Have you ever played red light, green light with your little ones? The principle of the game is pretty straightforward. You say red light and your kids stop. You say green light and they start racing around or moving. Red light, stop. Green light, go. We started playing this particular game with our daughter when she was just 2 years old and by the time she was three, she knew what it meant.
Red Light: Stop. Green Light: Go.
This system can be applied to our activity levels, our eating choices and more. We teach our kids what’s good and what they can or can’t do and we can apply red and green light system to it. A few weeks ago, my daughter spent the night with her grandmother and went out to dinner and shopping with her aunt. They offered her an ice cream treat, but she hadn’t had dinner yet and she said:
I need a healthy snack and ice cream isn’t healthy.
Her response floored her grandmother and her aunt. But we’ve been spending the last few years teaching her how to make healthy choices. Every Friday at her school, they have an opportunity to buy ice cream for lunch. She gets lunch money to take with her for ice cream, but she has to eat her sandwich and drink her juice before she can have the ice cream. If she doesn’t finish her lunch – she can’t have it. She knows this and her teacher is often amazed at the fact that she follows this rule without prompting by anyone.
Red Light: Stop. Green Light: Go
We can teach our kids what are green light and red light items easily enough. Foods such as cheeseburgers, ice cream, French fries and other fried foods are red light. They are not daily snacks or meals. They are a treat now and again. Green light items are fruits, vegetables, and water and fruit juice. You can throw in yellow light items if you want to, but it’s usually simpler to go the green light for the healthy snacks and food and red light for the not so healthy foods.
Red Light: Stop. Green Light: Go
Halloween candy is definitely on the red light board. Of her oodles and oodles of candy retrieved during various Halloween parties and trick or treating; we’ve broken the pieces down into three or four different jars. She can have up to 3 pieces from one jar, two from another and only one from the last. She only gets a candy choice once a day and that’s only if she’s had a few healthy or green light meals throughout the day.
Teaching our kids to make the right fitness choices for them is as simple as playing red light, green light. Pretty cool, huh?
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