Editor's Note: This is the Nipper family's final week of the Fit Families Challenge from Special Olympics Arkansas! The family of four -- Luke, Christy, Miles (3 years) and Molly (9 months) -- has been participating in the six-week program designed for individuals with special needs and their families. The Fit Families Challenge encourages physical activity and healthy eating for the whole family. Read more about the free program here, and check out more posts about the Nipper family's journey here.

As I set up an indoor obstacle course for Miles and Molly one afternoon this week, Miles wandered off to his room and returned with a pop-up crawling tunnel. I had stored it away months ago and had completely forgotten about it. I asked Miles if he would like to add the tunnel as part of the obstacle course and he excitedly said “yeah, yeah, YEAH.” So we opened it up and the kids enjoyed crawling back and forth for a few minutes before we added it to the course.

I demonstrated the course for the kids…run down the hallway, jump 10 times on the mini trampoline, walk on your tip toes to the rug, jump across the rug, do a little dance, crawl through the tunnel and run back down the hallway. Miles was so excited he could barely stand it. As he lined up and awaited the “ready, set, go” commands, I couldn’t help but laugh. As he took off, I repeated the instructions “run, run, run. Get on the trampoline, 1,2,3…, hurry, tip toes, jump, jump, jump, dance, run!” As he reached the threshold for his room, he collapsed in a fit of giggles. As we got Molly ready to take her turn I said, “Exercise is so good for us and it is so much fun!”

That last line has been the big change we have made over the course of our Fit Family challenge. Luke and I have always made exercise a priority and we have always tried to feed our kids healthy foods. During the Fit Family Challenge it dawned on me that we did these things, but we were not teaching our kids to do them for themselves or explaining why they were important. Over the course of the last six weeks we have really made the effort to start teaching them about the benefits of exercise and healthy eating. We know they may not completely understand what we are telling them but if we continue to reinforce these concepts, eventually they will get it!

As a teacher and coach, it surprised me to realize that the very thing I do all day with students and runners, I was overlooking with my own kids. In the busyness of life it is often much easier for me to just do things for my kids (pack their lunch, pick their snacks, etc.), but I am missing out on the valuable opportunity to teach them to make healthy choices and why certain choices are “healthy.”

It is really a pretty simple change. Instead of saying “No, Miles, you can’t have those,” when Miles opens the pantry and pulls out a bag of crackers, I now say “Miles, those crackers have something called gluten in them and gluten makes your tummy hurt, so you can’t have those.” A simple change will help our kids understand how to make choices that will benefit them for years to come.

Everyone feels better when they are healthy, and we know that equipping our kids to make choices that will put them on a path to a healthy lifestyle, is one of the greatest gifts we can give them.