Posted by Being a parent, even at the best of times, is hard work. It’s even more challenging if you have to work all hours of the day to make ends meet, and the struggle to bring up your children as you’d wish to do is always, in some ways, a bit of a compromise.
As parents, it is our duty to make sure our children are nourished, both in terms of their appetites (mental and physical) and their minds, and in some cases, this can be hard to achieve if you don’t have the time to do so. Sometimes it will simply feel as if there are not enough hours in the day.
Here are a few relatively easy ways to help keep your kids healthy and active in both body and mind.
Make Exercise a Family Routine
Keeping your kids active has always been a tricky proposition, and in the age of smartphones and the internet, it’s just got harder. Obviously, you will struggle to keep your children off their devices while encouraging them to lead active exercise pursuits when you don’t get all that much time to regulate their behaviors.
What you can do, with the time you do have as a family unit, is to adopt a routine of some form that brings you all closer together while also pushing that exercise ethic at the same time.
One day or evening a week, you could set aside a one or two-hour window where you do something together. This could be as simple as a post-dinner walk in a nearby park or could take the form of some sort of team sport, which can, of course, involve members of other families or friends you have nearby.
If it’s a team sporting activity, you’ll also help to foster bonding experiences that go beyond the game you are playing itself. Ideally, it’s a chance for you all to enjoy some fresh air and active movement, and you can take this as far as you see fit, just so long as it’s a constant in both your life and theirs. The benefits of this approach and myriad.
Make Meal Times Easier and Tastier
Let’s be honest; sometimes, you are just too tired and don’t have the time to put together a nutritious and delicious meal for your kids. This is not the crime of the century, and it’s something that most working parents suffer with, and there’s no point in chastising yourself when you reach for the takeout menu, but there is a solution, and it’s one that is not only a useful workaround it can also prove financially rewarding.
Meal delivery kit services enjoyed a massive boom during the coronavirus pandemic, and the popularity of the market continues to this day, and it’s perhaps time for you to get on board the bandwagon.
A meal delivery service can help revolutionize your approach in the kitchen, and there are some incredibly effective options available to you, as seen in this Hello Fresh review, that outlines the many benefits that await.
Most meal delivery systems work like this. You outline the number of meals you’d like a week, which is, of course, dependent on the size of your family and frequency of orders, and this can take on board a huge variety of dishes, which then arrive at your door, pre-packaged and with set instructions that make it super easy to prepare.
The best services in this field offer options that take into account dietary requirements and have great ingredients, and essentially these take a lot of the burden from your shoulders, and one additional benefit comes from the fact that your children, clearly if they are old enough, can start to make use of the kitchen themselves as they cook the ingredients according to the guidelines offered, making them more confident of their abilities in the kitchen.
Reduce Screen Time
Yes, this is the big one. It’s a quandary and battle that households in the US and beyond are finding harder and harder to win. Though one would never seek to get in the way of our children’s hobbies and entertainment, on occasion, there is no choice other than to set boundaries.
There are genuine concerns about the amount of time we all spend in front of screens, it’s something adults are as guilty of as children, and as parents, it is our duty to regulate their exposure to this phenomenon.
Try to set guidelines here and even consider some level of reward-based enticement as an option. In other words, if you complete your homework successfully by a certain time, you get to spend more time in front of the PlayStation or mobile device. A good grade could equal additional privileges.
Adopting this kind of approach is sure to be far more amenable than simply stating the rules as they will be from now onwards. Though it is essential to be firm if necessary, compromise is usually the best road to tread.
Encourage Discussion and Debate
Another key way to help keep young minds healthy and nurtured is to improve channels of communication. It’s common for children, especially older children, to internalize thoughts and opinions, and this can create something of a divide within a household.
A healthy family, from a mental standpoint, is one where everyone feels they can speak their mind without fear or recrimination. A young adult may not feel comfortable talking about difficult situations they encounter because they don’t know, or fear, the response, and reaction that might result from such a conversation. However, if a child grows up in a household where there is less tension around communication, then this is a tool that will serve them well later on in life and will, as a result, make them far more confident as they grow up.
Again, if you are a busy parent, this could be a harder nut to crack, but the principles are the same. Your child’s ability and willingness to speak honestly and openly about how they feel is crucial for their development, and the starting place for these processes are pretty simple and revolve a great deal around the ability to listen intently.
