Are Your Children Lazy?
Building of Outdoor Play Apparatus
As parents we are constantly reminded that it is our responsibility to get our offspring to be active, to get exercise and not to lie around eating fast food while playing computer games. Many parents will probably agree that tearing their children away from their televisions and computer games can be tougher than pulling teeth.
Last year I invested a significant amount of hard earned cash in a few pieces of outdoor play equipment, chosen by my two youngsters. They always enjoy a visit to our local park where they can race around, swing on the swings, slide on the slides and climb the climbing frames. Unfortunately our nearest park is about 3 miles away so these visits are not as frequent as they or I would like. So I bit the bullet and shelled out quite a bit of money on a wooden swing slide playset and climbing frame which I put together whilst my wife was conveniently at the health spa.
Now I would like to report that my generosity has paid off and my children are now fit and active and can’t get enough of their new equipment.But that is far from the truth. Since I installed the equipment (which presented many headaches, took a lot of hammering and quite a bit of bad language) they have probably only played on it three times. Admittedly I didn’t get the equipment until the Autumn of 2009 and since then the weather has been appalling.
At least that is the reason they give when I suggest they might enjoy a little outdoor fun. It’s too cold, they say. Or, ‘the swings are too wet to sit on’ is another excuse that I hear. I’ll be needing one of those spa treatments at this rate!
I’m hoping that, as we move into spring and the weather improves, they will naturally want to get out into the garden and get some much needed exercise on their new outdoor toys. I’m dreading another miserable, wet summer as this will result in my fat children just getting fatter instead of working off those excess pounds with a little outdoor adventure. Nobody ever said that being parenting was easy. Although the odd massage does go down well when it all gets a bit stressful
