If you want your children to develop healthy bodies and minds, it's essential to practice what you preach. Telling a child to eat vegetables won't make the same impression as your child observing you eating vegetables and enjoying them.
Children often imitate their parents and caregivers. It's never too early to start teaching kids to practice habits that promote a healthy body and mind.
Teach Your Kids to Love Healthy Foods
Research shows children mimic their parents' eating habits and food choices. During the formative years, children develop preferences for certain foods. Those who begin eating sweet, salty, or fatty foods early in life are likely to favor those foods. Therefore, as their children's first nutrition teachers, parents should focus primarily on eating and serving nutritious, healthy foods.
Picky Eaters
It's common for children to reject foods the first time they try them. Nutrition experts say it may take at least 10 to 15 exposures to a food before a child tries it. Some suggestions for getting your child to eat healthily include pairing a new food with familiar flavors and encouraging them to help with food preparation tasks like tearing lettuce for a salad.
Teach Your Kids to Practice Mindfulness
It's not unusual for children to experience stress. Peer pressure, problems in the home, and low self-esteem can take an emotional toll on children of all ages. Children who practice mindfulness can learn to relax and prevent stressful situations from becoming overwhelming.
Mindfulness is paying attention to what's happening within and around you. If your child becomes anxious before taking a test, they can practice a mindful moment by doing a simple breathing exercise of inhaling through the nose and exhaling slowly through the mouth a few times. This breathing exercise can have a calming effect whenever your child feels anxious. Teaching your child to think about the consequences of a decision is another way to help them be mindful.
Teach Your Kids the Value of Learning
Like good nutrition habits, a love for learning begins during the formative years. Reading with children and using curiosity as a teachable moment are some ways to encourage learning. Children love to ask, "Why?" Rather than becoming annoyed at their persistent questioning, use these curious inquiries as teaching opportunities. When a child attempts a task but doesn't do it perfectly, praise the effort.
Demonstrate the value of achieving educational goals. If you've been thinking about going back to school, share your desire to further your learning with your child and ask them what they think about it. You might consider getting an online degree that will allow you to study at home and provide opportunities for you and your child to work on your assignments simultaneously.
If you choose to study for a degree in education, you can help your child and teach other children. Your example shows your child it's never too late to pursue educational goals.
Healthy Habits Benefit Your Child for a Lifetime
Developing healthy habits as a child can carry over into adulthood. Eating well, making good decisions, and valuing learning are all important to a successful life.
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