Be a Running Role Model

You certainly shouldn’t force children into running. Little League syndrome is as bad in running as it is in baseball. Children can sense when you’re pushing them into an activity. They might not resist immediately, but eventually they will. Having fun consistently ranks as the top reason that kids give for participating in sports. For preteens, fun almost always means the here and now. Most preteens haven’t developed what psychologists call abstract thinking, the ability to set long-term goals and to see how doing something that might not feel good right now is worth it for the pay-off later. In a certain sense, isn’t that what a lot of running is about? A big motivation for getting out for a run today is because you know that doing so will benefit you later—you’ll feel better the next day, or you’ll be able to run faster in a race a month from now, or you’re working toward a weight-loss goal, or you’re making one of an ongoing series of contributions to fighting disease, and so on. When children don’t come to running on their own terms, they’re not going to like it because they don’t yet have that sense of delayed gratification.
If a kid wants to run and can state why and seems to enjoy it, then I’m all for some low-level regular running.
Children’s attitudes toward running largely stem from what they notice about how the adults around them approach it. If you’re always walking around the house before your runs moaning about what a horrible chore running is, then don’t be surprised if your kids don’t show much interest in it. But if your children see that running to you means getting outside and exploring and feeling good and being with your friends and having fun, they’ll probably think otherwise. Running will seem like a form of play.