You all know the research about how kids need to move. They need an hour of vigorous activity daily according those people who do the scientific research, blah blah blah. I know it. I am a physical educator. I also know it as a mother of boys-very active boys – who need a physical outlet. I have one boy who flips over into a headstand on the couch as part of his regular play. This summer it was/is my intention to enroll them into some form of outside of the house constructive play-either gymnastics or swimming or acrobatics – or whatever- as long as they are moving, I will be happy. In doing my homework, there are at least three options in my town for any of the above and two of them offer free classes to help a parent make a decision.

So, today, as you may have guessed we visited MY GYM; A sibling class for 3-5 year olds.

Problem #1. Two teachers and 12 + kids. Too many in my opinion. Children were given 5 minutes of free play to start. My kids gravitate towards the big bin full of plastic balls- the kind where they get to jump in to it. This is fine when there is no kid exiting the big bin of balls- kids landing on each other is an accident waiting to happen. Climbing structure with a rope climb is great- accept there was a bad accident immediately due to overly exuberant child rushing up the rope with no supervision.

Problem #2. Stupid lessons. Kids were told to sit on line and wait. Objective: Roll a stability ball around cones. What skill is that teaching? Do a somersault over the stability ball with teacher facilitating. Again, what is the reason for this? And, as a mother, I don’t want them to teach this because they will try it at home and land on their face. Run a total of 3 steps, jump on a jumper and do a somersualt on wedge mat. Why don’t you teach them a forward roll? That would be appropriate. Hang from a a horizontal type bar and then run and put a ring on a cone. STUPID. Not one of these skills is even freakin’ useful.

Problem #3. Wait time. I don’t know any 3 year old or 5 year old that will happily wait 5 minutes for every turn. Ridiculous. Kids need to be MOVING. Waiting a turn is not appropriate at all for this age. You wonder when behavior problems happen? When kids are BORED and waiting.

Problem #4. Inappropriate use of time outs. Now, the minute I use the restroom and come out 2 minutes later, my big kid is given a time out. He is completely destroyed and told me he was “kicked out”. And, dang it, I didn’t see it. But, knowing my kid he was overly excited and bumped a kid or wasn’t listening. First he said he got in trouble for not listening…I don’t know. But, the problem I saw leading up to his time out was that he was being asked to wait like 5-8 minutes for a turn. I could sit and study yoga and then simply look up when they called his name. At any rate, I didn’t see any teacher talking to him about what he did or what went wrong, he was simply sent out. Typical public school crap- just send them out.

MY GYM you did not impress me. In fact, I am so umimpressed that I am angry. Just an expensive way to teach your kid how to wait their turn.

You will not be getting any of my money.

Parents, if you haven’t tried it, go take a free class and make your own decision. I am just a parent with a Bachelor’s in Physical Education and my instructors from college would have flunked this place.