Kids’ health is really important and summer is a great time for us to check in with our own kid’s health and reflect on what is working, and what isn’t.
When your kids are off school for summer, it can be a perfect time to rest, relax and restore. We can take the time to break bad habits that we might have acquired during the year and start new habits that are much healthier and more productive for all of us.
In this blog, we want to talk to you about the easiest ways you can support your kids’ health this summer in three categories: physical health, emotional health, and nutritional health. As we all know that health is something multimodal and holistic, it can never concentrate on one individual area and exclude the rest.
In each of these categories, we are going to provide suggestions on how we think you might improve and support your kids this summer so that they can be the very best that they can be.
Sound good?
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Physical kids’ health: Track daily steps and join one new activity
Summer is a great time to support kids’ health in terms of their physical health. The weather is better (usually) and so it is a great time to encourage more outdoor time and more activity.
A super easy and fun way to encourage your child to exercise more is to help them track their daily steps using a tracker such as a Fitbit or smartwatch. You can turn it into a little competition with daily or weekly targets. This is an amazing way to improve your child’s overall levels of exercise and outdoor time as it is a way that they will find both enjoyable and accessible. It is also free and can be done every day in all sorts of different ways.
Another way to support kids’ health in a physical way is to encourage them to join one new activity over the summer. Summer is the perfect time of year to start something brand new that they can take with them into the year ahead. It is an inspiring time and it is always a good idea to use this momentum to start something new and long-lasting. They could try a local sports club with other kids or they could start a hobby of their own. Whichever way works for them will be good.
Keeping them as active as possible in all sorts of ways will help them for years and years to come.
Emotional kid’s health: Encourage journaling and weekly check-ins
A super important aspect of kids’ health is their emotional health. Over the years we are learning more and more about the importance of mental and emotional health in children and how we should support it as parents.
When your kids are off school for summer and have much more free time, this can be a perfect time to check in with their mental and emotional health and see how things are going. It is also a great time to teach them about some techniques and strategies to maintain their own levels of emotional health so that they can acquire these skills and take them forward into the rest of their life.
Our top 2 suggestions for caring for emotional kids’ health over the summer are journaling and weekly check-ins with a parent.
Journaling is a great and simple way for children to deal with and process all of their thoughts and emotions. And we would be mistaken if we don’t think that children deal with lots of both of these things. Journaling can help them reflect on how they are feeling and it can give them such emotional relief as they get everything out on paper. All you need is a plain book, a pen, and some privacy. Make sure that your child knows that whatever they write will be private so that they can fully take part in the activity and get the most out of it.
The second suggestion of weekly check-ins is one of our favourite ways to look after our kids’ health, especially when it comes to mental health. Encouraging our children to talk to us openly and consistently is a great way to show them that is ok to talk about feelings and emotions and that these things don’t need to be locked up inside. Knowing this at an early age will be a great advantage to them as they go forward into young adult and adult life.
Nutritional kid’s health: Decrease fast food and encourage cooking
It can be very easy to get into the habit of allowing our children to have lots of fast food, especially in the summertime when they are enjoying themselves and we all want a break.
But, too much fast food isn’t good for our kids’ health and we know this. We also know that it isn’t a good idea to get them into the habit of having a lot of fast food early in life as this can easily continue for the rest of their life if we don’t intervene.
A great way to both support and improve our kids’ health over the summer is to encourage them to learn and practice their own cooking skills. If we help them learn some skills in the kitchen, we can take the opportunity to teach them about healthy eating and good nutrition. We can show them how great cooking at home can be for our bodies and our wallets.
Promoting good home cooking is an amazing way of looking after our kids’ health and I personally think it is very underrated. It will set your kid up for life in a much healthier and more sustainable way and cooking together is also a wonderful bonding activity for you both.
Who said being healthy couldn’t be fun too?
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