One of the most important parts of being a parent is teaching your children how to live an independent and healthy lifestyle. When you’re a busy working parent, it can be difficult to model a healthy lifestyle that your children will be able to emulate for the rest of their lives. However, it’s important that you spend the time and energy in order to model a healthy lifestyle for your kids. Here are 5 easy tips for teaching your children how to live a healthy lifestyle.
Only Keep Healthy Snacks At Home
Modelling the importance of a healthy diet is one of the best things you can do if you want to teach your children a healthy lifestyle. Instead of keeping a lot of junk food snacks in the house, make sure to give your children lots of healthy snacks as an option in between meals, such as fruit and vegetables. You should also take the time to prepare healthy and nutritious family meals so that your children get used to eating healthy foods regularly. If you’re a working parent without a lot of time to prepare daily healthy meals, why not try meal prepping – it can save you a lot of time and money!
Limit Your Child’s Screen Time
In the modern era, children have more screen time than ever before. In the past, kids used to socialise and play outside for a lot longer than they do today. There are many reasons why this is – digital devices for children have only become more entertaining and sophisticated, meaning that kids are more likely to want to use them. Furthermore, the pandemic solidified children’s dependence on digital devices, as they couldn’t go outside and play with friends for over a year. However, blue light from these devices can affect your child’s sleep hygiene and brain development, so make sure you’re limiting screen time as much as possible.
Do Family Exercise Activities
Adults are more likely to exercise if they exercised with their family during childhood. When you exercise as part of a family, you associate exercise with bonding and feeling good, making your child more likely to continue this habit even when they are an adult. Having familial support during exercise can also make your child more likely to seek out exercise on their own, and try new team sports and activities. Schedule walks with your family, take them for bike rides and teach them how to swim at the community pool – and model a lifestyle full of exercise for your children.
Make Their Bedroom Optimal For Sleep
Sleep hygiene is crucial for a child’s development, and for modelling a healthy lifestyle. Sleep helps remove toxins from the body, and resting your body is important to keep your body functioning properly. If you optimise your child’s bedroom for sleep, you can ensure that your kids will get the appropriate amount of sleep for their age range. For example, making sure that your child’s bedroom is dark enough for sleep by using blackout curtains and keeping the bedroom at a cool temperature are good ways to promote better sleep hygiene. Investing in kid’s weighted blankets and sticking to a strict bedtime routine are also key ways you can promote better sleep for your children, and make sure they are aware of how to have a healthy lifestyle.
Reinforce Healthy Habits
Teaching children habits is important so that they can keep up with a healthy lifestyle once they are grown up, and living by themselves. For example, having strict bedtime and teeth-brushing routines helps a child to remember to do them on their own. Furthermore, making sure your children know the importance of regular doctor and dentist check-ups will also help your child lead a healthy lifestyle as they grow up. A cosmetic dental clinic in the UK found that patients who went to the dentists more as children had better teeth and were more confident with their smiles. Taking the time to reinforce healthy habits in your children is imperative when it comes to teaching them how to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Teaching your children how to live a healthy lifestyle is as important as teaching them to read, write and count – take these 5 steps and teach your kids to be healthy today!