Teaching your children to make healthy choices and establish healthy habits into their teen years starts with healthy options by you as the parent. Of course, as a parent, there are plenty of concerns, and you need to know which teenage hobbies to monitor, but the goal is to provide your teen with the tools for a healthy life.
Kids intuitively watch what you do, how you handle adversity, and how you act during stressful and happier times. These behaviors you model become their base understanding as they try to navigate their world and how they fit into it.
Living a healthy lifestyle is essential for people of all ages, but it is especially beneficial for teenagers.
Since teens are in the middle of significant physical and mental development, providing them with the right tools to become and stay healthy is your role as their parent and guardian.
These tools and mechanisms will be essential components of their lives, teaching them to eat nutritious meals and how to prepare and enjoy them, emphasizing regular exercise, getting enough sleep, and managing stress.
- Exercise Daily
- Eating Well
- Getting Enough Sleep
- Limit Screen Time And Social Media
- Proper Hygiene And Self Care
Exercise Regularly
For developing teens, it’s recommended that they get vigorous activity multiple times a day. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily, prioritizing aerobic exercise that can strengthen muscles, improve flexibility, and increase bone density.
Also, teaching your teenagers about the benefits of physical activity will enhance and lengthen their lives, especially at an advanced age.
Encourage their involvement in team and school sports as there are plenty of physical benefits to participating, but also a variety of social and mental benefits as well. Being part of a team, your kid learns discipline, hard work, how to set goals, overcome adversity, and teamwork, to name a few.
Eat Well
Eating well isn’t simply about eating fruits and vegetables. It’s about learning the correlation between food and health. It’s about learning how to prepare and enjoy meals, as well as learning portion control and setting up a routine to eat simultaneously.
Getting Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is also vital in developing healthy life habits. Too often, we teach the pressure, stress, and anxiety of adulthood by putting teens in the crucible of trying to do too many things, such as school, activities, and social and family demands.
And like adults, when teenagers feel pressured to do more, they sacrifice sleep over any other activity, increasing stress and anxiety. So, teens should aim for 8-10 hours per night.
Limit Screen Time And Social Media
Limiting the amount of time your teen spends online and on social media helps avoid issues of self-esteem, motivation, cognitive development, and body image.
Studies show that teens that spend a disproportionate amount of time on a screen are socially less capable, show cognitive abilities to be in decline, and tend to develop unreal expectations and perspectives.
Teach Proper Hygiene And Self-Care
With rapidly developing bodies, teens need to spend extra time on personal hygiene, and developing those skills will set them a foundation for life.
- Flossing and brushing regularly
- Bathing and combining hair
- Trimming nails
- Washing clothes
Good hygiene habits are essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Hygiene practices serve two main functions: to keep us sanitary and ensure social acceptance. Keeping our bodies clean helps us to be free of germs that can cause disease, such as tooth decay. Poor hygiene can lead to many preventable illnesses, so it is essential to practice good hygiene habits daily.
In addition to keeping us healthy, good hygiene also impacts our social interactions.
People expect others to be clean and presentable for them to feel comfortable interacting with them. This is especially true for adults with higher appearance standards than younger people.
Therefore, practicing good hygiene habits for our health and benefiting those around us is crucial. It makes being a functional adult easier to be around and more social as well.
Teaching your teens about self-care, including how to reduce stress through mindfulness, meditation, and yoga, are great ways to help your teen develop healthy mental habits and skills.
