The Best Ways To Teach Your Children About Healthy Choices

As a parent, it’s your responsibility to teach your children how to make healthy choices. If you start early, your kids will carry these good habits throughout their lives. To get started, consider the following suggestions.

Teach Kids Healthy Eating Habits

Nutritious food is essential for kids’ growing bodies and developing brains. Establishing healthy eating habits early on helps kids make good choices on their own. To start, keep low-fat, high-nutrition snacks at home:

• Carrot and celery sticks
• Yogurt
• Berries
• Apples
• Nuts

You can support your kids’ nutrition by modeling smart eating choices. Share snacks with your children and let them make decisions while grocery shopping.

Luckily, there are a growing number of kitchen products intended to improve nutrition while making meal preparation simple and stress-free. From blenders that quickly whip up nutrient dense smoothies, to slow cookers able to turn a few ingredients into a flavor packed dinner, the possibilities for optimizing your health with the help of kitchen appliances is limitless. Before purchasing anything, visit Safe Smart Family for detailed product reviews and advice.

Make Exercise Fun

Exercise is crucial for growing bodies. In fact, research shows that physical activity should total at least one hour each day for kids. To ensure your children get the exercise they need, try incorporating it into your routine:

• Walking to the bus stop together
• Riding bikes on the weekends
• Dancing to their favorite songs after dinner

Establish a Self-Care Routine

The world is full of different pressures, especially as kids get older. When overwhelmed, they may forget to care for their bodies and minds, making stress even worse. Having a self-care routine ensures they take time for themselves. Everyone’s self-care looks different, so try a few activities until your little ones find something that works:

• Write in a journal
• Listen to music
• Make art
• Take a bubble bath
• Read a book

Try Mindfulness Activities

 Mindfulness is a helpful tool for reducing stress and anxiety. It increases awareness of practitioners’ bodies and surroundings, allowing them to be truly present in the moment. Anyone can practice mindfulness — including young children. The following are easy mindfulness activities for any age:

• Close your eyes and focus on what you hear
• Eat slowly and savor every bite, focusing on taste and texture
• Breathing deeply and focusing on how each inhale and exhale feels

Prioritize Skin Care

Caring for children’s skin is an important part of their overall health. Proper skin care helps to prevent skin irritation and infections, reduces the risk of sunburn, moisturizes for comfort and keeps skin healthy. It is recommendable to use mild detergents and shampoos when washing kids’ skin, and apply sunscreen even when the day is cloudy or overcast. You can also keep your children’s skin healthy and moisturized with natural skin care products from Nuthatch Naturals!

Create a Nurturing Environment at Home

Your kids should see home as a safe place to retreat after a stressful day. You can create a relaxing, nurturing atmosphere with a few tips:

• Run air purifiers to improve air quality
• Reduce clutter with organizational systems
• Let in natural light
• Get houseplants

Make Sure Your Kids Have a Strong Support System

Growing up is full of challenges, and kids need a strong emotional support system to overcome them. Good friends are a crucial part of any robust support system, as is family. Finding and nurturing positive friendships is a life-long skill that kids should start developing early. If your little ones struggle to make friends or need extra support, you can find a therapist to assist.

Create a Bedtime Routine

Growing kids need lots of sleep, as it’s when the body replenishes and the mind processes the day’s events. However, many younger children struggle to fall asleep. Establishing a bedtime routine can help. To create the perfect routine, try the following tips to discover what works for your little one:

• Read a story
• Keep the same bedtime every day
• Eating dinner together as a family

Raising healthy kids isn’t easy, but establishing good habits early on has countless benefits later. Also, with the wisdom they learned from you, your children can grow up to be happy, fit adults who pass on this knowledge to their own little ones!

This post by Colleen Stewart of Playdate Fitness in Orlando, Florida.

Image via Pexels.