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Features this Month:

• America on the Move - small changes to a healthier life
• Back to School Balance - Keep Kids Active
• 10 Tips for Keeping Kids Active
• Sports and Volunteering at the Farmington YMCA

Back to School Balance: Keep Kids Active

Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer break for Michigan students, and a shift from hours of daily outdoor play to hours spent over homework. Don’t let back to school time mean a return to a sedentary lifestyle for your family.

Kids need 60 minutes of physical activity every day, according to the National Institutes of Health's Weight-Control Information Network. But less than half of U.S. kids are getting this daily requirement, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“It can be a challenge to fit in an hour of physical activity during the school year,” said Harley Wallen, YMCA regional director of Personal Training and father of three young children. “The trick is to leverage off school, afterschool and weekend programs to get your daily supply of activity and have a closet packed with supplemental activities to keep the family moving.”

Wallen suggests building a monthly activity plan, one month at a time. Consider the following steps for fleshing out a meaningful plan:

School Routine

Inquire at your child’s school about gym, recess and other physical activities. It’s important to quantify only those activities that can be considered at least moderate in physical engagement. If your child walks or bikes to school, capture this activity.

Afterschool

With your child, explore sports and wellness programs. The YMCA has a variety of afterschool, evening and weekend programs—martial arts, yoga, soccer, dance, and more—to engage kids of all ages. Fall registration is currently underway.

Weekends

Explore the outdoors, using the seasons to guide your family’s choices. Fall’s a great time to hike, fish, kayak and bike in southeast Michigan. Don’t want to leave home? Grab a Frisbee, play basketball in the driveway, create an obstacle course—use what’s accessible.

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Sports and Volunteering at the Farmington YMCA

As temperatures start to drop and leaves turn from green to red and yellow, it marks the arrival of autumn. For us, here at the Farmington Family YMCA, it marks the start of a very exciting time in our youth sports department; we look forward to a great variety of activities this fall. We offer athletic opportunities for your child; a chance to learn the fundamentals of sports while being involved in a fun and energetic environment. Our staff and volunteers will provide the proper instructional level based on the age of the children. We are pleased to announce the introduction of our dance classes and the expansion of our preschool gymnastics program. We will also continue with the traditional sports of the YMCA by offering basketball, outdoor soccer, tee-ball, and flag football. After a very successful inaugural season of baseball this past summer, we are pleased to announce a fall-ball session of coach-pitch baseball.

In YMCA Youth Sports, the emphasis is placed on character development, having fun and making friends. Here at the Farmington YMCA, we take pride in being a volunteer driven organization. We strive for family involvement through volunteer coaching. The following pledge was developed for players and coaches to say together before each game. The Pledge touches on the four core areas of character development. It reads: “Win or Lose, I pledge before God, to do my best, be a team player, to respect my opponents, teammates, rules and officials, and to improve myself in spirit, mind and body.” The importance of volunteer coaching is that kids have always found roles models in sports. But you don't have to be a pro athlete to make an impact. Coaching is a chance to teach fundamentals they’ll carry with them throughout their lives. The YMCA’s Youth Sports needs coaches who can help kids become not only better players, but better people.

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