In Feeding with Love and Good Sense, Ellyn Satter shares more tips on supporting physical activity that fits your child’s needs.
Physical Activity
Supporting activity is good parenting.
Children are born loving their bodies, curious about them, and inclined to be active. Good parenting preserves and deepens these qualities. A child’s job is to grow into their happiest, healthiest self. The job of parents, teachers, and caregivers is to nurture that growth.
The Division of Responsibility in Activity
The Division of Responsibility can be applied to physical activity, too. With activity, parents provide structure, safety and opportunities. Depending on their age, children are responsible for determining how, how much, and whether they move.
You can apply the Division of Responsibility in activity from infancy through adolescence.
Parents’ jobs with activity:
- Provide safe places for activities the child enjoys.
- Find fun and rewarding family activities.
- Provide opportunities to experiment with group activities like sports.
- Remove TV and computers from the child’s room. Set limits on screen time but not on reading, writing, arts and crafts, or other sedentary activities.
- Make children responsible for dealing with their own boredom.
- Trust children to do their job: choosing how much and whether to move in ways that are most fun and enjoyable.
When you do your jobs,
children can be trusted to:
- Engage and participate in physical activities that are fun and enjoyable.
- Experiment with activities that are in line with their growth and development.
- Find activities that are right for them.
Division of Responsibility
In Activity for Infants:
The parent provides the infant with a variety of positions, clothing, sights, and sounds.
Then the parent remains present and lets the infant experiment with moving.
The parent is responsible for safe opportunities.
The child is responsible for moving.
Division of Responsibility in activity for toddlers through adolescents:
The parent is responsible for structure, safety, and
opportunities.
The child is responsible for
how, how much and whether
they move.
Children can and will manage their own physical activity once the Division of Responsibility has been established. Keep in mind:
- Each child is more or less active depending on their natural developmental potential.
- Each child is more or less skilled, graceful, energetic or aggressive depending on their nature.
- Children’s physical capabilities will grow and develop over time.