Rising Above The Challenges Of Covid-19

Written by Amreeta Kaur Dhillon

This article is part of Active Parents’ From Parents to Parents series, brought to you in collaboration with Republic Polytechnic, School of Management and Communication. 

Much research has been done on how sport is fundamental in the holistic development of children. In addition to physical fitness for growth and strength, soft skills such as teamwork and resilience contribute to our kids’ social and emotional health.

33-year-old Raadha Garg and her husband, Seepij Gupta, 37 years old, make it a point for their family to keep active and inspire their daughter Saara, to cultivate love for sports. They spend at least an hour a day participating in physical activities as a family.

“We feel that it is important for our family to keep fit. So, we bond as a family by participating in physical activities such as weekly swimming sessions, ball games and even evening walks daily,” said Raadha.

It is no surprise that with the onset of COVID-19, it is a lot harder for many parents to keep their young children active and adopt or maintain healthy lifestyle habits. Parents have become cautious and fear exposing their children to potential infection once they are out of the house and must abide by the Safe Management Measures (SMMs) at public places that restrict activities and play time. As such, Raadha shared that it has been difficult to keep up with their original routine.

The couple thus decided to stay indoors and avoid heading out. As a result, initially there was only so much that they could do at home to keep fit due to the space constraints. Their 5-year-old daughter had also started losing interest in participating in physical activities at home as she found them boring. Raadha and her husband then brainstormed for fun activity ideas to excite their child to keep fit and clock in some active minutes together. One of their favourite activities is doing pull-ups while stretching on the pull-up bar at home or climbing their flat’s stairwell, which their daughter thoroughly enjoys!

Moreover, they found out that when they practise such active movements in front of their daughter, she looks up to them as an example and is more motivated to practise such activities herself without being forced to do so.

Raadha highly recommends using the facilities available around us like the stairwells where it is covid-safe and convenient for family to train and keep fit together.

As Active Parents, Raadha and Seepij put their child’s health and wellness at the heart of everything they do and every decision they make. Living with the pandemic, they managed to find ways to overcome the challenges by making fitness activities fun for their child by thinking out of the box and now have no trouble getting their child to keep fit and stay happy too.