Help your child to form healthy habits for the New Year!
Email 1
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Parents,
Happy New Year! We are ready to start off this new year in a wonderful way! Every January we are bombarded with images and stories of resolutions. A new year seems to be the ideal time to head off with a new outlook, a fresh start. This applies to your children too! Have you ever considered that this could be a time of new habits for them too? You are the one who can help set healthy habits for your child.
https://vimeo.com/parentministry/review/115305452/2a0127811d
Partnering with you,
Preschool Pastor
Email 2
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Parents,
So, how are your resolutions going? It is hard to keep new habits. We so often want to go back to our old selves. You must remember that if you have and keep healthy habits it will be much easier for your child to do the same. They look up to you and take their cues from you! Here are some examples and ideas that may make implementing healthy habits into your lives a bit easier.
Take care of your body!
- Teach your child to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze.
- Make sure that you teach your child the importance of washing hands. Germs are everywhere, especially this time of year. Now, we don’t want you to turn into a hypochondriac, but washing your hands can ward off so many illnesses! Make sure that your child has everything they need to accomplish this task. Have a stool handy so they can reach. Put fun soap in the bathroom, make it fun for them.
- Make sure that your child knows the importance of staying safe inside the car. Always buckle your seat belt and ensure that they are always strapped in properly.
- When playing outside, always have sunscreen available to prevent sunburns.
- Show them the proper way to brush their teeth and help them brush and floss. Make regular visits to the dentist a priority. The dentist can be intimidating for kids and adults. Find a good pediatric dentist in your area. Help children to see that always taking care of our teeth can make visits much easier!
- Get plenty of sleep. It can be very tempting to bend the bedtime rules, especially if you have a child who is reluctant to go to bed. Stand firm. They need a good nights sleep as much as you do. It’s important for their growth and development. Help them to understand how sleep is important for our bodies.
Healthy Diet
Childhood obesity is a very serious problem. There is a common misconception that eating healthy is harder or more expensive. Anything can be made a daily habit with the proper research and planning. Our children will only want junk food if all they eat is junk food. You are responsible for the food that is in your home. Do your best to only provide a variety of healthy choices for snacks and meals for them. This way they can try different foods and discover what they do and do not like. Help them to understand the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables. Make sure that they don’t skip breakfast. They need fuel to get them through their day. Allow your child to help you in the kitchen. They are more likely to try something that they helped to make! Also, limit the amount of sweet drinks your child consumes. Make sure they are drinking plenty of water.
Physical Activity
Children are very busy by nature, but due to increased television and video game exposure inactivity can become a bad habit. The American Heart Association recommends that children age two and older have at least 60 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per day. Not every child will excel at sports, so it is important to help your child find activities that they enjoy. Reports have shown that more of two hours of daily tv time can lead to impaired performance at school, behavior difficulties and obesity. Become active as a family. Find things to do together!
Choose Joy
Sometimes children can become easily discouraged and upset. Help your child understand the importance of being resilient and staying positive. Praise your child when they are kind to others, accomplish something difficult for them or follow directions. Watch your own mood, it can rub off on your child! Encourage your children to participate in things they enjoy and introduce them to new experiences and people. This will also help them to develop social skills and make new friendships.
New Year’s Resolutions may seem silly or frivolous to some, but it can be a good idea to take a look at ourselves and identify areas that may need improvement. Maybe there are some things on this list that you need to work on yourselves! Make it a family project. Choose some new habits and make them a family priority. This will encourage your children and you to be healthy in the new year!
Partnering with you,
Preschool Pastor
Video Script
Happy New Year! Hopefully by now you have recovered from the holidays and are ready to start 2015 off with a bang! Anytime you hear about the New Year it is almost inevitable that you will hear something about New Year’s Resolutions. Television and magazines are full of articles and reports about losing weight, quitting smoking or having a new attitude about money. All of these things are great, but we want to encourage you to include something else this year. Make a promise to yourself to help your children establish healthy habits too. Now, your little one may be a bit small to be making resolutions, but it is never to early to help set the standard for them.
Early childhood is a time when habits can be formed that can affect them for the rest of their lives. As their parents, it is our responsibility to teach children how to lead healthy lives. We can do everything for them for only a little while. So what are some lessons that we can teach our preschoolers about being healthy? Sometimes it feels like kids this age always have some kind of cold or bug going around. This is a great time to teach about washing your hands. If you wash correctly, you can reduce the number of cold, flu and other infections by around 50%! That’s a lot of runny noses and coughs! Teach your kids to wash hands several times a day but especially before eating, and after playing outside, sneezing or coughing and especially after going potty. Another easy way to keep germs at bay is to show kids how to cover their mouth when they cough and to sneeze into their elbow. 80% of germs are transferred by touch when they have been spewed out into the air.
Let’s talk about food for a minute. I have yet to meet a child this age who isn’t somewhat of a picky eater. It is hard to get children to eat healthy when all they want is chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese! Plan your dinners out in advance. Many times the question of “what’s for dinner?” can lead to less than nutritious last-minute meals. Planning them out can take lots of stress off us parents. Make sure that you don’t forget about breakfast. That helps set the tone for our whole day. You can’t expect your kids to make it through their day on an empty tank. Your kid won’t touch veggies? Experiment with different dips. Dressing, hummus or salsa can make plain vegetables much more interesting. Cut back on the amount of junk food in your home. You are in charge of what kinds of food come into your house. If you don’t want your kids to eat it, don’t buy it!
It may seem like at this age that our little ones never slow down. However, we still need to show them the importance of being physically active. Television isn’t a bad thing, in moderation. The last thing you want is a preschool couch potato! Limit the amount of tv your kids are watching and encourage them to play. Regular exercise leads to strong muscles and bones, better sleep patterns and helps to manage weight. Introduce them to a variety of different activities so they can find a favorite. It will be much harder to get them moving when they are older if you don’t do it now.
These are only a couple of the many ways we can teach our children to set healthy habits in their life. Above all, be a positive role model for your child. You can’t expect them to try things that you aren’t willing to do yourself! Don’t be a hypocrite. Your kids will notice if you are being physically active and what you are eating. They want to be just like you.
Be watching out later this month for our next parent email. We will share more tips for kicking off the New Year in a healthy way!
Weekly tweets from you to parents:
TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell twitter to store a list of your tweets in one place for later reference.
Tweet One: Habits formed during childhood can affect them throughout their lives. Help them form healthy habits. #urchurchparentministry
Tweet Two: Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. #urchurchparentministry
Tweet Three: Help your child understand why healthy habits are important. If they understand why they should do something, the more likely they are to do it.#urchurchparentministry
Tweet Four: 70% of obese children grow up to have weight issues as adults. Is your child equipped to make healthy food choices?#urchurchparentministry
Tweet Five: The AMA recommends that children ages 2 and older have at least 60 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a day.#urchurchparentministry
Tweet Six: Your children will pick up your habits, both good and bad.#urchurchparentministry
Tweet Seven: Be a model. Show your children what they should do.#urchurchparentministry
Tweet Eight: Enjoy regular dinners as a family. It will help strengthen the family bond and encourage positive relationships. #urchurchparentministry
Tweet Nine: Choose rewards for your child that match the habits you want to form. #urchurchparentministry
Tweet Ten: It takes 21 days of doing something continuously to make it a habit. What healthy habits can you make? #urchurchparentministry