Having children is one of the biggest responsibilities you will have as an adult. Children can be a handful to manage, but they are a huge part of your life and will more than likely look to you for help and love for years to come. Children are with you forever and will learn from you while likely inheriting many of your habits. This is not always a bad thing, and in fact, emulating good behaviors and habits in front of your children is one of the easiest ways to pass down information to your children that can help them for years to come.
Developing Habits
It doesn’t take long for a healthy habit to form. In fact, habits take only two to three months on average to become part of a daily routine. It’s up to parents and children to pass down information and be able to make these habits generational and ongoing. Anything from healthy eating, to exercise, meditation, and self-care can all be great habits to pass down from generation to generation. In addition, to be able to pass down information can even help one day save your child’s life. Teaching your kids about camping, what to do in an emergency, even how to properly maintenance a car are all vital life skills. Just the same, it’s important to teach children to avoid bad habits as well, such as excessive drinking, smoking, excessive partying, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Making Time for Lessons
If passing down information and tips to children is so vital, why don’t all parents do it more often? Unfortunately, modern life is full of stress, work, school, and busy schedules that take up much of our time. It can be difficult to set aside even an hour a day to simply talk to our children about life skills and tips, and even more difficult to make these habits stick if we ourselves aren’t practicing good habits. However, as a parent, you should always make an effort to teach your children life lessons and pass down information. To get started, here are 15 tips you can pass down to your children to help them get started on this journey through life. Continue to make time, teach your children using compassion, and have fun while doing so.
1. Meditating
One of the first things you should do when waking up or winding down at night is to meditate. Meditating and stretching are two forms of releasing tension and energy that aren’t just excellent for adults, but for children as well. Pass down information on mindfulness meditation and even yoga to your children. The sooner you can allow your children to meditate and be able to relax their thoughts and lower their stress levels, the better. If you don’t have a dedicated meditation space inside your home, you can easily do a landscaping project to clear out an area in your backyard and do meditation there. Outdoor meditation, especially during the morning sunrise, can be a beautiful experience for you and your children.
2. Exercising
Exercising is one of the most important habits to teach your children. More and more children are presenting with early-onset diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and fatigue due to not exercising. Exercising can be simple to do, and extremely fun as well! Go for a swim in your backyard pool, or join a local sports team to teach your children about teamwork as well. Pass down information that can help children start off small, such as taking the stairs, or walking to the local store instead of driving. The more physical activity you are able to expose to your child, the better.
3. Eating Healthy
Eating healthy can be difficult for any child to do. This is especially true if a parent is constantly bringing in fast-food, doesn’t have time to cook, and doesn’t make an effort to expose their children to nutritious food. Instead of buying fast-food, take time to teach children about the importance of making healthy choices. Start by having your children help you cook or even meal-prep. If you do go out for dinner, make healthy choices and practice portion control, or order off the light-menu. Or, visit a local smoothie shop and order juices with super greens with probiotics. Smoothies and juices can be a delicious way to introduce your children to healthy foods! With so many people making more of an effort to be health-conscious now, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find healthy options even in fast-food restaurants. Always take the time to pass down information on healthy foods to your kids.
4. Expressing Emotions
It can be difficult for children and teens to properly express emotions, especially if they feel parents don’t want to see them cry or yell. However, every child needs to let their emotions out somehow. Not doing so can lead children to grow into adults that don’t have good coping skills for stressful situations, and even lead to anxiety and depression. To prevent this, let your children express their emotions often, and use positive reinforcement when they express positive emotions. If your children has their own room, do a home remodeling project with them so they can fill their room with their own personality and express their emotions this way too. Pink, black, blue, white, let your children explore their own personality!
5. Developing Healthy Relationships
As a parent, it’s vital you pass down information on healthy relationships to your children, especially if they are now starting to date, make more friends in school, or even have trouble working with others. It’s important to teach children about the importance of boundaries, maintaining healthy friendships, and not allowing others to take advantage of these relationships or vice versa. The sooner you can show children what is healthy in a relationship, the sooner they can understand and implement these life skills. For instance, what does healthy love look like? When should you cut off friendships? How should a teacher interact with students? These might be some of the toughest, but some of the best conversations to have with your children and teens.
6. Self-Acceptance
Self-Acceptance is easier said than done, and especially in today’s modern world, accepting who you are is key when undertaking anything in life. Let your children know it’s okay to love who they are, and pass down information that lets your children know to accept themselves and any flaws. From body shape to body size, gender, hair color, and everything in between, self-acceptance is key for a child to have to help them grow into healthy, happy adults. Teaching self-love and acceptance can start by developing a self-care routine for your child. It’s never too early to start!
7. Confidence
Just like self-acceptance, having confidence is important for your child to have, even from an early age. Enroll your children in activities that allow them to be confident and prevent social anxiety, such as theater or singing. Or, simply let your children be confident in their abilities to do simple things every day. Confidence can help your children become adults that are able to easily find employment, ace interviews for schools and jobs, and interact with others in a positive way.
8. Exploring the Outdoors
Exercising is good and well, but if you’re able to pass down information to your kids about exploring the outdoors, this is a great life-skill to have. If your children go camping for the first time, teach them the basics of navigating, packing the right food and equipment, and even preparing their RV with the proper tools such as an rv sway control system. Let your children know that the outdoors can be a great place to unwind, meditate, and get away from the world just for a little bit.
9. Making Routine Check-Ups
It might not be so easy to make your own medical appointments, and attending doctors appointments can be nerve-wracking. Still, it’s important to teach your children the basics of making doctors appointments, and how crucial it is to follow-through and let medical professionals know about any problems your child might experience.
10. Making Routine Dental Visits
No one wants to visit the dentist all the time, but it’s a part of life that you should let your children know about. As a parent, it’s vital you pass down information on oral hygiene to your children. You can do this by simply brushing and having a good oral hygiene routine with your children. However, if your child is younger than age 2, do not use fluoride toothpaste unless your doctor or dentist tells you to. Make appointments regularly with a good children dentistry office, and get rid of the fear of dentists!
11. Supporting the Community
It’s important to teach your child the importance of being supportive of not just family and friends, but of the community. Pass down information on your beautiful community to your children, and encourage them to help others every day. This can be as easy as shopping at unique locally owned shops, or volunteering at a local shelter or hospital. Trash pick-up, beach clean-ups, and any other community skills and gatherings can also be a great way to teach your children the importance of community as well.
12. Simple Car Maintenance
Your kids will someday be driving and even own a car on their own. But, this doesn’t mean they’ll be well-equipped to handle the pressures and responsibilities of driving if you don’t pass down information to help them. More importantly, teach your children basic maintenance tips to help prevent them from getting stuck on the side of the road. Simple things such as car brakes repair can help prevent your children from getting into accidents as well. Equip them with emergency power tools, spare tires, extra battery cables, and car jacks, and always teach your children the importance of contacting insurance agents and the proper authorities.
13. Simple Home Maintenance
You might find that one day, your children will be stuck at home alone, and call you frantically because they don’t know where that strange noise is coming from, or where that leak is going! You can prevent children from questioning these things and prepare them for when they have their own home by teaching them simple maintenance skills and tips. For instance, if you’re doing roof repair work, take the time to pass down information on the importance of roof maintenance, and let your kids know to report anything they might notice such as cracked tiles or shingles. Involve them in weekly or monthly maintenance projects, such as replacing HVAC filters or cleaning the gutters. Though it might seem boring now, this information will be extremely helpful to your children in the future.
14. Expressing Creativity
Children, teenagers, even adults all need to express themselves through creative outlets every once in a while. The great thing about expressing yourself by being creative is that you might find a talent you never knew about! Give your child the tools to express themselves in any area they want. For instance, if they want to get building materials and start designing their own small carpentry items, like tables, bird-houses, even doll houses, this is a great outlet for expression! Painting, music, and any other art form is also vital to allow your children to express themselves and let those creative juices flow.
15. Self-Discipline
What is self-discipline, and how can it help a child develop into a better adult and better person overall? Self-discipline is being able to do your homework on time by yourself, getting to bed early, or even making your bed up every morning. Pass down information on taking self-discipline seriously, even at a young age to your children. The earlier in life your children understand that their choices have consequences, as does their work ethic, the better! There’s no better way to teach this than with a list of simple chores, positive reinforcement, and lots of love toward your children.