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How to get your child out and about

We Make Footballers
01 April 2022

Are you worried that your child spends too much time indoors? You aren’t alone. Two-thirds of parents have concerns that their kids are glued to television screens, computer games or tablets when they could be outside playing. Four in ten told a survey by Decathlon that they have to force their reluctant youngsters outside to play.
If that sounds like you, then you might be wondering what you can do to get your kids to swap technology for fresh air and exercise. Here are some ideas for getting your child out and about.

Sign them up for real Football and leave Fifa at home!


Playing football is an excellent way to give your children the exercise they need in a fun environment, so swapping FIFA on a PlayStation for real-life football is a great way to encourage an active lifestyle.
We Make Footballers run weekly coaching sessions throughout the year with indoor and outdoor facilities to make sure that training is always on! These are taken by fully qualified FA coaches and are suitable for all ages and abilities, for enjoyable and inclusive football in a safe environment. Find your nearest centre here.

Your young ones will be able to practice and master the skills they have perfected on FIFA as our weekly training syllabus is heavily focused on developing each individual player. We do this to improve their self-confidence, mastery of the ball, technical understanding of football and of course, with lots of skills and tricks to make it fun!
They’ll love the fun and exciting atmosphere as matches take place with great Brazilian music in the background and goals being scored across all our pitches!

Take a photo walk


If you’ve got kids who are obsessed with Instagram and who can’t put their smartphones down as a result, then you can use that to actually get them out and about via a little bit of creative thinking.

We’re talking about photo walks. Take them out into the countryside and encourage them to take photos of the flowers, animals and stunning scenery around them to share on social media. Make it a family adventure and bring along a picnic too.
While they may still have technology on them, they are at least using it at the same time as getting fresh air and exercise – and you’ll be encouraging and nurturing an appreciation of the beauty of nature, which can be no bad thing.

Set up a steps challenge


Children love competitions so play on their competitive side by setting up a family competition to see who can walk the most in a set period of time.
This could be steps recorded in a day or distance covered over a week. It’s relatively easy to record how far you walk these days through tracking apps on smartphones, smartwatches or Fitbits. Take a daily total from each member of the family and pin up the totals on a fridge or prominent place in the house. The kids will love seeing how far behind or ahead they are of the leader and then increase their steps to try and catch up or extend a lead.
And it isn’t just for the kids either. A step challenge can be a great way for getting adults to be more active as well. This is a fun way to get the whole family into exercise and set great habits over time.

Create a treasure hunt

If the steps challenge isn’t enough to keep your kids entertained, then you can kick things up a notch by setting up a treasure hunt around your local area.
Send them out with the challenge of finding and photographing a list of items within an hour. A certain colour car, a pinecone, a cat and a street sign containing as many letters of the alphabet as possible are just some of the ideas that you could use.
They’ll have great fun tracking down what they need and because they know they’ve only got an hour to do so, they’ll have to move at pace – giving them the exercise that they need.

Eat outdoors
 

This one isn’t always possible with the great British weather, but eating outdoors is an underused method of getting a family out into the open air.
Sure, you aren’t going to be getting much exercise from eating but it does at least break the reluctance any children might have of leaving the house, offering them fresh air away from computers and tablets.

Not to mention the fact that it’s fun as well. Whether you are just going al fresco in the garden or taking a picnic to a local beauty spot, it can feel a lot like you’re on holiday - rather than dragging yourself and your family outdoors for some fresh air.