There are many good habits that we need to practice in our daily lives in order to become more productive and healthier adults. These good habits generally began in our younger years as a result of suggestions from our parents which are then reinforced as duties. However, watching our parents perform the same duties help to cement them as habits.
Your Children Respect Your Authority
Children are taught from birth that their parents are the beginning and the end of all questions, comments, and actions. They are the single most influential authority figure during the impressionable years of a child’s development. To honor this influence, it is vital that the parents also be the beginning of all healthy habits. Parents can do this by setting healthy examples. If you tell them that smoking is dangerous, don’t contradict yourself by smoking. If you tell them that vegetables are healthy to eat, eat them with your own meals when you dine with your child. People tend to follow the visible examples that figures of authority exhibit instead of relying solely on their words.
You Are the Moral Compass
Children are born with a clean slate. They have no prejudices, no fears, no hopes, and no habits. As they grow, they use all of their senses to observe the people around them. They listen to the words that are being said. They feel the emotions that their parents express through visual and verbal cues. They also observe their parents during times of crisis. When a family experiences a crisis, children will look to their parents for an example on how to handle it. Unfortunately, crises tend to bring out either the best or the worst in people. Whichever moral direction you choose to take during times of crisis is the same moral direction that you will foster in your children. It is vital to their development as a person and to their future that you carefully choose which moral direction you will exemplify during these crises.
Showing the Importance of Self-Care
Many of us grew up with the same list of daily chores that were given to us by our parents. We had to bathe, brush our hair, brush and floss our teeth, change our underwear, make our bed, wash our hands before we ate, and many other essential chores that would later become healthy habits. We learned these not only from performing them on a daily basis but by watching our parents perform them. This helped to cement the importance of these duties into our minds.
If you want your kids to be healthy, you have to show them what it means to be healthy by eating healthy, keeping medical appointments, and caring for yourself when you have an illness or an injury. Consider how it will look to your child when they see you call up a dentist to set up your own appointment when they usually only hear you plan theirs.
To help your children to understand the benefits of healthy habits, remember to explain to them why they are important. Most importantly, show them that they are important by practicing those healthy habits yourself. If you are doing your best, your children will have a great example to look to when they don’t know which way to go.