Moderate exercise is a good thing, especially for children, cultivating a certain interest in sports from an early age is of great benefit to the future.
But if the amount of exercise is too large, it will have a negative impact on their developing body.
Recently, a foreign couple was attacked by netizens for running a full marathon with their 6-year-old son.
Ben Crawford and Kami are a fitness enthusiast couple from Bellevue, Kentucky, WHO have eight children who share their passion for sports.
Usually Ben likes to film the family's exercise routine and pass it on Youtube, but he didn't expect to really win a lot of fans, and now they can be said to be an Internet celebrity sports family.
On May 1, the Crawford family traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the local annual Fliggy Marathon, including their 6-year-old son Rainer!
You know, the Fliggy Marathon's track is 26.2 miles (about 42 kilometers), and even adults who usually exercise regularly are enough to finish running!
The rules of the race organizers show that the minimum age for participants is 18 years old, and minors under the age of 14 can participate in the half-way, which is 13.1 miles (21 kilometers).
But it is estimated that Crowford communicated with the official personnel in advance and still took little Rainer with him to participate in the game.
According to Ben's later ins, Little Rainer was struggling to rest during the race, having to sit for a while every three minutes.
When he finally reached the 20-mile halfway point after running for 7 hours, he cried when he was about to reach his limit, so Ben encouraged him:
"If you can go all the way, I'll buy you two sets of Pinker chips!"
In the end, after 8.5 hours, little Rainer insisted on running the marathon track of about 42 kilometers accompanied by his parents!
After the game, Ben also fulfilled his promise, took his son to the supermarket to buy two sets of pinner potato chips, looked at the child's smile, it is estimated that they were happy enough to forget all the tiredness of the day.
However, as soon as the news spread, it caused a lot of controversy. Many people feel that the child is still young, and parents should not let him accept such a large amount of exercise.
"I don't know anyone who wants to hear that, but a six-year-old simply can't understand the effects of a marathon on their body.
A six-year-old doesn't know what it means to embrace pain, and doesn't realize he has the right or should stop! ”
"I'm not questioning the parents' motives, nor am I saying it's a bad parenting style.
But as an Olympic athlete, I can assure you that it's bad for kids to do that!
Children are still young and can let them run and play, but as parents, you need to protect their developing bodies and guide them on the right path! ”
After being attacked by more and more netizens, the Crawford couple also made a relative response:
"On May 1st, our family of eight completed the entire 26.2-mile marathon together, which was the first time our family ran a marathon together, and then all of us crossed the finish line at the same time.
But after two days of coming home from the game and celebrating with my friends, I found that there were a lot of people accusing us of being irresponsible and even abusive, so I wanted to come out and explain.
First of all, we never forced our children to run marathons, but only gave them the option to participate in each race, and last year two of the children went alone.
In the past 9 years, our family has won a total of 53 medals, most of which the children have won back through their own efforts! ”
"Little Rainer, who is 6 years old this year, took the initiative to ask to join us, so we allowed him to try to train together, in fact, we anticipated that he might be in a dangerous situation before the game and was ready to withdraw at any time.
We asked him many times during the race if he wanted to stop, but he was pretty sure he wanted to keep running, and we didn't see any signs of heat stroke or dehydration in him, so we respected his choice to keep going.
All I can say about accusing us of forcing our kids to run marathons in order to earn money from video clicks is unfounded because that's how we got along with our kids before we ran our video accounts.
We've always done our best to prioritize our children's health and experiences rather than showing off this routine to others!
The current abusive comments are very one-sided, and negotiation and incentives like 'buy potato chips' are one of the parenting methods we adopt, but they are used after careful consideration.
Thank you to those who supported us, it was an incredible experience and we will continue to share more with you in the future..."
However, netizens simply could not listen to the explanation of the Crowfords, and accused the two in the comments at the bottom of the report:
"It must have been crazy for parents to have a six-year-old exercising for 8.5 hours straight!"
"Even if there is a scientific training method, running so long distance at once will destroy the child's knee!"
This is all child abuse! ”
"Yes, even dog owners know that excessive walking can cause them permanent damage!
However, in order to win attention to earn money, the parents risked letting their children run such a long marathon! ”
"If the child cries out because he feels uncomfortable, it is no longer a matter of attitude, but it means that it has caused harm to his body and he feels something different!"
I've also read a report that says that running continuously is bad for the human body, and it's best to find some more natural ways to exercise..."
"Over-exercising can have serious consequences, and they should be glad that the child didn't have any problems this time!"
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