How To Create Healthy Habits For Children

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A habit is something that we do regularly, and it is very tough to change a habit. We should create healthy habits so that we don’t need to struggle to change our habit. We are the role model for our children, they always follow or try to act according to the surrounding people. Therefore, it is our responsibility to create healthy habits for children. The sooner the kids make healthy habits, the better life they can lead.

A parent is a child’s first teacher, a child will develop habits and behavior by observing his surroundings. And a child’s habit has a great impact on his/her lifestyle. So being a parent, we should learn how to create healthy habits for children.

What are healthy habits?

Healthy habits are not restricted to eating healthy food and staying physically fit. A person can be physically strong but may have poor mental or emotional health. Healthy habits focus on physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Creating healthy habits is the process of creating awareness about the choices we made regularly. The choice of food we eat, the company of people we choose to stay with and many more such choices that we make in our daily lives shows the attitude towards life. We should instill habits that have positive impacts on our children’s lifestyle. Healthy habits are the healthy options to choose to have a much better, happier and healthy life. The habits are for lifelong and when we help our kids to develop healthy habits they gain a positive attitude towards life.

Ways to create healthy habits for children

As we know great kids are raised not born, so being a parent we should know how to develop good qualities in our children. And we should do this from the very beginning of our parenthood. We should know the fact that kids will observe our acts, not our lessons. If your habits are not healthy, then kids will easily adapt to those unhealthy habits. So it is very much essential to set right examples before them.

Healthy habits are divided into three parts:-

• Physical Health

• Mental Health

• Emotional Health

Creating healthy physical habits

Healthy physical habits include eating right food at a right time and doing regular physical activity to stay healthy and fit. We often neglect the importance of health and when we realize, it may be late. So we should teach our kids the importance of being healthy from their early age. We should motivate them to choose healthy food. Fussy eating is very common in kids but being parents we have to find ways to deal with a fussy eater.

You may like to read : How To Deal With Fussy Eater

Developing healthy physical habits

• Teach by your action not words, always be the role model that you want them to be in future.

• Try varieties of healthy options of meal.

• Have atleast one meal together in a day.

• Tell them the benefits of eating healthy food.

• Take them to grocery shopping and buy healthy foods with them.

• Maintain a routine and fixed times for every meal.

• Engage your child in any physical activity once in a day or encourage them to do age appropriate chores.

• Educate your child about the importance of maintaining hygiene and aware them the ill-effects of staying dirty.

Mental health awareness

These days many teenagers and young people are very much prone to depression as they are mentally weak. Our mental health influences each and every activities in our life. The way we deal with the challenges of life shows our mental health. Being mentally healthy doesn’t mean that a person has no problem but a healthy mind has the ability to overcome all the challenges of life. They had the strength to fight and stand back as they have a positive attitude towards life. And as I mentioned earlier to boost your child’s mental health it is very important to take care of your own mental health.

Tom Thelen, the author of Mental Health 101 and the founder of Reset Schools, teach mental health skills and resiliency. This books focus on some amazing ideas that will help children cope up with challenges of their life.

How to improve your child’s mental health

• Teach them to relieve stress. Stress management is one of the vital thing to learn to have a mental well being. Children also go through many stresses in their life but it is our responsibility to teach them to deal those circumstances peacefully. This will help them to build their mental strength.

• Build and keep trust with your children.For children, parents are their world, they feel secured and safe when they are near their parents. Being a parent you should always maintain a healthy relationship with them. Take care of their physical needs as well as emotional needs too. Talk with them when they are anxious, sad or angry, make them feel you are always there to help them.

• Build their self esteem. The feeling of insecurity leads to poor mental health.Therefore it is very essential to boost the self-esteem of children from an early age. Try to give them the opportunity to do something independently. And always praise them for their very little effort, this will foster confidence among them and will also help to build their self-esteem.

• Play together or do some activities together. It will not only help your child physically, but will also help them to be happy. There are less chances of depression among the kids who spend enough time with their parents. It will strengthen your relationship with your kids. And when you are engaged with your kids, you too forget your worries and laugh heartily and so it makes you happy too.

Children’s Emotional health

Emotional health refers to the ability to express and manage our feelings that arise from our experiences. Being emotionally healthy doesn’t mean a person is happy, it shows a person’s strong ability to deal with his/her feelings. Emotional health is linked with physical and mental health. We should focus on a children’s emotional health from the very beginning so that they can build healthy habits in the future.

How to improve your child’s emotional health

• Meditation Today’s youth have high level of stress and to survive this extreme stress level they should know the art of meditation. Teaching children to meditate during their early age will help them to manage their emotions in a positive way and it will help them lifelong to cope with all challenges of life calmly. National Center For Complementary And Integrative Health says the main goal of meditation is establish a better connection between mind and body. It helps to maintain a peaceful and energized state of mind.

• Strengthen Social Relationships Socialization plays a vital part in a child’s overall development. A child learns to express their emotions and feelings through socialization. Parents should always try to help kids to strengthen their social relationships.

• Understand your kids It is always advisable to think according to your kids’ view. It will help us to know our kids much better.Try to spend more and more time with your kids and observe them how they react to the surrounding things. I know parents are juggling between job and family life, but this is one of the most important part of parenthood. Being a parent, we are responsible for creating these healthy habits for our children.

• Prepare your child for ups and sown Yes, I know being parent we will always want our kid’s life to be a bed of roses but it is impossible. How hard we try to protect them, they have to face the challenges of life. Therefor it is our duty to help them to build resilience, to fight with the struggles of life. Sometimes it is good to leave your child to struggle and take time to choose their tough puzzle pieces to fix. It will help them to be responsible and understand the consequences of their actions.