Movement Hunger

10 am on the Sunday morning. That's when it happens. After a lazy morning in pyjamas playing lego things start escalating. My kids start needling each other, bickering and snatching. I feel this cloying frustration and a gritting of my teeth. What do we need?

Movement Hunger is a core craving for humans

We all need to move

Movement Hunger, a term coined by Kathy Bowman, describes the body's natural craving for movement. We all need movement. Bowman describes it as essential nourishment.

Our bodies crave moment but so many people are unable to identify the cues for movement hunger (restlessness, snappiness, irritability) that the body gives us.

You might have heard of the term “Hangry” (angry from being hungry) and I’m sure most of you can easily spot that in your kids, but most of us were not taught to question whether our (or our child’s) irritable, itchy, grumpy mood might be the body’s way of telling us we need movement.

I think that one can't separate movement hunger from nature hunger too. We were never meant to be living in houses, indeed I think we could track a lot of our issues in parenting back to the boxed in, poor acoustics, sedentary comfort of houses. 

Children are loud and they need to move.

The inuits have a phrase that they use when a child is struggling with their behaviour that means "the child hasn't spent enough time outside". I've adopted this phrase in our house too, it's accurate.

Movement and nature are the great regulating for our nervous systems and our children's nervous systems. 

How will you move today?

Hi I’m Emily

I am a Conscious Parenting Coach. I help Big Hearted parents who are stuck in dynamics in their family that don’t serve them.

Look at how I support parents

10 Ways to Get Your Kids Out and Moving

1. Race from street tree to street tree

2. Play balance challenge this is a game where each member of the family comes up with an exercise and the others copy

3. Go on a walk with a purpose. It’s all too easy to say “go for a walk” but if your kids are anything like mine they resist going for a walk just for the sake of it. Here are some fun ideas. For walks with purpose- Photography walk, give them a camera let them take pictures and look at them all together when you get home. Go on a fungi walk. In the forest search for mushrooms (with boundaries no touching the mushrooms) or have an and destination such as a cafe or a shop.

4. Regular meetups with other families outdoors

5. Explore different play parks such as ones with bouldering walls or different play equipment.

6. Bike rides

7. Join a group that gets outside regularly such as Woodcraft Folk https://woodcraft.org.uk/ or a forest school https://forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/

8. Have an outdoor birthday party

9. If in doubt, kitchen disco

10. Pose the problem “We need to get some outside time moving our bodies today. Who has an idea of how we can achieve this?”