Last night, on the drive home with 2 toddlers knocked out in the back seat, my wife and I got to talking about our health—and the health of our family. We’re parents of two, with a third on the way, and more often than not, those talks circle back to this simple, complicated question:
“How do we take care of ourselves?”
I started off with:
“I know this might sound selfish, but I really feel like taking care of myself—working out and playing rugby—will be good for the kids, because they’ll see it.”
My wife brought up that this is actually supported by research when mom’s workout the kids are more interested in exercise (2014 study by the Mayo clinic if you are interested)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-moms-exercise-so-do-kids/
What was modeled for us?
This prompted the question, “If we were going to model our self-care off of what we saw our parents do, what would that look like?”
For my wife, it was very much centered on getting outdoors and hunting/skiing and never wasting a weekend, but very little for mental health or daily physical health.
For me, it was more along the lines of trying to work and self-improve during your downtime. When I was in high school, my father did do more self-care via physical therapy, but prior to that, I would say what my parents modeled as self-care was more about doing work and improving yourself in your downtime and occasionally having poker nights with friends.
(BTW My 67 year old mom does strength train with us now and she is more agile and energetic than I think I have ever seen, picking up grandkids in a single scoop and rolling and playing with them with little trouble!)
Don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful for everything my parents did. They were constantly shuttling me from football practice to Boy Scouts to some other after-school activity. But I never actually got to see them do anything for themselves, and I could easily see myself falling into that same trap where every evening is dedicated to whatever flavor-of-the-month activity my kid is doing. That’s definitely something that I’m willing to do. I love playing rugby right now, but I am willing to give that up for my kids. But I want to be able to show them that it’s not selfish to take care of yourself. Because it is modeling, it is showing them what they should be doing no matter what age they are.
This prompted the next question: For our kids, what would we want them to model with their physical health when they are adults?
What would we want them to do for themselves in realizing that we kind of need to do that same thing for ourselves?
Mostly rhetorical questions, not meant to elicit parent guilt (we all know there is already too much of that)
I would want my kids to:
-Play more, go play with their friends (no matter the age)
-Exercise, go get sunlight and stress less about work and school
-When my kids are parents I don’t want them to give up all the activities they love just to shuttle kids to sports, etc. 7 days a week
-Try new things, especially if it is scary
Now the hard part; trying to model that and do it ourselves so our children see how!
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Ian Smith
Owner, Lead Trainer
Mountain Speed Strength & Fitness
Evergreen, CO