This morning, I took off from my personal training studio in Boonton. Normally I don’t take off but being a father of 2, I wanted to be able to see my kids off to their first day at school. As we stood there awaiting the bus, the allotted time went by. My wife texted one of the other moms, and found that the bus had already dropped the other kids off at school.

Did the bus forget about us? Nope.

Apparently nobody saw that the bus stop had changed. We had led our kids to the wrong bus stop.

And it makes me wonder, how often do we lead our kids in the wrong direction?

I remember as a kid, I played soccer…badly. The first team I was on, we didn’t win a single game but we all still received trophies at the end. I knew back then it was meaningless. A pat on the back for participating would have been enough rather than a shining glaring reminder of my ineptitude. Actually now that I reflect on that, maybe it was good in that I realized I needed to do better not for getting a trophy but for my own personal pride. But that’s another story for another time.

Reality is it is our jobs as parents to try to raise our kids to be the best versions of themselves. We rely on the school system to teach our kids some of the fundamentals of reading, writing and math, but what about the rest of it? Sure we have physical education and health class but considering the fact that childhood obesity is still climbing (though not as aggressively as in years past), I’d say we are leading our kids in the wrong direction.

So what’s the answer? Well I don’t know exactly but I’ll tell you what I’m doing. If you’ve read my stuff before, or you heard some of the things people say around town you might know that in addition to being a personal trainer, I’m also a motivational speaker and modern day performing strongman. Part of being a motivational speaker involves studying other motivational speakers and one line seems to stick out in this case.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” John Maxwell

You see kids look to us as role models for how to navigate their way through life, and the world can be a confusing place for them. They watch what we do, and they test us for consistency. If you aren’t prioritizing health and happiness for yourself, what kind of message does that send to the kids?

I train consistently, I eat balanced nutrition, I meditate, play music and generally live a healthy, happy and well balanced life. My wife works out first thing in the morning in our home and models it for our children as well. Our daughters try to wear her clothes however loose it might fit and attempt to lift things.

Every so often I take my girls to work with me, they interact with my personal training clients and occasionally test their strength. My daughter when she was 6 years old even lifted my 97lb kettlebell off the ground. All of this normalizes health and fitness and patterns in their head “this is what people do”.

To have healthy kids, we need to act as health role models for them. I know it can be confusing with all the conflicting info, but that’s what I’m here to teach. If you need hands on guidance, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio in Boonton. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself to get started.

Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.