Last week the Great NEWS blog covered the Perfect Health for Dads and this week you will discover specific strategies for Perfect Health for Children. The Perfect Health Mastery series is committed to helping create happier, healthier and more harmonious families. This Perfect Health for Children article provides simple solutions, strategies and suggestions to help parents insure their children eat delicious and nutritious foods.
Children often develop into finicky eaters after being strongly influenced by fast food establishments, family, friends and television. Learn to walk the talk about being active, fit, healthy and intelligent regarding life choices and lifestyle. It will pay huge dividends for a healthy and long life.
The following offers some key solutions, strategies, suggestions and systems to help keep your children on the path to perfect health, happiness and harmony.
Keys to Keeping Our Children Healthy
Teach your children to love drinking the best water you can possibly find. Their body is approximately 75% water and it is easy for them to become dehydrated so it is one of your most important responsibilities. Avoid all pasteurized and processed juices, flavored drinks, energy drinks, sodas, sugary drinks, coffee and tea.
Learn to plan, prepare and enjoy three great meals a day with healthy foods that are nutrient dense organic whole foods. The majority of the foods you buy should be fresh, locally grown and in season.
Set a great example by eating green leafy plants at each meal. Cabbage, cucumber, lettuce, celery, avocado, spinach, cole slaw, pears, chayote squash, peas, lima beans, snow peas and green beans are excellent examples.
Some great examples of snack foods include: carrot and celery sticks with hummus, cucumber or jicima slices with guacamole, apple slices with almond or cashew butter.
Replace all box cereals since they contain excess sugar with healthy whole grain choices such as spouted quiona, amaranth, wild rice, brown rice, buckwheat, millet, barley or oats.
Children should be encouraged to eat meals on a regular schedule and it is imperative the parents establish a routine that works for the entire family.
Children should learn the value of exercise and how to work hard and smart from the parents to encourage them to establish good habits and routines that will last a lifetime. Parents must themselves focus on being healthy and grounded to the cycles, rhythms and seasons of the earth in order to teach this to their children. Too many children these days lack a schedule and system that is focused around the top priorities of being, learning, living and loving their family, friends and life.
Children need and should enjoy regular activities, exercise, running, sports and walking to maintain their developing body, mind and spirit for optimal fitness and health. Being outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine are essential for perfect health and happiness.
Scheduling quality time centered around activities with family, friends and foods (healthy family meals) is extremely important.
Children need lots of emotional connection and physical contact. Be sure they receive plenty of hugs, verbal support and physical touch each day.
Sunday is the day for the family to focus on rest, relaxation and rejuvenation. Stop the senseless time wasters and start investing quality time to draw pictures, paint, play games, read books, visit a museum, write, or whatever everyone enjoys doing. Children and parents should take the time to focus on what they are grateful for and remember to count blessings and give thanks.
Visiting or traveling with friends, grandparents or other relatives is a great way to educate the children on a wide variety of cultures, foods and lifestyle to encourage them with new ideas and thinking.
Planning lots of free time for arts, creativity, exploring and play are extremely important. Be conscious to help them avoid mindless activities such as cell phone talking and texting, TV, video games and similar things for as long as you can. Even the use of a computer should be monitored and restricted to exploring and learning interesting and valuable information rather than just entertainment.
Help your children learn very early the value of earning money, hard work, investing, learning, smart thinking, saving and spending wisely. Avoid buying too many toys, trinkets and stuff. More than ever it is imperative to teach children that we must all learn to reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose everything we can to reduce our impact on the ecology and environment. Remember the Native American Iroquois tribe philosophy and wisdom to consider the impact on the next Seven Generations when making a decision.
Values and Vision
Creating perfect health for children is easy to do and easy not to do depending on how well you focus on your values and vision for their future. Children depend on the parents, relatives and friends for learning about the knowledge and wisdom regarding healthy foods and lifestyle. Your children learn directly from what you drink, eat and say so choose wisely.
A key reason to focus on perfect health for children early on is that it is often much more difficult to unlearn unhealthy behaviors. What you drink, eat and do is what your children will remember and role model. It is imperative to be a great role model to help your children be happier and healthier by learning from you early on. Perfect health for children starts with focusing on your behaviors, habits and routines knowing that their patterns will be greatly influenced by the parents.
Mastery Action Plan
- Consciously choose to eat healthy family meals at least two meals a day for 21 days.
- Clean out the refrigerator and pantry and avoid all unhealthy fast foods, junk foods and highly processed foods for these 21 days to determine and discontinue any unhealthy habits that may have been established.
- Once you find the recipes, resources and role models for great health and nutrition you will begin to experience the energy, joy and vitality that your desire and deserve.
Our next blog post will share: Perfect Health for Teens
This article was written after returning from my friends house in La Garita, Costa Rica where Nicoline and Ard are mentoring perfect health for their two children by being excellent role models for Pura Vida (Pure Life).
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