How do I get my kids to exercise? | BBC Radio Solent's Alun Newman

I was taken aback by this throwaway comment.

I wish I was able to be so laid back, so ‘savoir-faire’ (French for laid-back although Google tells me it’s actually French for acting appropriately. So I’ve been using it incorrectly for more than 40 years!).

I don’t have that ability to be so laid back, I’m afraid.

If I pretend that I am, things only get worse. I become an emotional Vesuvius building up to erupt.

I have to insist that my children go for a walk every day and I try different approaches with varying degrees of success.

Usually I’m too over the top and enthusiasm leads to the Third World War.

At the beginning of this process, I remember trying to incentivise a 10,000-step reward-based system.

I may have even written about it with the false belief that it was going to be a family foundation stone for lockdown.

I’m not sure who or what came up with 10,000 steps but it seems to have stuck, but this was a bonkers target and soon was reduced to 5,000 steps.

Now I’ll take whatever I can get. I feel like a disempowered army sergeant. A drill instructor with all the gear, the right talk, the sense of power.

Except when I tell the troops to ‘get down and give me 20’ they either say ‘no’ or they ask what’s in it for them.

I was hoping that I could lead by example.

My garage has become my gym and I welcome visitors into the ‘DoJo’ of dreams.

However, take-up has been slow. Even if I promise to play Rocky music and they can quit whenever they like, still nothing.

Some parents, like my buddy on Zoom, seem to be impervious to these pressures.

They think it will be all right in the end. Children will find their own rhythm. It’s only for a season (or four).

But I simply can’t find that layer of inner peace.

I think I’d like to be a parent who doesn’t become emotionally embroiled in the quest to get children moving, but it’s simply not in my DNA.

As we're now more than 320 days into this saga, I have hit the bottom of the motivation barrel.

Last weekend I asked my kids to walk and get me some chocolate biscuits.

I thought it would get them out. It was freezing cold and the Co-op is a good 20-minute round trip.

It was ridiculous. They did some exercise and came back with enough calorie-laden high sugar food that would have been a struggle for Eddie Hall to pack away (World’s Strongest Man 2017 and his TV show is called Eddie Eats America. It’s disgusting, unbelievable and watchable all in one).

Crisis and pressure is supposed to refine us as people.

It’s in the fire that we learn to understand ourselves. It’s in the heat of battle that we find resilience and courage.

It’s when the chips are down that we define our character and our ability to overcome.

These moments in history are chances to shine.

What I’ve learned this week is this, above all things.

When the going gets tough. When I feel exhausted and out of ideas, all I need are some of those Fox's Chocolatey Milk Chocolate Rounds shortcake biscuits and everything's okay.

And if you get your children to collect them for you it’s a win-win!

GOOD VIBRATIONS

I have a vibrator. When I get within two metres of someone at work it goes off.

It is to help guide staff around the office and not get too near to each other. The intention is good. The outcome interesting. Once your belt starts vibrating it produces a rally of interaction starting with this question: ‘We’re more than two metres apart aren't we?’

This develops into discussing how you gauge a metre. Some people think one metre is a generous adult pace. That causes a further piece of dialogue about height. There’s no way my wife’s single pace is a metre at a time.

The next conversation is usually who’s to blame. You walk around the corner and someone is filling up their water bottle. Inadvertently I’ve now broken the proximity rule. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve set your vibrator off’. ‘Please don’t worry it’s happening all the time today’.

Some have chosen to go with the official branding of ‘Proximity Devices’ but that doesn't help when they start reacting to a proximity breach. Common things now heard in the office – ‘I can hear vibrating but it’s not me’.

I never thought I’d work under these conditions, however, the longer this goes on the more fortunate I feel. Being able to go to work is seen by many as a break from lockdown as well as ‘lucky your business is still running’. My morning routine?

Enter the building, computerised temperature check, gel hands, attach vibrator and start my shift. Even so, it’s still the best job on earth.

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