By Joyce Wilson
Parents fill various roles in their children’s lives. In particular, they serve as caretakers, role models, and protectors. According to the experts, one of the most important jobs parents have is to help their children make healthy choices in order to prepare them for adulthood. Here are some ideas from Empowered Flower Girl that can help you begin making those important lifestyle decisions.
Learn the Importance of Healthy Habits
If you want your kids to grow healthy and happy, teach them how to maintain their health. When you focus on healthy habits, you reduce their risk of future conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
For children to maintain ideal body weight, they need to be able to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy food choices. In addition, teach them about hygiene and expiration dates. After all, spoiled food can wreak havoc on the body. When you understand the importance of health, whether the health comes from diet or exercise – including the many benefits of martial arts – you can instill those habits in your children.
Instill Healthy Habits Early
To make healthy eating a priority, stock up on fresh, unprocessed at-home snacks. If you only have nutritious snacks available, children cannot choose to drink sugary soda or eat snack cakes. Instead, keep pretzels, fresh fruit, bagels, and sparkling water at home. Children begin to develop their sense of taste in the first two years of their life. Providing reduced-sodium snacks to toddlers may help them develop preferences for foods with less salt.
Children model themselves after you. They observe your habits and your ability to handle stress and coping mechanisms. For instance, if children see an adult becoming aggressive, they too may react aggressively. When paving the way for better decisions, do not be overbearing and restrictive, because you could encourage eating disorders. Instead, be the example for your kids.
It’s important for your children to see you engage in healthy friendships, too, so invite friends over to the house sometimes and be transparent about minor conflicts in a kid-appropriate way. You can also show them the importance of reconnecting with friends by finding old high school friends online. It’s a simple process of entering your location and searching through databases for familiar names. Reconnecting with friends from your past can be a lot of fun and show your kids how to find people they enjoy being with.
Make Success Attainable
Be open to talking to your kids about good and bad habits. Talk to them if you worry about gaming, drugs, alcohol, or poor education habits. Hold family dinners where you can discuss your day and model good behavior while discussing the risks associated with unhealthy choices. Starting these practices while your kids are young will help them feel more comfortable talking to you about bigger issues, like bullies or conflicts with friends. Empowered Flower Girl offers tools and resources to help both you and your child learn how to deal with these difficult situations in healthy ways.
Set good examples for your kids with your choices as well as your behavior.
In addition, talk to them about how they can achieve their dreams. It is never too early to discuss future aspirations. Teach your children to practice a skill every day and, when they experience failure, to get up and keep trying.
Do not forget to chase dreams of your own. This could involve starting a business centered around a hobby that you enjoy; be sure to do plenty of research to ensure that you’re putting together everything you need to get this venture started on solid ground. Or, join the countless parents and older adults who return to school to finish or start a degree. With all of the obligations of parenthood, you may enjoy the flexibility of online schools. Online degrees can match your passions and interests. The following ideas can narrow down your options:
- To learn more about data analytics, cyber security, and information technology, choose a degree in IT.
- To find occupations in management positions or start a business of your own, look into business management degrees.
- A degree in education may not only launch your career but help you become an effective teacher to your children.
When your children learn to make healthy choices, they maintain those decisions throughout their lives. Developing new habits as an adult can be challenging, but not only can you make a positive change in your life, you can establish a healthy foundation for your children.
Remember to chase after things you love, too, and to make use of helpful resources like Empowered Flower Girl to help you and your child learn ways to work through difficult situations in life.
Joyce Wilson is a retired teacher and enjoys sharing lesson plans, resources, and teaching tips on Teacher Spark. Her website is a compilation of practical resources that will inspire student engagement and instill a love for learning. By tapping into a student’s natural creativity and curiosity, Joyce believes that they can take their education to a new level.
Empowered Flower Girl 