Helping Your Kids To Develop Good Wellness Skills
Every good parent wants what's best for the child, and wants to help them to thrive and to develop good life skills, from the earliest possible point.
Increasingly today, more people are becoming aware of the importance of taking steps to proactively manage and attend to their personal wellness, and overall well-being.
Children naturally rely on their parents completely, for all sorts of things, including safeguarding their health and protecting their emotional well-being. But the sooner you can begin teaching your child good wellness skills, the better.
Wellness can involve many different things. It can include making an effort to learn more about hearing tests and to book yourself an appointment. It can also involve knowing when to take a step back and do some deep breathing, when you've been under a lot of stress and are about to snap at your loved ones.
Here are just a few suggestions that might be helpful for teaching your kids good wellness skills.
Lead by example
Just about everyone has heard the phrase "do as I say, not as I do.” It’s usually used as a way of poking fun at parents who tell their kids to behave in one way, only to then behave the opposite way themselves.
For better or for worse, the basic fact of the matter is that kids tend to absorb what their parents actually do a lot more than what their parents say, and will routinely mirror the behaviours they see their parents expressing.
For this reason, perhaps the most important thing to do when it comes to helping your kids develop good wellness skills, is to model those good wellness skills yourself, and to let your kids see you doing so.
Among other things, this may involve taking time each day to sit in the garden and enjoy the fresh air. Or to enjoy an upbeat show each evening. Or to go for regular doctor’s checkups, and maintain a good baseline level of physical activity.
Emphasise the importance of balance
Wellness has a lot to do with balance, and with insuring that you don't burn out in any one domain of your life, or fail to give proper attention to any other core area of your life.
Balance means not only working, but also resting. It means not only relaxing on the sofa, but also getting exercise. It means not only being busy and energetic during the day, but also getting a good night’s sleep each night.
Teaching your child about the importance of balance, in general, can go a long way towards helping them to develop good wellness skills.
Encourage your kids to pay attention to subtle cues
In many cases, the way that we know we need to investigate a potential health issue, or to take steps to eat healthier, or to get more sleep, is by noticing subtle cues with regards to how we feel, day by day.
Many people go through everyday life chronically distracted and preoccupied and may ignore or possibly miss these subtle cues altogether.
Teaching your child to pay attention to how they feel with regards to these subtle cues, is a very valuable life skill to impart.
