four legged, furry pet. Often a child will appear out of step with their verbal abilities or their writing seem much poorer than their drawing skills.

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Do you begrudge your nanny a coffee?

Who pays for your nanny’s coffee when she’s out and about on work time? Does it matter where she is?

Saying yes, all the time means that, unless your nanny is restrained, your kitty expenses are likely to be high, and you may end up resenting paying your nanny to sit in coffee shops and drink coffee that you pay for, even if it is naptime or while your offspring go to ballet/Brownies/boxing. Very few nannies take advantage of their employers’ generosity in this regard, but small expenses certainly mount up, and sitting in coffee shops can easily become a habit rather than an occasional treat even when your children are older.

Most employers place limits on consumption out and about, either to a certain number of meals/trips per week or to specific locations such as soft play areas, which (terrible as the coffee is there) are barely tolerable without some form of beverage. The occasional lunch in a restaurant or coffee and cake in a café teaches children valuable social skills such as interacting with waiting staff and eating quietly and tidily and should generally be encouraged from time to time. A couple of coffees a week is a small price to pay for the goodwill it will get you in return.

Never allowing your nanny the odd coffee, especially at inflated soft play prices, is likely to breed resentment in the other direction. You may have a hard time understanding why you’re paying your nanny to drink coffee and watch your child play but if the choice is between paying for the coffee and denying your child the opportunity to scramble around in a relatively space environment, you’ll probably pick the coffee, because if you don’t pay then your nanny will either seethe quietly or just not go. How do you cope with the mine field of who pays for coffee / lunch if you are out and about with your nanny family? We’d love to hear your thoughts

Snow plans for nannies

Bad weather is going to hit most of the UK this month, and as we all know that can cause disruption to all sorts of arrangements. Planning ahead is key to minimising impact on you and your nanny family. If you’re a parent check out snow plans for parents!

  • Leave extra time to get to work. Your boss may ask you to go in early so they can be sure of getting to work on time too, but at the very least you should avoid being late. Take precautions like parking your car at the bottom of the hill if you live on a slope and find your wellies and thermals!
  • Be proactive about stocking up for your employers if they haven’t thought of it. Pick up the essentials now before the weather makes it impractical to go out. Check that your charges have appropriate cold weather clothing and ask your boss if they’d like you to source some if they haven’t.
  • Be patient! Travel may be disrupted and your boss will be stressed enough as it is. Ask them to check in when they leave with an estimated journey time and to let you know of any delays but assume they’ll be late and carry on with the evening routine.
  • If you can’t beat it, join it! Wrap up warm and enjoy the snow!