When school is over and there’s no reason to set an alarm for early in the morning, our children tend to get a little lazy. With no mandatory tasks, homework, or projects, they start feeling like all they're supposed to do is sit around, watch TV and enjoy their freedom. However, laying around doing nothing is bad for their health, physical, and mental development. This is why you need to ensure your children stay active during the summer.

If you’re not sure how to handle this, or you ran out of ideas, don’t worry. We’ve put together a list of 6 ways for you to boost your child’s activity this summer and make sure they spend their energy the best way possible.

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1. Be a Role Model

Your kids look up to you and probably tend to copy a lot of the things that you do. It's important to keep this in mind whenever you want for them to adopt a healthy habit.

You need to start with yourself.

That’s why, if you want to keep your kids active, the first thing you need to do is start leading an active life yourself.

Here's a couple of steps you can take today:

- spend all of your free time doing something productive, active, and challenging

- spend less time in front of the TV or looking at your phone

- be outdoors as much as you can

- invite your kids to join you

When it comes to your kids, you definitely have to practice what you preach, or else all your effort will be in vain.

2. Let Them Choose a Sport

When it comes to motivating your child to be more active, and practice a sport as a hobby, you don’t want to be too pushy. This might make them feel pressured and take the whole thing in the wrong direction.

The best way to handle this is to let your child explore and choose the sport they would like to try. Therefore, allow your child to:

- choose the sport they like the most

- try out different sports until they find something which entertains them

- find their match and learn how to love sports

You can, however, help them understand which sports do they like the most and be supportive during the selection process.

If you choose something for your child or force them to keep practicing the first sport they choose, they'll probably get frustrated, bored, and eventually give up.

Leave room for experimenting and exploration.

3. Keep it Fun

It’s summer and your kids want to relax, forget about the rules, and just follow their instincts. However, some parents act overly protective and impose strict rules on how to have fun.

And that’s simply absurd.

To put it simply, don't make your child's playtime into something surrounded by boundaries and rules. Let them play freely:

- give them the freedom to run around, climb, crawl, jump however they feel like

- try staying out of their playtime as much as possible

- try shouting “watch out!” or “careful!” as rarely as possible

- if they’re active but not following the rules of a game, just let them

Kids imagination will make them more active than anything else, so let them enjoy it fully.

4. Water Sports

Summer is the perfect season for you to teach your child a new skill, or for the whole family to learn a new water sport.

The weather will serve you perfectly, and all you have to do is choose an activity.

First things first, teach your child how to swim. If you’ve already got this covered, the whole family can choose a water sport such as:

- surfing

- diving

- canoeing

- paddle boarding

- windsurfing

You can even make things a bit more interesting for the kids. The whole family can compete to see who’s going to master the new water sport first.

5. Get a Pet

If your child isn’t inspired to be more active during the summer, you can try out a trick that rarely fails.

Sit down with your child and suggest getting them a pet. Make sure they understand the pet is a big responsibility and they’ll have to be a part of their nurturing.

A pet, especially a dog, will definitely keep your child active:

- they’ll go to walks together

- they’ll play in the yard

- they’ll spend time outdoors

It's a great way to teach your child how to be more responsible while having fun and enjoying active play with their pet.

6. Organize Play Dates

One of the problems your child might face during the summer is the lack of socializing. With no school and some of their friends gone on a trip with their parents, it might be hard to find someone to play with.

Therefore, you should keep in touch with other parents and organize play dates for your children:

- organize play dates in each other’s yards

- go to weekend trips together

- meet at the park, by the lake, or at the beach

If your child enjoys the company of a friend, they’ll find something interesting to do and they’ll be more active than ever.

Additional Activity

Finally, let’s not forget to mention that mental activity is equally as important as physical.

You don’t what to pressure your child to practice math or study in advance over the summer. However, they should still engage themselves in interesting and fun activities, which will keep their brains active and developing.

For example:

- if your child is good at music, have them listen to some new pieces of evergreen every day

- if your child is good at writing, encourage them to enter a summer essay writing contest. Or you can simply give them an interesting topic to write about and send it to one of the best writing websites for a review.

- if your child is good at chemistry, try performing an experiment together to keep them interested.

Make sure they continue nurturing their favorite skills during the summer.

Final Thoughts

Boosting your child’s activity this summer isn’t as hard as you may think. All you have to do is find what suits them the most and let them enjoy their active time.

Follow the advice above, and help your child choose a sport or an activity they’ll enjoy. Join them whenever you get the chance and keep the whole family active and healthy.