Post 2 in a series: I COULD TELL YOU, BUT YOU AREN’T GOING TO LIKE IT © 2023
Once again, for purely entertainment purposes, I foray into the world of possible changes to be made to your, and perhaps your child’s, routine to maximize well-being. Be sure to consult a health professional before undertaking new activities.
My child is hyperactive, part 2: Move it!
I am using “hyperactive” in quotation marks because, over the past 25+ years, many parents have offered this as their diagnosis of their children. When asked to describe the behaviors, they talk about poor attention, disorganization, disobedience, moodiness, lost homework and missing sports equipment, etc. It is this type of description, not the medical diagnosis per se, that I address here.
Human beings are designed to move: to walk, bend, stretch, jump, hop, climb, and more. We are able to throw things, build things, swim, dance, and then, when weary, sit and rest. Follow a healthy preschooler around for a few hours and you’ll get the idea: explore, play hard, stop when you’re ready to rest. Modern life seems to have it backwards: most people’s lives involve a preponderance of sitting and far too little standing and moving. This is unhealthy for most people (of course, some people have serious health limitations) and even worse for healthy children. To expect children to sit still for many hours is a recipe for attention and behavior issues as well as developmental challenges.
My paperwork for new clients includes questions on sleep, exercise, and basic health, because these habits help shape mental health, too. These also can highlight if mental health care needs to be coordinated with their physician due to physical conditions that can impact mental health. Obviously, we function best when our habits encourage physical and mental well-being.
In my last post, I challenged parents to take a hard look at their family’s sleep habits and work towards healthy changes. Perhaps by now you and your child have been experimenting with getting adequate sleep. A second step towards a healthier, happier child with better focus, memory and mood is physical activity. The American Heart Association recommends at least one hour per day of moderate to vigrous physical activity for children and teens. That means running, jumping, playing games, riding a bicycle, dancing, etc. It doesn’t mean a two-hour practice in which they spend 30 minutes on the field and 90 on the bench, waiting their turn. Ideally, it includes plenty of free interactive play with other children and some with parents. It is this play, which requires physical activity and complex social skills, that enhances brain development the best and prepares children for the increasingly complex world of the workplace. It includes the kind of rough-and-tumble play children traditionally have had primarily with fathers, in which the father would model how to pause and calm down before things get out of hand. Rough and tumble play without limits becomes “The Lord of the Flies” and grotesque gang violence. Life without play leads to passivity, poor social skills, poor physical health and higher risk for anxiety, depression, insomnia, and loneliness.
If your family pediatrician has cleared your child for physical activity, it is imperative to get moving. Your next task will be to find ways for your child or children to have more unstructured play time with children, and more outdoor activities with you, too. That will seem inconvenient, especially if you have your children overscheduled and accustomed to being moved from place to place and activity to activity, their entire lives carefully curated to keep them under the direct management of adults.
Go to the park and get on the swings, use the jungle gym, the climbing wall, the workout stands around the periphery. You might have to participate at first, just to show them how it’s done. Take nature walks. Put the phones away; have yours along to take pictures of interesting animals and plants to look up together later, after you’re home.
Like the change to the sleep routine, expect push-back. Be consistent and see what happens. I suspect that, once your child is on a normal sleep schedule for a few weeks, and has adequate active play, you will see some interesting changes in behavior. As a side benefit, screen time naturally is reduced: children who are active outdoors and getting enough sleep have less time to be drugged by their screens.
Have fun playing!
drloriputerbaugh 