Creating healthy habits with children of any age can be challenging. The key to getting your family into a routine that’s good for them can take time and persistence on your part. But, fear not, it can be done.
The most important rule for your family to remember as you gradually shift them into a healthier state is that you all must work together towards the same goal. Harmonious exchanges are always received better when both parties consciously want them.
Here are three steps to get you started in creating healthy habits for your entire family.
1. Start Small
No one likes making huge changes to their life right away. It can make us anxious, upset, and give us an overall feeling of uneasiness if we have to be uprooted from what’s familiar and comforting.
It may be beneficial for you to create a list of what habits you’d like to incorporate into your family, this way, you can pick and choose which ones to work on at the most convenient time for all those involved.
Our bodies love to adjust and adapt to things in small quantities, so don’t expect huge results overnight. Start small and let the little changes add up to big rewards.
2. No Rushing
To insist that your family form habits of any kind, be it eating, exercising, etc, on a rather quick basis is only setting everyone up for failure. Remember that the tallest trees take years to grow.
Cultivate a conscious effort as a unified unit rather than trying to subconsciously trick everyone into thinking this is what they want.
Us parents know that old habits die hard, but approaching new habits with patience and understanding is your best defense at winning over the mind’s pull to keep the old habits alive.
In order to allow these changes to become a normal part of your family’s daily doings, everyone must allow their body, mind, and psyche to adapt to this change willingly or it isn’t going to stick.
For example, let’s assume you want to introduce more veggies into your family’s eating habits.
Making everyone eat salads and carrot sticks for dinner every night for the next month isn’t the best way to approach this. Gradually introducing more veggies into what you normally feed your family is a much easier way to get everyone on board to the idea - and pretty soon, they’ll be grabbing a helping of asparagus on their own without any encouragement.
3. Failure Is Not An Option Seriously, it isn’t.
And don’t allow it to be. It’s true that not everyone in the family will take to the healthy habits with a smile on their face, but that doesn’t mean that your family’s quest should be abandoned.
Your mind is your controller, with it you could motivate yourself to do just about anything you desire. So work with your family to bring new healthy habits alive. Back to the veggie example, ask your family which they veggies they like best and incorporate those more into your cooking. Or try for adding one new veggie to the mix every week or every other week.
The key is to continuously advance with the habit and by keeping at it, it will become an integral part of everyone’s daily routine to the point where it becomes second nature.