Every year for the past many years, our family has gone to the same state park and camped in the same spot. It is a special spot because there are no neighbors and we almost feel as if it is our very own by now. This has proven to be one of the best things ever to bond with them.

Even now, when they are in their teens, they get all excited and wild-eyed when we get close and they see their old familiar sights: the rope swing, the granite rocks, the hiking trails, the beautiful lake, and finally our secret spot!

I always have the same rules and have never had a problem, except when a whiney boy was allowed to tag along and disrupt everything. Nobody has gotten lost, too injured or sick in all the years, though we have had to get some help with a fish hook stuck through a finger once.

Anyway, parents should think about things they can do regularly with their children to create lasting memories. It is not the big, expensive things that matter: it is the fact that you are there with them, doing the same things. Sometimes this is not so easy and requires considerable sacrifice because maybe you just don’t want to hike up the trail to swim in a pond.

Yet the discomfort of doing things we don’t necessarily want to is much less than the discomfort of alienating a teenager or making trips to the local family counselor! A lot of depression is the result of feeling unloved or overlooked.

Find those things that fit with your family and your style. Maybe sports, maybe music, science fairs, bike trips, even shopping trips (talk about a sacrifice!), find what fits and make a memory. They will last a lifetime. This is also a great way to relieve family stress, as long as you do not try to overdo it.

This is part two of “How To Raise Athletic Children.” Here is the daily routine, more or less…

• Everybody, everybody gets up around 7 am. Nobody is allowed to lounge around or sleep in until some ridiculous hour and be as lazy as possible.
• Breakfast is planned so that the girls (or boys), are the ones preparing, serving and cleaning up for breakfast. Plan it on a rotating schedule so everyone, even the privileged snobby ones are required to contribute. Make the meal substantial, so they are not hungry again for a while.
• The daily activity is not the sport they are playing, in this case soccer. Instead, use “cross-training” such as kayaking in the river in front of my house to the nearby island.  They could camp out on the island, make their own meals, learn how to get dirty and grubby, then wash off in the river.
• The next day they could play volleyball, or plant a garden, or ride a bike to the store 5 miles down the road to get a drink.
• Another day they could hike up one of the nearby mountains, maybe camp on the top. You can be sure they would sleep well! No Ipods, no cell phones, no internet during the day. Give their spirits a chance to listen to the wind and water for a change.
• They could mow the lawn, kayak across the river to play soccer at the local college with visiting girls from other areas.
• They could go swimming again, in a different river nearby, and hike up a different mountain.
• What about hide and seek at night? Or German spotlight tag? There are endless old fashioned games that are really fun to do at night. Lots of squeals and shrieks of delight!
• You get the point, let them play, shut the door to the house, give them opportunity to try new things that might challenge them.

So many children are out of shape and have little practical experience with real-life situations! Parents are always working just to keep the wolf away and few people have the time or energy to oversee such healthy activities.

I am certain that one of the primary reasons for the outstanding athleticism of all of my 8 children is this very thing. We allowed them the room to run around outside and get dirty, try new things, and make mistakes. This is, of course, somewhat of a messy operation and includes a lot of possibilities to “get into trouble.” Yet the trouble they got into was mostly fairly innocent.

One of the “innocent” troubles was when my skateboarding son and his friends occupied a vacant mattress factory parking lot and set up a very elaborate skate park. It was so well done, but, in the end, they all got hauled in for some trespassing issues. We tried and tried to get the town to build a park, but it just didn’t fit with their image of shiny BMW’s and Mercedes.

So, if you want to learn how to raise athletic children who keep busy and initiate good activities, give them the space, a few tools and keep a loose leash on everything. You will learn to trust each other, but it is certainly a process!

When my youngest daughter was playing soccer for a club team in Connecticut I realized a few things about raising athletic children. You see, she was the star player on a private club team in a very exclusive part of the exclusive state. We were one of two families that were not rich.

Without elaborating on the wealth of some of these parents, let is suffice to say that they had butlers, gated estates, landscaped in-ground swimming pools, and private chefs. One of the girls even had a BMW convertible at the age of 14! More than once I put my foot far into my mouth when talking with these parents.

Many of the girls had private trainers and memberships to the best exercise clubs anywhere. They had the best equipment, coaching, training, etc., but none of them could outdo my daughter. Now, this is, of course, partly due to genes. Her mother could have been a very good athlete, but there were no girls sports in her little farming town in rural Wisconsin. I was a star track and field athlete and even won the state long jump championship in high school.

On the other hand, I am convinced that another reason she did so well was because she had always been encouraged to play outside as a child. That is how I came up with the rather tongue-in-cheek idea to start a summer camp for young budding athletes.

I would charge an outrageous amount of money per week because then the parents would feel like they were getting something really special. Make it sound exclusive and fancy. So I made up the $5,000 per week tuition rate.

Next, they would all stay at my house for the entire time, and follow the routine laid out. Since I live in the countryside, it would work out quite well to have such a camp, as you will see…

Next blog I will lay out the daily schedule…

For the past 30 years I’ve been hearing about this very interesting way to increase your gas mileage, and I just couldn’t believe it was possible. Now I have changed my mind. Watch this video and check out the site; it is well worth considering. The video is the one with Jimmy Carter on the front.

Here is the link to the video and story…