Being a parent can be nothing short of exhausting. Between kids, house, work, school, cooking, cleaning and also playing the part of a taxi driver for your kids and their friends there’s hardly enough time or energy at the end of the day to even consider working out. My kids have so much energy as soon as they open their eyes in the morning it’s unbelievable, I wish their energy was bottled up and distributed to myself and every other parent I know.

I thoroughly enjoy the fact that my children have so much energy and all they ever want to do is play outside. They often want me to play with them, sometimes I am just plain wiped out and the last thing I feel like doing is running around and playing, but I would rather run around and exhaust myself than hurt their little feelings because I didn’t “feel like” playing. So I always play with them.

My oldest son is almost 12 and I really wanted to introduce working out to him. I felt he is at an appropriate age that he could actually enjoy it. I have taken him to my favorite place to go running with me and he had a blast, it gave us much needed one on one time. We will definitely be doing this more often next spring when we are able to run outside again, after hibernation in Ohio is over! He has mentioned to me recently that he wants to lift weights and do other manly exercises. I am not exactly a bundle of knowledge when it comes to “man exercises” so I will probably have to have my guy friends teach him or take him to a gym where the instructors can show him best. I have however introduced him to all sorts of exercises you can do at home and stretches that make you feel amazing, or in other words yoga.

I am thrilled about his new obsession with exercise because this is something I enjoy and we can do together, quite possibly the younger children will want to do the same thing when they are his age because big brother is so cool!

There are all sorts of books and online articles you can read about kids doing yoga, stretching, and using your own body weight to work out your body. It’s very educational for parents and children. Or you can YouTube exercises as well. It’s such a luxury to have access to so much information at our fingertips, take advantage of it.