Most parents want to make sure that their children will make healthy choices as they grow up. However, figuring out how to encourage the proper behaviors can seem tricky. Thankfully, it’s easier to do if you use the right approach. Here are some tips to help your kids make healthy choices, presented by All Clean Food.

Teach Your Children to Create Nutritious Meals

When it comes to healthy eating, ensuring your children know how to cook makes a big difference, and not just while they’re under your roof. As one study showed, self-perceived cooking skills matter. When young adults (age 18 to 23) felt confident in their cooking capabilities, they had better nutrition-related outcomes a full ten years later in life.

Ideally, you want to introduce your kids to cooking in a strategic way, ensuring you can use age-appropriate approaches that allow children to build in their skills over time. Additionally, you want to show that healthy ingredients can be tasty as you work. Discuss the ingredients you’re adding, why you choose them from a nutrition standpoint, and how you can make them delectable by using different techniques, herbs, spices, and more. You can also use products from All Clean Food to have tasty, nutritious meals ready to fix.

Make Exercise a Fun Family Activity

Getting regular exercise is incredibly important for overall health. However, simply telling your children to exercise isn’t the best approach. Instead, by making working out a fun family activity, you can ensure that exercise is an enjoyable part of their lives, increasing the odds they’ll make it a habit.

Find activities that are age-appropriate, engaging, and fun. In some cases, this might mean engaging in active play. In others, it could be taking classes or using instructional videos to let them explore an activity that intrigues them, like dance, martial arts, and more.

Children and adolescents need 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity daily. Additionally, muscle-strengthening should be part of the equation at least three days each week. While recommendations for adults are different – 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity weekly and two days of strength training – more time exercising typically doesn’t hurt. In the end, by ensuring your children are participating as much as they need to and doing the activities alongside them, everyone benefits.

Keep an Eye on Your Behavior

Children take many of their cues about how to behave from parents. In some cases, this is incredibly beneficial, giving parents a way to teach what’s desired by simply modeling the trait, action, or mindset. In others, it’s a detriment, causing children to pick up behaviors that aren’t necessarily desirable.

One study showed that parents modeling anxious behavior led to higher anxiety levels in children, and that’s just one example of how parental actions can have a negative impact. That’s why you need to be mindful about your behavior, ensuring you’re not modeling what you don’t want by mistake. Instead, make sure you focus on modeling good behavior at all times.

You could start by speaking with your children about their goals and education. Then, consider how you can model making a smart choice. For example, if you’d been putting off earning your degree to get into your dream job, sign up for an online degree program. You’ll have the flexibility you need to balance your personal and educational responsibilities, ensuring you can work at your own pace along the way. Plus, by going with a BSED, you can open up opportunities to work with preschoolers or elementary-aged children, all while showing your children the benefit of furthering their education.