7 Healthy Habits to Teach Your Kids
With the start of the new year, I have made it a goal to start practicing healthier habits: eating healthier food, getting into better shape, improving my self-confidence, and getting more sleep at night. Why not get the entire family involved? After-all, the earlier we start teaching our children healthy habits, the more time they will have to practice. Because a healthier family typically makes a happier family, check out these 7 Healthy Habits to Teach Your Kids.
This blog post was sponsored by Coca-Cola but the opinions are completely my own based on my own experience.
7 Healthy Habits to Teach Your Kids
1. Wash wash wash. Teach your kids to wash their hands before meals, after using the restroom, and after being in large crowds. Also, be sure to teach them proper hand washing techniques.
2. Importance of a daily routine. In my own experience, I’ve learned that kids thrive on a schedule. Teach your children healthy habits by including them in your daily routine – brushing their teeth morning and night, set nap/sleep times, set meal times, bath time, reading time, etc.
3. Drink water. Help your children resist the temptation to drink soda by not bringing it into your home. When you go out to dinner, get your children in the habit of ordering water for their beverage.
4. Move. Limit the amount of screen time your children are exposed to each day. When that time is up, turn off the electronics and encourage your children to move. This could be in the form of a game of tag, a dance party, riding bikes, playing outside, whatever it takes!
5. Eat meals as a family. Make it a goal to sit down at the dinner table at a set times each day and eat your meals together as a family. This is a great time to ask your children questions, talk to them about concerning issues, and bond as a family. This also limits fast-food and eating out.
6. Be Confident. Healthy and happy children have confidence and sense of who they are. Be kind to your children. Compliment them regularly to their face and in the presence of others. Start building them up at an early age. Let them know how beautiful/handsome they are. After-all, emotional health is just as important as physical health.
7. Eat a balanced breakfast. Start each day with a nutritious balanced breakfast. This will give them the energy they need to complete each day. Thankfully, Coca-Cola makes it easy to incorporate healthy choices into your diet through delicious brands such as Simply Orange, Fairlife Milk, and Odwalla Smoothies.
Because I like to teach my son about healthy habits, I love bringing him along with me to Albertsons to look at all of their healthy food choices. One of his favorite healthy food choices is Simply Orange. I think if it were up to him, he would drink it with every meal…and snack.
Thanks to Coca-Cola’s brands Simply Orange, Fairlife Milk, and Odwalla Smoothies, having a #StartSmart2016 has never been easier. In honor of Cocoa-Cola’s Start Smart. Stay Active. Keep Fit. campaign, YOU have a chance to win a fitness monitor! Save your receipt! By purchasing Fairlife milk, Simply Orange, or Odwalla products at your local Albertsons or Safeway stores by March 24, 2016, you can enter for a chance to win 1 of 1000 Misfit Shine Fitness + Sleep Monitors. For more info, visit Coca-Cola.
How do you stay healthy as a family?
These are wonderful tips. I am glad my twin granddaughters love to drink water. It’s so hard to make kids drink water.
I instilled into my kids very young to drink water and to always wash their hands. Having a routine is important for my kids so they know exactly what to expect throughout the day.
My kids love to wash their hands so much that they are alwasy washign them. They make such a mess in the sink and use all the soap up.
It’s so important to stay healthy and keep the germs out. It’s good to teach them young.
Absolutely love these habits, even us adults need a reminder for this.
I have underestimated the crazy importance of washing hands. I would really love it if my kids could make it through cold & flu season with a few less school absences.
Routine is very important for my kids. They like knowing what to expect. Weekends we like to be spontaneous.
When my kids were younger i was always reminding them to wash their hands. Now that my kids are older we like to take cooking classes together.
These are great habits to teach our children. Water is a big one for me. Juice is good but kids need to get used to drinking water as well. We try to stay active as a family and play together.
Great tips that are easy to work into REAL everyday life! I am striving for these same things with my kids this year!
Eating a balanced breakfast makes such a big difference. I still struggle with it sometimes though!
We have gotten away from eating meals as a family. I miss doing that and need to get back into that routine.
My kids tend to forget from time to time but a friendly reminder always works!
I think all of these are fantastic lessons for kids. I am still trying to teach them to my own boys.
My wife just became a nurse, and she totally agrees with the “Wash, wash, wash!” regimen. “The doorway to disease is through your hands and mouth.” she’s taken to saying. The big one on your list that I kept pounding the table and screaming “Darn right!” was eating dinner with the family. Right now, my little ones are still that, little. But later on, I know it’s a fight I don’t want to have, so we’ve made it an expectancy that when dinner’s on, everyone’ there.
Drinking water is one of the hardest thing to get my kiddo to drink. We are working on that. Hand washing has been ingrained in his head LOL.
I have instilled the importance of hand washing in my boys since the beginning! We don’t want any germs around here!