Making Balance Count This Festival Season
Summer is in full swing, and our family is taking advantage of every opportunity to be outside. We’re taking trips to the pool, joining in backyard barbecues and attempting to attend as many summer festivals as we possibly can.
While it’s tempting to celebrate summer by enjoying goodies roasted over the fire and attempting to eat at every single food truck in town – as a Together Counts™ Ambassador, I’m doing my best to balance energy in and energy out as a family.
This means that my husband and I are teaching our kids the importance of fueling our bodies with food so that we have the energy to jump off the diving board 1.2 million times, as well as participate in the fun run that kicks off our favorite summer festival.
Here are a few tips for helping your family balance energy in and energy out during summer celebrations:
Have a Plan
Whether we’re heading to a picnic with friends or hitting up our favorite downtown festival, we always make a plan and communicate it with our kids. We let them know our expectations for behavior, about what time we’ll be leaving and how many fun treats they can have.
Walking into a situation with clear expectations helps our kids manage their behavior while we’re there. And when they know we’re going to have two fun treats to eat (energy in), then they’re less likely to ask for more when they’ve reached their limit.
Take a Lap
The first thing we do when we go to a new playground, festival or even backyard picnic is take a lap with the kids and see everything that there is to do. The kids can see their options for fun activities (energy out), and also see their options for fun food to eat (energy in).
Bonus? We’re all getting a little pre-activity warm up with our walk.
Find a Balance
While we try never to make certain foods off limits to our kids, we do try to do our best to find a balance when we’re bombarded with so many yummy goodies. One way to do this is to through our in, out, out, out, in rule.
After we have a treat, we try to find three fun active games to do before we eat again.
So we might start our festival with lunch from our favorite food truck (energy in) and then play for a while in the bounce house (energy out), dance at the live music (energy out) and compete in the jump rope tournament (energy out) before we eat again.
If you pay attention, summer celebrations are a great way to practice an energy in/energy out routine for your family!
Anna Luther is the mom behind the blog, My Life and Kids. She loves to share her stories, make you laugh and help moms feel better about their crazy, messy, fabulous lives. She lives in Ohio with her husband and three little kids.