Helping your kids get active

The FA, Tesco and Sport England all aspire to offer every adult and child in England opportunities to get active and lead a healthier lifestyle. The FA Tesco Skills Programme will deliver 4.7m places on football skills courses by 2014, giving almost every boy and girl aged between 5 and 11 in 26 counties across the country the chance to keep fit and healthy through football.

We also want to encourage parents of 5-11 year olds to get their kids active at home by helping them to practice their football skills and playing the game together. We have over 100 Skills videos to inspire you, as well as advice to get the most out of playing football with your kids.

Here are some of our hints and tips:

• If your child is aged 5-11, they should be using size 3 or 4 footballs.
• Encourage them to be creative and try new ideas.Making mistakes helps children improve – we learn through succeeding and failing.
• Ask your child open-ended questions to help them understand the problem and get better. For example: “What made you shoot/pass then? What else could you have done?”
• Most importantly, to get your kids active from an early age, you have to get active too. The best thing you can do is get out there and give it a go.

Tesco also encourage adults and kids across the UK to lead an active lifestyle through other initiatives including the Great School Run and supporting Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life.