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Healthy Choices: Sugary Drinks Affect Toddlers

soft-drink_500The consumption of empty calories by children is having the effect of greater increase in their (BMI) Body Mass Index by the age of 5.   In a study just published in the journal Pediatrics, those children who consumed sugary drinks at younger ages like 2 years old, had increased their BMI in the next 2 years at ages 4 and 5 at a higher rate than those who did not consume them. 

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While it makes no sense for government officials to set policy, certainly this study and others shows the need for parents to set policy in their own home and schools about beverage choices.  I am not sure how all of the different studies relate to each other, but it has also been found that those children who had 8 oz. of sugary drinks per day also were more likely to watch more than 2 hours of television daily.  Is that a parenting issue or are the two related in some other way?

Nonetheless all of this adds up to higher rates of obesity in our young people.  It is interesting too that increase of exercise in many children increases their ability to learn and focus.

The Balanced Life Skills Way

  1. Exercise regularly
  2. Reduce or eliminate the sugary drinks.  Check the labels to see what your child is taking into their body.
  3. Parental modeling of good habits – regular exercise routine, drink lots of water.

Healthy choices is one of our main headings of instruction for our students.  Healthy choices includes eating, exercise, friendships, and staying away from drugs.   Check out our most nutritious food chart at our studio.

Primary source: Pediatrics    Source reference: DeBoer MD, et al. “Sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain in 2- to 5-year-old children” Pediatrics 2013; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-0570.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Parenting/39915

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Life Skills – Charity: The Definition

Teaching Children Life Skills

Each month we will discuss a life skill with all of our students.  This month the word is Charity.  This word will be defined in the following ways for our students.

 

 

Young students:  Charity: “I give to those in need!”

Older students:  Charity means:  ”Giving to those in need without expecting anything in return.”

Each age group has a worksheet that parents can use to continue the discussion at home with their children, and one for adults to allow them to think more deeply about the skill and how it applies to them.  Would you like to receive the worksheet?  Stop by our studio at 133 Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, MD and tell us the age of your child.  We will give you a worksheet and invite you to watch Mr. Joe discuss the word with the students in class.  You can also follow our discussions here on this website.

If you would like to become a member of Balanced Life Skills, come TRY CLASSES FOR FREE.   We are not your typical martial arts school, in fact we are an education center, working with our students on physical skills along with empowering families with compassion, awareness and respect.  We believe in every child and build their confidence in themselves.  Balanced Life Skills takes part in community service and encourages each student to do the same.  You are welcomed to come in and talk to the parents that are here and watch the class for the age group you are interested in.

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Bamboo Bikes Made in Greensboro, Alabama

Every year in April a group of martial artist from around the country assemble in Greensboro, Alabama for a different kind of convention.  This convention is about doing good for others, a time to put into practice what we talk about all year.  It is also about learning from each other and those around us.

In the last couple of years we have learned from this group who are building bamboo bicycles.  Can you imagine people from the community learning to build a bike with local, recoverable resources.  Here is a little video about their work and is a part of a campaign to raise money.  I am not asking you to contribute unless you are moved to do so.  I am asking you to look at this example and for all of us to ask ourselves if we are contributing to our community in the best way that we can.   Here is their video.

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Push-hands with the Elements

IMG_3548There is a common two-person Tai Chi practice walled tuishou, or push-hands. It seems, from what I have seen, that it varies in its details from school to school, but I hope the core practice is the same. Two practitioners stand and push one another, trying to maintain constant contact while looking for the opening to unbalance their partner. The secret, as far as I have grasped it, is the smooth and accurate transition from pushing to yielding in perfect synchronicity with your partner’s transition: when the other person is pushing at 80% power, you are exactly 80% yielding. When they are 30% yielding, you are exactly 30% pushing. One can not be always pushing or always yielding: obviously always yielding gets you knocked over, and always pushing seems strong but against a skilled opponent gets overbalanced. Clearly this requires great skill and sensitivity. There is no single “answer” that solves the “problem” each and every time, only by reacting well to the constantly changing situation does one stay on one’s feet.

In this way, push-hands becomes one way to understand Taiji. Taiji is the Daoist philosophy of ever-shifting opposites. This is the philosophy the physical practice of Taijiquan attempts to capture. This practice has in turn become known (somewhat confusingly) as just Taiji, or Tai Chi (See what we did there? Made a nice little circle).

So I bring this up in an attempt to offer, once and for all, my solution to what is known in my class as, “THE HAT QUESTION.” Shifu has told us, “You must protect your health, and so you must keep your body warm in the winter.” He has also said, “Don’t wear hats during training.” So the question is this: do we or do we not wear hats to protect our health in training? And I think the answer is Taiji. Taiji the philosophy, not Taiji the physical practice — although I guess exercise helps stay warm too 🙂

If we imagine the weather as our push-hands partner, I think it becomes clear. When we are at rest, say, in our room, we are in a yielding, receptive state. The weather, cold and harsh, pushes against us. Bundling up is the passive response to cold weather, so we must bundle up. However, to maintain balance, we can’t be passive all the time, sometimes we must stoke the body’s internal fires and push back against the cold. When this happens, we don’t need or want a hat —  it is a crutch that limits us and a blockage to the natural path of the body heat rising from our center.

The answer is that there is no single answer for every situation, hat or no hat. We must match our head covering to the weather and our own state of yielding or surging. Right now, are you more yin or more yang? But since Shifu is Shifu, and he expects us be fired up for training, we should be pushing against the weather during training and not wearing a hat. So no hat.

It’s funny to be writing about bundling up when it is just August and I am stewing in my own sweat every moment of every day. But the principle of trying to match my body and behavior to the circumstances still applies if I am trying to figure out if I should be strolling in a blessedly cool afternoon rain shower, or running for cover.

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How Determination Grows Confidence

confidence-2If there is one universal quality that all parents want their children to have as they go into the world, it would be confidence. While confidence is a very complex subject it is interesting to see how determination plays a role in gaining confidence and confidence in determination.

Confidence requires that we try new skills and have the determination to stick with it till we have the skill. Imagine saying that we want to learn to play the piano, we will not have the confidence to play at a recital if we have not practiced. Practice requires determination to stay focused on our goal of learning our music and performing well.

Confidence requires that we do hard things. If we only take part in activities that come easily to us we will never work the muscles to make us feel confident. When we attempt a new activity that is hard for us to do, we need determination to stick with it until it is complete. We also learn to ask for help when required, but we are determined not to give up.

Confidence is easier when we are healthy physically which leads to good mental health too. If our bodies feel good and we know we are taking care of ourselves, our mind will tell us we can do things that may seem impossible if we are not making healthy choices. This is true of kids and adults.

Confidence grows when we are contributing to the good of others. When we take our mind off of ourselves and appreciate the good in others, our confidence feels much stronger. All humans have a need to do good for others and our determination to do so contributes to our confidence.

Confidence / Determination or Determination / Confidence. I am not sure which one comes first but they certainly compliment each other as we grow in our life.

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Three Tips For Parents To Teach Determination

As parents we know how important it is for our children to develop the quality of determination. It could be said that it is the difference between success and failure. It is also the difference between them learning to value themselves for what they have earned and not expecting everything to just be given to them.

 Here are three points that will help us parent our children to having determination.jumpingropeboy

  1. Teach them that little steps on a consistent basis often leads to accomplishment of your goal. Both children and many adults believe that those that are the best at an activity are just natural achievers. The fact is though that with consistent effort that we continue to improve. A great example in our Kindergarten / First Grade classes we ask the children to learn to jump rope. This is a monumental task for that age group. We are working on coordination as well as focus, determination, perseverance. What we have found is that those that will practice jumping rope for 5 minutes a day consistently over a few weeks soon become the best at this task.
  2. Teach children to deal with obstacles. We can have many different kinds of obstacles blocking us from reaching a goal that we have set out to achieve. But many of them are self inflicted, including the way we talk to ourselves, being a perfectionist, or resisting success with procrastination. Helping our children to learn about obstacles, being able to Know it, Name it and then How to move past it and continue on to success, is part of demonstrating determination.
  3. Both of the prior steps are best implemented by putting our children into learning environments where determination is a part of the lessons being taught. When this is done in a way that values staying the course and celebrating the results, soon our children will be able to apply this to all different aspects of their life.

 

All individuals have special gifts or strengths. So if our child is really gifted athletically then something else is going to be more of a test and learning experience for them. If we only practice or play at what we are good at – if we have to win all of the time or if as a parent we do not allow our children to fail, they may never learn this most valuable lesson of determination.