Category: Well-Being

Keeping your family safe and happy is second nature to any parent. And as spring gets into full swing and our kids are spending more time out and about, it’s important to keep their immune systems boosted so they can have fun without you worrying too much!

No matter what age, here are some helpful tips to keeping kids healthy at home, in school, and outside on the playground:

Make sure they get their nutrients

It goes without saying that one of the best ways to keep your kids healthy is by making sure they’re eating a balanced diet and getting all the nutrients they need.

Vitamins and supplements

A great way to supplement your kids’ diet is by giving them vitamins to give their bodies the nutrients that they can’t always find in foods.

Getting your kids to take their supplements is one of the biggest challenges for parents. But luckily, there are a variety of kids vitamins out there to choose from that come in child-friendly formats, such as gummies and soluble formulas that taste great too!

Another way to boost your kids’ immune system is to give them a daily probiotic to keep their gut healthy and digestive system clear. Probiotics are often available in convenient supplement tablets, making it easy to support your child’s health with a simple daily routine.

Diet

Although it can be tough to get your kids to eat healthy foods, when they eat a balanced and varied diet, their immune systems are at their strongest. We get nutrients from all kinds of foods, and a good diet consists of a balance between:

• Proteins
• Carbohydrates
• Fibre
• Fats
• Minerals and vitamins

Whilst all foods fall into these categories, we know that not all foods are healthy. We should try to avoid giving our children foods high in saturated fats, sugar and salt, and foods that are processed.

Groups that are particularly good for our children are nuts (providing they don’t have allergies), starchy foods such as potatoes, rice and pasta, lean meats and vegetables.

When it comes to vegetables, they aren’t wrong when they say “Eat the rainbow” because different colored vegetables and fruits contain different nutrients and vitamins that are crucial to the immune system’s natural function.

But how do we get them to eat them?

Knowing what’s good for them is one thing, but convincing children to eat anything that hasn’t been deep fried is a challenge in itself. But, there are a lot of ways to jazz up healthy foods that kids don’t typically like such as vegetables by flavoring them with seasoning, blending them into a healthy smoothie at home and even hiding them in dishes with a sauce or breadcrumb!

Remember, everything in moderation

While we all want our kids to eat healthy for both physical and intellectual development, we have to understand that they will want to eat other not-so-good foods from time to time. The trick is how we frame those foods. If you ban your children from eating junk food, it’ll only make them want it more, so take the excitement out of it by allowing them to have some from time to time.  Also, introduce them healthy foods from other cultures to keep their meals interesting.

Encourage them to stay active

Leading an active lifestyle is important for everyone, and developing this habit starts in childhood. We all know about the numerous benefits of exercise for our mental and physical health, and it’s no different for children.

In fact, kids tend to have a lot of energy, so getting them to be active shouldn’t be too hard. The key is finding an activity that they enjoy. Each child has different interests and skills, so try to expose your child to an array of activities so that when they find something they like, keeping them active won’t be a chore for either of you.

You can encourage your children to stay active in a few different ways. One is incorporating exercise into everyday life, such as walking to school or playing a team sport as a family on the weekend. Then there are classes, clubs and groups that your kids can participate in regularly. Here are a few examples:

• Dance
• Team sports such as football, baseball or soccer
• Track
• Gymnastics
• Skating
• Trampolining
• Martial arts such as karate or taekwondo

Get them into a good sleeping schedule

Sleep is one of the most important parts of our routines, as our bodies and brains get a chance to regenerate and rest, and this is even more important for children. As they are growing so fast, they need more time to rest – on average a child needs 9 – 11 hours of sleep per night whilst adults only need 6 – 8.

So keeping your kids healthy means making sure they sleep well. And we all sleep better when we have a regular routine. Get your kids to bed in the evening and up in the morning at similar times to get their bodies into a good routine. And the better sleep they have, the more healthy they are.

Keep their hygiene routines in check

There’s no secret that personal hygiene can make all the difference in protecting ourselves and those around us from infection and disease. And children are no exception. As they are more in contact with the public from going to school, it’s even more crucial to teach them healthy hygiene routines to keep them and your family safe from illness. This includes regular hand washing routines, especially whilst at school, before eating and after going to the bathroom. Teaching them to wash their hands properly can slow down the spread of germs and hopefully keep them and you safe this spring.

Overall, there are many ways that we as parents can keep our children healthy, including healthy oral care. By arming them with the right tools to fight off bacteria and germs that they are inevitably going to come into contact with, whether that’s at school or in the playground, we can increase their protection against illness.

Hopefully these tips will help you keep them in the best routines for their health.

Additional Health Resources:

Recognizing the signs of health concerns.
Are your kids mandated to have health insurance?

Screen time may be an easy way to keep your child occupied, but too much of it can be detrimental to their physical and mental well being. To effectively limit your child’s screen time, you don’t have to go cold turkey. Instead, find fun activities to keep them busy. It’s all about setting good habits for life, balancing fun between online and offline play.

Statistics show that young kids and teenagers spend an average of 3 hours and 23 minutes a day on their phones. These numbers are worrying, and something needs to be done. Here are a few suggestions to try out.

Create technology-free zones in your home

Select a few rooms in your house where electronics such as mobile phones, laptops, and handheld video games aren’t allowed. This can be the dining area, the kitchen, and bedrooms.

Reserve these rooms for family conversations and resting. Make it part of their and ensure regular routine that you also participate in this to set a good example for your children.

Get them outside

Kids aren’t going out as much as they used to, but a few minutes outside the house will do them a lot of good. Physical exercise increases cognitive function and promotes better sleep, so allow them to run around, ride their bikes, take walks, etc.

A simple drive around the neighborhood is also a great way to get them out of the house for some fresh air.

Play with them

Kids don’t like to feel neglected. Therefore, if you limit their screen time, ensure that you find other ways to keep them occupied. Buy age-appropriate puzzles and board games, and let them play amongst themselves. Toys such as building blocks and dress-up props are also great for young kids. This will keep them busy and entertained for hours on end.

Get crafty

Set up a creation station in your house and let your kids spend an afternoon painting or creating something. Since we can’t see friends and family members right now, challenge them to create cards to send to their friends. After they are done, set up a family gallery and display their pieces.

You can even frame their work and hang it in their rooms. For the older kids, take up a bigger project such as painting, woodworking and redecorating their rooms and do it together.

Motivate them to help around the house

Chores aren’t fun, but they can be depending on how you position them. Children are naturally curious, so take advantage of their “me too” attitude and allow them to help you around the house. When cooking or cleaning, let them participate in the hustle and bustle. Teenagers are not that easy to convince, so create a reward system to encourage them.

Buy them books

Reading can be fun for kids too. Get them age-appropriate storybooks and novels and dedicate a few hours a day where everyone sits down to read.

You can also try storytelling with the younger kids. Stories of adventure and fantasy help boost creativity and imagination in children.

With 53% of UK parents concerned about excessive screen time, you’re not alone. These are only a few suggestions, and there are many more out there you can try, but hopefully this will give you a good place to start.

Is your child a little shy? Do they suffer from a lack of self-esteem? It’s a difficult time to be a child. With so many distractions, it can be easy to put personal relationships on the back burner.  Children can dive down a black hole into the internet void, spend countless hours completing video game campaigns, and plug into the virtual world.

While they’re doing this, they can tune out others and lose grasp of meaningful relationships. Once these relationships disappear, the impact can translate into other realms of your child’s life. They may lose the confidence to talk freely and openly to others or second guess their ability to do well in other aspects of their life such as schoolwork. 

Another factor that contributes to a lack of confidence in kids is lawnmower parenting. When parents are too overprotective they don’t allow their children to face the natural adversity that life brings. This results in a lack of problem solving skills down the road.

Sometimes the internet, a place designed to connect individuals across the globe, can feel daunting and dividing. When this transposes itself into ordinary life, it can become a problem and a burden. That is why I put together a list of online activities that stray from the gloom and doom and promote healthy habits and elevate self-esteem. 

Afterschool Gaming Clubs

Does your child’s school offer after school programming? If they do, odds are that they may have a program specific to online gaming or video game creation. If not, then try checking out local community centers. If all else fails, these resources will help you create your own after school program. 

These types of clubs are becoming more and more prevalent and can create a sense of community with your child. Not all kids are into sports, art or chess clubs where they can advance their chess skills. These clubs are the perfect option for the video game obsessed youth and can offer more than just a community of fellow gamers.

Some clubs dive into video game creation and actually allow the students to create their own games, teaching meaningful skills while enjoying games with peers. This sense of community can be extremely important for boosting the learning and the self-esteem of your child. 

Playing Card Games

Unsurprisingly, card games have become extremely popular online. The dozens of games available give kids an opportunity to challenge their critical thinking skills, memory recall, and strategy implementation. Below are two excellent choices that will not only challenge but entertain kids (and even adults).

Hearts is a trick-taking card game typically played with four players, where the objective is to avoid taking certain cards that carry penalty points, leading to strategic play and careful card management. The online version offers the game in single and multiplayer modes, and comes with a helpful guide for newcomers to the game.

Spades is a popular four-player card game (available in single player online), where the goal is to accurately predict and win the number of tricks bid by each player’s partnership in each round. This card game blends strategy and luck, leading to a fun, competitive gaming experience.

Kid-Friendly Social Media Sites

Social media is a scary place, even for adults. But, there are platforms out there specifically for kids. At first you may think that this sounds like a terrible idea and an easy way for strangers to interact with your child. But, these sites take safety seriously. Unlike the Myspace and Facebook’s of the world, these sites are focused on safety and provide a great introduction to social media for kids of various ages.

Most of these sites allow parents to control their child’s overall usage and monitor their accounts. This means that your child can enjoy the interaction with peers, while you assure they don’t go overboard with it. Some sites are extremely basic and only offer the simplest of features, while some are in-depth and showcase some top-notch safety features, such as required background checks. It may be best to monitor your child’s presence on these sites at first, but eventually these social media sites should provide your child with communication skills that will transfer to the real world. 

Geocaching

Have you heard of geocaching? This is a great activity for young kids to do with the rest of the family or a wholesome activity for older kids to take part in with friends. Not only does this activity get you outside, but through their easy to use app you join an online community of treasure hunters.

So, what is geocaching? Geocaching utilizes GPS coordinates to show the locations of various geocaches (containers/treasure chests). Individuals then navigate to the geocache and find hidden goods. There are several different categories of geocaches that keep the search interesting every time. You can solve a puzzle to discover coordinates or find geocaches specific to major landmarks. This interactive community allows you to utilize your online skills to navigate the real world. 

While it is great for children to be outside exploring, it can also be very stressful for a parent. If you have older children and want to keep track of their whereabouts while they’re out and about exploring, then I suggest investing in a GPS-based tracker to ease your worries. 

iNaturalist

This is an environmentally-focused parent’s best friend. Not only does this app (also web-based) offer the opportunity to learn about different species, but similar to geocaching, it also gets kids outside. Look out for something called a “bioblitz” in your area. The National Park System, as well as numerous State Park Systems and non-profits hold these events to gather as many observations as possible in a specific period of time. For instance, while I worked for Tennessee State Parks, we developed a statewide bioblitz and created a variety of family-friendly programming around the event. This can be a great way to get out with the family and explore an area otherwise not accessible. 

The feeling of discovery can be a tremendous joy for children and adults alike. By discovering different plant and animal species, children learn about the natural world and increase their observational skills. This can translate directly to social and academic situations. The informal understanding children gain through experimentation, observation, and comparison in play lays the foundation for higher-order thinking and later learning of formal STEM concepts.  For more information on iNaturalist and how it can benefit your child’s learning inaturalist.org. 

Trampoline Fun

Athletic activities do not come naturally to all kids.  In fact, their lack of confidence may be heightened because of a bad experience playing sports or feeling like they don’t measure up to other kids in gym class at school.  Yet, every child is instilled with desire to have fun physically from a young age. You don’t have to be super coordinated  to have fun playing games outdoors.  Playing games on a trampoline in the backyard is another way to bring a sports like activity into your child’s regular routine without them even thinking about their level of physical ability.  It can be great fun for everyone in the family.

Regardless of which avenue you and your child take, the most important thing for improving self-esteem is the feeling of inclusion. These activities provide a community for your child to become a part of and share experiences. Those experiences will help define your child as an individual and grant them an identity to believe in. Hopefully, after discovering themselves and learning to believe in their abilities, your children will transfer this new, increased self-esteem into every aspect of their lives. So, get them involved and start building those memories.

Author Bio: Chandler Clayton is a freelance writer, specializing in education and safety. He draws upon his years of teaching environmental education to empower learning in children and adults of all backgrounds. He has been featured on sites such as SafeWise, USA Today, and Newsday.

Giving your child opportunities to engage with others in the community and outdoors leads to a well balanced life. There are also plenty of things you can introduce your family to keep away from excessive Internet use. 

Technology definitely has a time and place in our schools and we owe it to our pupils to teach them proper ways to use their devices for learning and communicating. However, we can also probably agree there are some downsides to all of this tech in our student’s lives.

Technology which opens our students up to a variety of pitfalls of dangers that range anywhere from cyberbullying to the health consequences of inactive lifestyles.

As educators, it’s no great surprise today’s technology is changing the way we monitor our children, communicate, interact, and engage with our students and, everyday we are on the frontlines watching and coping with the consequences as they unfold.

This makes it essential that we slow down and re-evaluate the role we allow technology to play in our classrooms. This is especially vital when we consider teens are digitally connected for 9 hours everyday! Yes, that is almost the same amount of time spent in school. If that statistic isn’t jaw dropping enough, we need to factor in that their younger counterparts clock in over 6 daily hours and children younger than 8 net nearly 3 hours a day!.

This data inevitably means that our children are missing out on important opportunities and activities to interact, explore, observe, and learn about the world around them. Instead of building new relationships or mastering valuable life skills, our boys and girls are inevitably living a distracted life. This is difficult for us to face, because we can only control what our students do during the hours we have them entrusted to our care. One simple way we can counteract too much technology is by examining the importance of outdoor activities and find ways for kids to strike a happy balance.     

Why Outdoor Activities are Essential for Kids

Over the course of the last few decades, a lot has changed in education as we strive to include more technology and teach for the test. While this has helped push in more STEAM activities and HAL opportunities, it has also led to a significant decrease in the amount of time allocated for recess, physical education, and the fine arts. To put this trend into perspective, according to the National Wildlife Foundation, today’s children are spending approximately half the amount of time outside than we did when we were kids.

Why outdoor activities are essential for kids:

• Poor indoor air quality is common in many schools. Fresh air is healthy!

• There is an increased risk for obesity, hypertension, and more that comes with reduced exercise and sedentary lifestyles.

• Green spaces have been proven to reduce stress and anxiety levels in children- and even adults. 

• The outdoors provide exposure to dirt, germs, and bacteria which boost a child’s immune system.

• Activities like gardening in the outdoors can help students develop observational skills and learn science concepts.

• Sunlight provides beneficial vitamin D which can help energy levels and strengthen bones.

• Adequate exposure to sunlight also helps set a child’s circadian rhythms, which will help them develop a proper sleep schedule to enhance social and educational performance in school.

• Outdoor activities and green spaces naturally improve many of the symptoms related to ADHD in children.

The Dangers of Too Much Technology

The reasons why outdoor activities are essential for kids is pretty solid, but we can’t overlook the possible dangers associated with too much technology. Our students’ devices might be entertaining, but there are real reasons educators need to be concerned. The following list shows why we need to help students find a healthy balance with technology in their lives:

• Direct links between overuse of social media and increases in depression, feelings of low self-esteem, and anxiety have been documented in young people.

• Devices can interrupt or cause distraction during key learning times in a classroom.

• Our kids might be set up for a lifetime of joint and neck pain if they don’t embrace proper ergonomics.

• Digital devices and fast paced stimuli can actually physically alter a child’s brain.

• The glow from our screens and constant notifications can disrupt circadian rhythms and sleep schedules leading to poor sleep.

• Overusing technology limits one-on-one communication opportunities for kids which may inhibit relationship and social skills development.

Benefits of Being Outside

Technology is obviously here to stay, and we can’t feasibly ban all devices from our schools. However, a little mindfulness and proactive planning can go a long way. With a little creative thinking we can help students find a healthy balance with technology and nature. Encouraging your children to play outdoors regularly needs to be more then just talk.  Give them ideas and take part in the fun as often as possible.