Photo credit:
zerojay, Flickr
If you're old enough to have kids you probably remember what it was like to walk to and from school, rain or shine, blizzard or drought. Maybe on nice days you rode your bicycle. When your parents were school kids in the sixties, more than 90 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked or bicycled there. Today only 30 percent do, according to Jeff Yeager.
What happened that got the kids off their bikes and into the minivan? Some people cite safety concerns, but the chance that a child will be injured in a car accident are astronomically higher than that he will encounter evil doers out to sell him into child slavery on a chocolate plantation or something. Not to downplay the concern for child safety, you understand, but really—if he'll wear his helmet why not send him off to school on his bike?
Between 1976 and 2006, obesity in children ages six through twelve about tripled. The kids are ever more sedentary and it shows up in the width of their bottoms. Kids are also suffering nature deficit disorder. Parental concern, fueled by sensationalist media reports of abductions and the like, has limited the amount of time children spend outdoors in unsupervised settings. If your eight year old doesn't walk to school, just when will she have time to study the worms on the sidewalk after a rainstorm, pick up leaves, walk quickly and a little scared past the mean lady's house, or dawdle in a neighbor's driveway petting a friendly cat?
April 8 is National Start! Walking Day. The event is aimed at adults, but there ought to be a way to involve your children. Maybe you could walk to school with them. Or maybe that's a bad idea. It depends on the "parental embarrassment quotient," a metric directly related to what the child thinks his friends will think when they see him with mom or dad.
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Walking to school WITH the kids is pretty good exercise for Mom and Dad, too. ;)
In semi-rural Pennsylvania, schools are too far on un sidewalked roads for kids to walk, so the bus becomes part of the culture.
yesterday i met one of my new neighbors, we stood out in the lovely sunshine day and chatted for about 20 minutes (i make sure to spend at least 20 min/day in the sun for vitamin D) and then we decided to take a walk into town and back again - about 2.5 miles. walking is definitely my exercise of choice.
Walking my daughter 5 blocks to school in the AM is often the highlight of my day.
And HERS!
We live literally through the woods from my daughters' school. They adore taking the school bus (which involves a little walk) but I cannot wait until the weather warms up so we can have our walk in the woods.
I remember well that long walk through the snow to elementary school.
Back in those days, girls weren't allowed to wear trousers, dresses were required.
My mom insisted that I put long pants on under my skirt for the walk to school in sub-zero temperatures. I recall a good sized winter-long snow drift a block or so from home.
That's where the pants were stashed on my way to school and retrieved on the way home.
It was just too embarrassing to be seen in them. Better frost bite than socially unacceptable garb.