Inspire a Generation

As the Olympics and Paralympics finish and those involved concentrate on the legacy of London 2012 and their slogan "Inspire a Generation", I wonder how I can do the same at home.  

My toddler is going through a phase of mimicking the words and behaviour of those around her.  She feeds, winds, cuddles and rocks her baby doll (sometimes it also gets told off and put on the naughty step!), helps me with the housework, pretends to cook, tries to encourage me to eat.  Recently I have noticed that she has also been copying me doing my exercises.

I've often heard that the children of active parents, particularly active mums, are more likely to exercise.  In 2008 an article in the British Medical Journal - Early life determinants of physical activity in 11 to 12 year olds - looked at the impact of exercise in pregnant women and mums with young children on the same children when they got older.  Unsurprisingly, they concluded that there is some association between a parent's level of activity and their child's.  There are, however, so many factors to consider, not least genetics, that to me it seems like a nature versus nurture debate.

Nature is unlikely to have produced a top performing athlete in our daughter, but I will nurture her enthusiasm for having a go by involving her in my exercise routine.  I'm pleased to see her trying to join in.  I want her to see that being active is normal and exercise is fun.  Why drive when you can walk?  Dance in the kitchen if you like the music on the radio.  Run in the park and see if you can catch the pigeons.  

I don't want her to be turned off sport, as I was, for not being good enough.  If we are truly going to inspire a generation, a whole generation and not just the naturally able, then surely we need to encourage the gifted and motivate the rest.  To me, that is the challenge in the Olympic legacy and the challenge as a parent.  We don't need to be the fastest, we just need to be fit and healthy.

Balancing

One of the exercises that we do in the park is a three-way balance: standing on one leg with the other leg and arms outstretched and, if possible, closing your eyes and trying to stay upright.  The balance improves core stability.  My balance has never been very good, I find it difficult to stand on two feet with my eyes closed!  When we do this balance I don't close my eyes but I keep practising with my eyes open and one day I will close them.  I will probably topple very quickly but I'm sure that in time I will be able to manage a few seconds.


Being a mother of two children is also a balancing act.  I try to balance the attention that I give them, make sure I am handing out cuddles to the older one as well as the baby, have time with each child on their own and with them together.  The girls themselves are like weights on a set of scales as I assess at each moment who wants or needs me more, is it the toddler upset with teething pain or the baby crying for a cuddle?  Should I put the toddler down for a nap and close the door on the fussing baby for a few minutes or try to settle the baby first and hope I can do it quickly before the toddler changes her mind about sleeping?


I hope I will soon have enough confidence in standing on one leg to have the courage to close my eyes and see what happens.  I'm also practising the parental balancing act but this exercise will never be perfected, I will just have to keep my eyes open to   the ever-changing needs of each member of my family and hope that I develop the confidence to trust that I will make the right decisions about their care and well-being.