Stand Up Straight Please – Kid’s Posture
Do you ever find yourself saying to your children, please stand up or sit up straight? I do remember my own folks and even grandparents reminding me of this, yet I didn’t know I was even slouching as I am sure our own kid’s don’t either. There is a great article from The Washington Post (September 16, 2010) written by Lenny Bernstein, “To Help Kids Maintain Good Posture, Make it Fun” which goes into detail about how to get our children to stand up straighter and why they don’t. The reason kids have bad posture is because they have loss their core stability and need to be reminded to hold their shoulders back. Now a days, children spend a lot of time hunched over a computer, playing video games, carrying heavy backpacks at school which all lead to bad posture positions. Studies say that posture is a learned behavior from the ages of 3-5 years old and children also pick up on adults around them, so if someone is modeling a slouch the child will too.
Things that can be done to improve our children’s posture: stretch breaks when you are at the computer (stand up and reach hands above the head and lean back for a short stretch); exercise; play the Wii games (this is better than sitting on the sofa playing a board game); sit on a stability ball while watching TV or on the computer, this allows kids to engage their core muscles. I love the idea of sitting on that stability ball, you know kids will be bouncing everywhere. But every little bit can help for our youngsters so when they become adults they all be standing tall.
