How to Encourage Healthy Choices for Your Kids: 5 Essential Tips

By Daniel Sherwin February 14, 2022

As a parent, you know how important it is to help your kids make healthy choices. But sometimes, it’s difficult to teach healthy habits. It’s time to think outside the box and come up with fun new ways to stay healthy as a family! These tips will help you and your family feel your best.

Outdoor Learning

Your kids might associate learning solely with school - but learning doesn’t just take place while studying or sitting in a classroom. Show your kids how much they can learn from the great outdoors! You could go hiking to teach them about the local flora and fauna, head to the beach to learn about marine life, or even spend a weekend camping. You can also introduce your kids to astronomy. Kids will be fascinated by everything they see through a backyard telescope! By installing a convenient astronomy app on your smartphone, you can easily identify all of the constellations - just point your phone upwards!

Eating Well

If your kids tend to reach for sugary snacks and try to avoid eating vegetables, it’s time to work on establishing healthy eating habits. To prompt your kids to eat a more nutritious diet, try introducing new foods one at a time, letting them try vegetables with tasty condiments, buying fewer processed snacks, and even letting your kids get involved with the cooking process. It’s also a good idea to limit their caffeine intake. Instead, keep plenty of cold filtered water on hand. Besides being necessary to your children’s overall health and wellbeing, it helps to fill an empty tummy, too. It’s better, too, to put properly portioned snacks in bowls rather than having them eat right out of the bag.

Limit Screen Time

Do your kids tend to spend a lot of time staring at screens? Whether they’re watching TV or playing games on tablets, you may want to focus on helping them reduce their screen time. Very Well Family recommends setting specific times when screens should be off limits. You can designate these hours as family time instead!

Be a Positive Role Model

When you practice healthy habits like daily exercise, your kids will notice. As you help your kids cut back on screen time, you can spend that time working out together instead. Try to find forms of exercise that don’t necessarily feel too strenuous, like riding bikes together or playing games in your backyard.

How much of your day do you spend criticizing yourself? It’s a lot more than you think. In fact, most people make 300-400 self evaluations a day and a whopping 80% of those are negative. You don’t do that to your child, but do they see you doing that to yourself? Encourage positive self-esteem in your children by practicing it yourself. Boosting your own confidence teaches them how to do the same, and that’s a lifelong trait that will serve them well.

Discuss Tough Topics

Your kids may have questions about serious issues like drinking or substance abuse. If you want them to gain an understanding of these issues, it’s best to simply have open and honest conversations. Although you might think they’re too young to ask these questions, it’s better if they get their answers from you than from anyone else. In the future, you’ll be glad that you had these conversations because your kids will know that they can come to you with tough questions.

Sometimes, it can be tough to motivate your kids to work out, eat healthily, and spend time outside. But when you take the opportunity to turn these healthy habits into family activities, it becomes a lot more fun for everyone. By following these tips, you and your kids can live a healthier lifestyle together!