10 Healthy Habits Parents Should Teach Their Kids

As a parent, you pass more than genes down to your children. Kids pick up your habits too — both good and bad.

Eating foods of different colors isn’t just fun — it has health benefits too. Help your kids understand the nutritional value of including a rainbow of colorful foods in their regular diet.

That doesn’t mean that every meal needs to be multicolored. But you should make an effort to incorporate a range of fruits and vegetables of different hues into their diet. Let the colors range from red, blue, and orange, to yellow, green, and white.

Instilling a routine of regular meal times in childhood can help make it more likely that your kids will continue this good habit when they’re older. Teach them that a healthy breakfast:

• kick starts their brain and energy
• helps keep them strong
• keeps chronic diseases at bay

Harvard Medical School confirms that going without breakfast correlates with four times the likelihood of obesity. And the high fiber in many breakfast cereals can help reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Watch the sugar content, though.

Not every child loves sports. Some may dread gym class. But if they see you being active and find physical activities they enjoy, staying healthy and active becomes easy.

They may very likely carry their love of these activities into adulthood.

If your child hasn’t found their sports niche yet, encourage them to keep trying, and be active with them. Expose them to a range of physical activities like swimming, archery, or gymnastics. They’re bound to find something they enjoy.

Get kids, and yourself, off the sofa and out the door. Kids who watch more than an hour or two of television a day are at greater risk for a number of health problems, including:

• impaired performance at school
• behavioral difficulties, including emotional and social problems and attention disorders
• obesity or being overweight
• irregular sleep, including trouble falling asleep and resisting bedtime
• less time to play

Developing strong reading skills is an essential component of your child’s success in school now, and at work later in life.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, reading helps build a child’s self-esteem, relationships with parents and others, and success in later life.

It’s recommended you make reading a part of your child’s playtime and bedtime routines.

The Cleveland Clinic also suggests that daily reading to children can begin as early as 6 months of age.

Choose books your kids like so that they view reading as a treat rather than a chore.

You can keep the message simple. Water is healthy. Soft drinks are unhealthy.

Even if your kids don’t understand all of the reasons why too much sugar is bad for them, you can help them understand the basics.

For example, the sugar in soft drinks provides no nutrients. It also adds calories that can lead to weight problems. Water, on the other hand, is a vital resource that humans can’t live without.

Your kids, especially pre-teens, and teens, may care about the labels on their clothes. Show them there’s another type of label that’s more important to their health: the food nutrition label.

Show kids how their favorite packaged foods contain labels with vital information about nutrition.

To avoid overwhelming them, focus on a few key parts of the label, such as the amount per serving of:

• calories
• saturated fats and trans fats
• grams of sugar

With hectic family schedules, it’s hard to find time to sit down and enjoy a meal together. But it’s worth it to try.

Sharing a family meal means that:

• family bonds get stronger
• kids are more well-adjusted
• everyone eats more nutritious meals
• kids are less likely to be obese or overweight
• kids are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol

Friendships are very important to the healthy development of school-aged children, according to research published in the Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review.

Playing with friends teaches kids valuable social skills such as communication, cooperation, and problem-solving. Having friends can also affect their performance in school.

Encourage your kids to develop a variety of friendships and to play with friends often. It will set them up with life skills they can draw on for years to come.

It’s easy for kids to get discouraged when things don’t go their way. Help them learn resilience when they experience setbacks by showing them the importance of staying positive.

According to research in the Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, children, as well as adults, can benefit from positive thinking and good relationships.

Help your kids develop healthy self-esteem and a positive mindset by teaching them they are lovable, capable, and unique, no matter what challenges they encounter.