I’ve talked about the many benefits of baby swimming before. It’s a pastime I love sharing with my girls but I know that not all children are keen on going in the water. For example, my friend has a son who had an inexplicable hatred of water – even baths. Baby swimming sessions for them were fuelled with stress, and it wasn’t until he was older that he came around to the idea of swimming for pleasure.

What can you do if you have a child who hates the water? Should you encourage them to swim and if so, how do you do it? Here are five effective ways you can turn your stubborn swimming hater into a frolicking fish.

Lose the Structure

You don’t have to have a formal process to swim. If swimming lessons are the worst half an hour of your week, stop. Take a breath. Start swimming for fun. Forget lessons and go when your child feels like it, just for pleasure. Take a pool noodle and have fun races, or tow them around the pool as if they were a speedboat.

Play with Water

I learnt this trick from my friend with the water-hating son. When even bath toys wouldn’t encourage him into the water she turned it into a game by incorporating it into their daily routine. He would “help” with the washing (some face cloths in a tub of soapy water), and get involved in his older brother’s water pistol fights.  A paddling pool in the backyard in summer was the bridge she needed to encourage him into a bigger pool, and now swimming is a highlight of their weekends.

Try a Different Location

It might be something as simple as a cold changing room, or a too-large pool, that puts your child off swimming. Try a different location, lots of baby swimming schools have a variety of locations that make this easier for you. Make the most of available swimming pools on your summer holiday, when they may be encouraged by seeing other children having fun swimming outdoors in the sun.

Make it Social

Peer pressure can work wonders with encouraging reluctant children into the water. Take them to watch older siblings, or arrange to go swimming with a friend who has children of a similar age.  Go into the water with your child so you can stay close to them and show them it’s nothing to fear.  Older children may feel awkward putting their changing bodies on show. Don’t make a big deal of it, just occasionally float idea (no pun intended) that they go swimming with a friend, and be sensitive to their feelings.

Try Someone Else

If you have tried all of the above and still can’t encourage your child to swim, get someone else to take over whether it’s a specialist swimming instructor who excels in teaching reluctant swimmers, or your dad who has endless patience where yours may wear thin. Though you may want it to be, especially if you love the water, it doesn’t have to be you that gets your child to enjoy swimming. We love our children more than anyone else on the planet, but I’ve learned that we’re not always the best people to convince them to do things!

Have patience. Swimming is such a healthy pastime that it’s worth persevering. 

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Last week I read a blog post over at Emmaand3.com about turning resolutions into lifestyle changes, as many of us fail at New Years resolutions by the middle of January. It was interesting to learn about the Change4Life app that Emma talked about which allows you to scan a barcode and it will tell you how many sugar cubes are in the product. We do love a good app in our house, so my daughter was keen to download it and no sooner did she have it on her iPad, did everything start being snapped for sugar content. The results were really surprising!

My husband is extremely disciplined in his diet and is rarely swayed from his healthy eating lifestyle and I have been trying to improve on this, especially as I am getting older and so I made a resolve to cut down on the amount of sugar intake I have (two sugars in a cup of tea IS particularly naughty). I have been swapping to herbal cleansing teas and fruit squash, to increase my water intake too, so I was therefore HORRIFIED to learn the amount of sugar that is in my favourite cranberry juice ..... I may aswell have eaten a huge chocolate bar on a daily basis since Christmas!! 

Change4Life, is the government's biggest obesity-tackling initiative and this new campaign encourages parents to get ‘Sugar Smart’, following revelations that four to ten year olds consume over 5,500 sugar cubes each year – which is the average weight of a five year old. The campaign will educate both parents and children in avoiding lots of the ‘hidden sugars’ found in foods that are commonly available and enjoyed by children, so that they can make healthier choices as a family.

My daughter has loved going round the kitchen and checking the sugar content of all our favourite foods, on the plus side there are now foods that she won't eat (and she quotes the sugar content to me confidently) but on the flip side, it has meant that I have had to look at a whole new range of alternative breakfast options!

The Change4Life Sugar Smart app is a free download and it has really got us thinking as a family about what we are eating every single day. No matter how many times we have tried to tell the 10 year old that she needs a more balanced diet, she hasn't listened so it is amazing to see her reaction to the results on the app. 

I can't promise that we are going to cut sugar out completely but the app has certainly changed how we think about the food and drink we are consuming! 

How much sugar do you think is in your favourite food and drink?

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My husband says that our morning school run is more like a catwalk show and he has never known parents look so glamorous driving their "chelsea tractors" for what is essentially a taxi service for a small person. Whereas my best friends children go to a school where it has been known for children to be delivered to school on an actual tractor, complete with wellington boots.

Darren from www.motofx.co.uk said: ‘The look of your car can say a lot about a person, if you feel your car doesn’t show your personality fully, then consider a repaint or a wrap to give your vehicle a new lease on life.’ It really is funny how people can make judgements based on the car you drive or how you arrive to school each morning.

We live about 7 miles away from my children's school so walking to school isn't really an option, not in this weather or these heels for that matter, and unfortunately there is no local bus service for the girls, so we rely on the car to get us to where we need to be. My husband has always been a biker, so has no real interest in cars, other than making sure they get him from A-B but I spend a lot of time driving the girls from one place to another so I have to admit that I do like a car that has some creature comforts in it but what does that say about me? Apparently a lot! I entertained myself by taking a car personality quiz and was shocked at the results.

How does it know my shopping habits?

Do we really sterotype ourselves with the cars that we buy? 

Do you think people make a judgement of you based on the car you drive?

Do you want to know what the personality quiz says about you?

Just click below and come back and let us know the results because I am genuinely intrigued to see how accurate it is for everyone else! 

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Christmas is the only day of the year you’re allowed chocolate for breakfast - why else would we stuff the toes of our children’s stockings with chocolate coins? Many parents will testify that excessive sweets and chocolate can have a detrimental effect on their children’s health and behaviour. You don’t want to limit the fun of indulging over Christmas however few days of splurging should not turn into a fortnight’s binge. We’re not talking about diets for kids, but we are starting a new year of healthy eating, so here are our top tips on how you can get the entire family back into a healthy way of eating after Christmas.

Buy Less

Supermarkets are savvy and drop the prices of tubs of chocs in October and November so that we start stocking up early and then we still buy more in the sales ..... because it is just too good to leave at that price. Don't! Limit the amount of junk coming into your house and you’ll have an easier time getting rid of it afterwards. My kids always get spoiled by school, Santa, and relatives. They bring half a year’s worth of junk food into the house in the space of week, so I don’t need to buy them any more.

Exercise Control

Don’t make the mistake of letting kids keep their goodies in their bedrooms where you can’t see what they’re eating. It can lead to them guzzling in between meals, having massive sugar crashes, and picking at their plate because they weren’t hungry. Try storing their chocolate in the kitchen, somewhere it is out of sight but where you can see (or hear) when they are helping themselves and can stop them if it’s inappropriate.

Two Days, not Two Weeks

Research carried out into children’s eating habits found that they eat nearly four times their recommended daily calorie intake on Christmas Day, which is quite a shocking fact when you consider it. Give your kids one or two days where they can scoff sweets but then bring things back to normal. Dilute the influence of the sugar they are ingesting by making meals vegetable rich, and giving them water or milk to drink instead of sugary, fizzy pop. 

Get Active

All those extra calories children ingested over Christmas need to go somewhere. Channel the energy in a positive way through family walks or other physical activities. You don’t have to go outside - playing Twister, dancing around the sitting room, or even pillow fights will have the same effect.

Moderation is Key

Ditch the feast-or-famine mentality about Christmas eating. Lead by example - if they see you gorging non stop for a week before going on a strict diet you end in disappointment after ten days, your children will assume that an all-or-nothing approach is normal.

No one is telling you to be a food-Scrooge, but you’re not doing your child any favours by encouraging - or even allowing - them to eat their body weight in Quality Streets. Reign back on the amount you bring into the house, keep an eye on what they’re eating, and gradually bring their diet back to normal once Christmas (not the Christmas holidays) is over. 

Mu husband is always telling me that eating shouldn't be about diets and cheat days, it should be a healthy way of eating EVERY day, so how do you manage to get your children eating healthily? We would love to hear your tips for keeping your family healthy.

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