Teaching Your Kids How To Take Care Of Their Health Is Too Important To Ignore. One of the biggest concerns for a lot of parents is how they can best make sure that their kids are properly protected from illness. After all, no one wants to see their child sick and suffering in any way. Of course, trying to get them to care about their health can be extremely difficult when they’re not quite old enough to fully understand the consequences of what they’re doing. Trying to explain to a child why they shouldn’t eat dirt can often feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall! However, there are a few ways that you can help your child to learn some good health habits and teach them to care about their health a little more.
Lead by example
The very best thing that you can do if you want your children to become more concerned about their health is to lead by example. Do things like washing your hands together so that you can teach them how to do it as thoroughly as possible. Similarly, going to the doctor and dentist can be scary for kids, so going with them and showing them that it’s okay can be a real comfort for them. Seeing you go to the doctor and dentist and understanding how things work can make everything a lot less scary for many children and encourage them to feel more independent when it comes to taking care of their health.
Put it in terms they can understand
Sadly, trying to explain things like viruses and bacteria to children can often be an exercise in frustration because they simply aren’t developed enough to understand what it all means. However, that doesn’t mean that you should give up on trying to educate them and resort to things like “because it’s dirty!” or, even worse “because I said so!” Sure, kids might not understand viruses, but that’s why we call them tummy bugs. By helping them to visualize things like hygiene and germs, you can help to give them a much better idea of what they can do to avoid getting sick. There are hundreds of books and videos out there that act as fantastic resources when it comes to explaining health to kids at any level at all. Sure, they might not fully understand, but if you can start to make those connections in their mind early on, it will be a lot easier further down the road.
The best thing that you can do is to be less concerned with hovering over your child and making sure that they’re always protected from germs and simply to teach them to avoid getting sick where they can. Sure, you’re never going to be able to protect your child from getting sick 100% of the time, but if you take more of a “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime” approach to things then your children will be able to be much more independent in the future.
