Habits shape the personality of the person. Characteristics of an individual are reflected from its behaviour and actions. So, be intelligent and sensible enough to introduce the good habits to your kids, by which the child would come out to be a great human being.
1. Eat healthy foods
One of the difficult jobs for parents is to make their children eat healthy food. Include green vegetables in their diet. Green leafy vegetables are rich in iron, which is required by the body. Include fresh fruits also in their diet. Parents can go for making salads out of the exotics and give it to the children daily to eat. By giving daily, it will become a habit. Parents should even eat the salad along with the kids, and then only children would find it more pleasant and enjoyable.
Avoid giving junk to children. Those delicious pizzas, chips, noodles, etc.; temptation to this junk is very much but explain about the harmful effects the junk food is comprised of and the nutrition healthy food is enriched with.
Parents can make the homemade version of fast food and give them to kids occasionally.
2. Play outdoors
Sports are not everyone’s cup of tea. Some might just hate the physical activities and the energy being lost in them. Try playing different games with the child, every time you go to a park or the playground. A new game every time would be interesting and also the child would get to know about every game you play with it.
After some time, it will surely find its favourite sports and will love playing outdoors. Tell them about various sports, like swimming, gymnastics, archery, etc.
At times your little one will not be able to play good even after putting in a lot of efforts, but still keep encouraging it and make it learn the activity.
Ask them to move out of the house and play in some fresh air. It would be more healthy and useful for the mind and the body than sticking to the television screens.
Physical activities make you feel active and remove all the lethargy from one’s body.
3. Table manners
One of the most required and important habits, which can save oneself from a lot of humiliation, are the table manners. Educate your child about the table manners and treat your little one as an adult while sitting at the dining table. As by doing this, he is going to adapt to these habits much easily.
4. Brush twice a day
Children find brushing their teeth to be the laziest habit but should follow it strictly. This keeps the teeth not even clean but healthy as well and keeps all the teeth problems at bay.
Educate about the benefits of brushing teeth twice a day. Make a strict rule to brush at night especially after having the sweets and stuff like chocolates.
5. Sleep on time
A correct sleep schedule for your child is very important. Sleep helps in retaining all the lost energy during the whole day, thus one should take a proper sleep.
For this, make your little one to sleep early. Do not make the baby wake up till late night. Sleeping early also helps in getting up early the next day, as this will help you when your child starts going to school.
Also, make a habit of sleeping at the same time daily. This will make the child sleep much quickly.
Sleep along the baby the same time. This will not make the child wake up during the mid nights and provide a sound sleep.
6. Clean up all the mess
Kids will always throw up things here and there, making the room look messy and dirty. Don’t worry, this is with all the kids and not only yours.
Try to develop a habit in them of keeping the things in their appropriate place after using them. You may even ask them to clean their room once a week. After teaching them regularly, finally they will learn to organise their things.
7. Be responsible with money
Tell your child about the value of money. How hard parents have to work to earn a single rupee and how easy it is to spend. Parents should inculcate the habit of saving money in their children.
If you are giving pocket money, ask them to bear all their expenses within the given budget. This way, the child is going to learn how to value the money.
Encourage your child to save money and for it, get them a piggy bank.
8. Don’t litter
Tell your child that littering is a bad habit and bad people do it. You should not litter either your house or outside the house.
Always throw your trash into the dustbin and be a civilized citizen.
When parents themselves would not litter around, children will learn this thing and will throw all their trash into the dustbin.
9. Sharing
There is one of the most commonly said proverbs, “sharing is caring”. Teach your little one about this phrase by sharing things with it and asking for it’s too.
Tell the child about the intangibles as well, like feelings, emotions, and stories that these can be shared. A child will be able to share his things with other people only, when he shares it with his family members first.
So, the parents can develop this habit only. Do your every effort to inculcate this habit in your child. This is going to create good for the child, if it understands it in an early age.
10. Make eating colourful
Try giving your little one different kind of foods, foods with different colours and shapes. This will make the eating more interesting and you can add healthy foods as well with this trick.
The child would find this fun. This obviously doesn’t mean that every meal needs to be multicoloured. But, try to make an effort to combine various foods of different colours in the child’s regular diet.
Even, this would increase the knowledge of your child regarding various fruits and vegetables available around it.
11. Don’t skip breakfast
We eat food to have the energy to work throughout the day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It starts our body functioning, metabolism starts to function.
A low-calorie breakfast kick starts the brain. It helps with the weight maintenance, keeping the chronic diseases at bay.
Remember, skipping breakfast increases the likelihood of obesity by four times. The high fiber in the breakfast cereals can help reduce the risk of heart diseases and diabetes.
So, tell these things to your child and ask to never skip his/her breakfast.
12. Don’t be a couch potato
Get your kids out of the house and not let them be a lazy creature. Ask them to go out and play some physical games rather than just sitting on the couch for the whole day and being stick to the television or phone.
A study suggests that the children who watch television for more than an hour or two are at a greater risk of certain health problems, like
- Obesity or being overweight
- Lethargic
- Impaired performance at school
- Irregular sleep
- Behavioral or attitude problems
13. Read everyday
One must have the habit of reading everyday. This helps in developing strong reading skills and much creative and imaginary mind. Reading will help in every way of your life. It improves your communication skills, vocabulary and imagination.
It acts as an essential component in your child’s success in the school, and in the work as well, during the later phase of life.
Studies depicts that daily family reading routines help with the illiteracy rate to decrease in a country.
- Make your child to sit for reading daily.
- Sometimes, you can go for reading yourself the stories with the child sitting beside.
- Do it as the either way, but make it a habit to do it regularly.
14. Drink water and not soft drinks
One should have 8-10 glasses of water in a day. Water can get one rid of many diseases, especially the skin related diseases.
People are addicted to the soft drinks instead of water. The problem lies more with the children. Little ones do not realize the point that soft drinks can harm a person with diseases as they consists of a lot of sugar content in them.
Parents should tell about the harmful effects of the sodas and all the aerated drinks and focus more on drinking water. These drinks are bad for the children and they should not consume it. Though once or twice a week will be fine but not more than that.
Make a habit of drinking more and more of water.
15. Satisfaction with a family meal
With the busy and hectic schedules in today’s life, it makes the personal life much difficult for the people. There is less time to spend with the family, with children and listen to their weird stories and related stuffs.
This had also made the family to have their meals’ separately. Meal is time where all the family sits together and discusses their life with each other from their busy schedules.
Make it a habit of at least having dinner together, with the children sitting along. Listen to their talks and tell yours as well. It’s a worth giving time to the family dinners. This helps in many ways.
- Kids feel comfortable and well adjusted in the family.
- While sitting together, one eats a much better diet as compared to eating alone.
- The bonds get stronger.
- Fewer chances of children eating junk food while sitting with the elders.
Children are likely to develop good eating habits. It adds up to the quality time with the family.
16. Time with friends
Friendship is one of the most important part of one’s life, especially in childhood. Small children are afraid of facing the world. They have to go to the school without parents and there they find the god’s most valuable gift, ‘friends’.
Friendship turns out to be a very important aspect for the healthy development of a child physically as well as mentally. During all the phases, the childhood or adulthood, friends act as the support system. For children, playing with their friends soothes them, while teaching the social skills, like cooperation, coordination and being united. Children, who don’t have good friends, feel alone, escaped from the world around them.
Encourage your kids to have variety but a good bunch of friends, who can motivate and support them during their difficult times and the ones to whom they can look up on for the life ahead. Ask them to spend time with their friends to socialize and to relax themselves.
17. Stay positive and realistic
Children get depressed and discouraged very easily and at very small things. Try to get involved with them, participate in their talks. By this, parents can know what their child thinks and what all is going in their lives. While talking to them, you yourself have to stay calm and positive and then only you can deal with the children positively.
As it is a common saying, “if you will stay positive, everything will turn out to be positive”. Tell them the importance of staying positive and realistic. Children and adults can get benefit from staying positive.
Help the kids in developing a positive mindset and a healthy self-esteem. Always tell what to do and not what not to do. Children don’t like to listen to don’ts.
Do not tell them the things that are not practical at least not for now. In the later phase, this fake things can hurt them. Tell the things that are logical and practical, as what parents teach the children stays in their mindset and they think accordingly.
Praise them for their success, this will boost up their self-esteem.
18. Read the food labels
Make a habit of reading food labels of all the eatables you buy. Check for the date of manufacturing and the expiry, the nutritional facts and any other information required.
Focus on some key points in the nutritional value like, the amount of saturated and the unsaturated fats, calories, grams of sugar. Allergies are to be taken care of. One should be conscious about their health to avoid any of the problems.
This habit will remain for the lifetime as one would always think for their health.
19. Barriers to video games, television, and sedentary activities
The sedentary activities, watching television and playing video games, all should be removed out of child’s life. Rather the physical or the outdoor ones should be included.
The sedentary lifestyle may lead to excessive snacking ultimately leading to obesity in children and might cause the cardiovascular diseases. Some children may find themselves in depression.
Watching television and the video games also lead to eyesight problems.
While on the other hand, the outdoor activities in the fresh air make one active and feel fresh. Encourage your kids to get out of their couch and move out of the house to play some outdoor games. Limit the screen time to 2 hours a day.
20. Do not curse others
Saying bad or the harsh words, might be devastating for the person who is listening. It can be discomforting at times. Saying harsh words depicts the personality of an individual that he is not a good person.
Rude people always lessen their friends because of their behaviour while on the other hand a person with a kind nature that talks politely to everyone is lovable to all. They are welcomed at every place and can attract people easily. Everyone feels pleased to meet them.
Always ask your child to be polite with everyone and never say rude things.
21. Be Courteous
One of the most admired habits in a person is that it respects everyone. When you respect others, others look up to.
We should respect our elders as well as the youngers. Always do the best to treat others with respect.
Whether you like someone or not, there is always a decent way to treat them. Have the decency to be cordial enough or be quiet at least. But, being disrespectful will only serve bad.
22. Treat everyone equally
Whether it’s the poor or the rich, friend or enemy, we should treat everyone equally. Educate your kids to be non-discriminated while dealing with everyone.
There should not be any distinction on any grounds. This feature of kids will come up while they are in the school, choosing their friends. A child should always be unbiased.
If this bad habit pertains, this can create problems for the child in the future, as it will also be treated the same way it will treat people.
23. Always be honest
One should be honest at all the times. Parents can introduce this quality habit, only in the childhood. As what the child will learn in the childhood, pertain to it.
One should always teach their child to speak truth in the most difficult situations also. Always remember that parents are the role models to the children, so your actions have a great impact on them. You have to decide that the impact should be positive or negative.
24. Patience and Perseverance
Patience, the most adored quality in a person. A person, who is patient, can deal with every adverse situation.
Teach the child to be calm and relax and never be impatient. Always wait for the correct time to come for all the things. There is a well known proverb, “sweet are the fruits of adversity”. Tell the child about this common proverb and ask it to be patient every time.
25. Pay gratitude
It’s the sun, water, wind, plants and whole of the nature that supports one’s living in this world. Without nature, a living being cannot survive.
The farmers that cultivate crops for us to fill our appetite, the plants that provide the oxygen to breathe in and all the people who help us in doing several important things in our daily life.
Educate your little ones to pay gratitude to all these people and be obliged to them for whatever they do for you.
26. Accept defeat
Life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes, a person wins, the other times defeats are also there while giving others the chance to win. Explain your little one about this wonderful life and its various characteristics.
There is nothing to get upset or sad about, but accept the failures with the confidence that you can do it with much effort the next time. And, you are surely going to defeat your competitors in the upcoming event.
27. Work hard
Hard work is the key to success for everything in the life. Explain the hard work that you do to earn your living and your child will also have to do it in this time.
Be it the studies, or the job, a person has to put in all its efforts to prosper. No good fortune will come without the hard work, and hard work always pays off.
28. Do not tease or bully anyone
Children should not be allowed to tease anyone, though the other person may be younger or older than them. Immediately restrict them when they say anything bad to anyone.
Teasing between friends would be okay if it’s with their consent. But teasing to a person unnecessary and without its consent is not good at all.
Always teach your kids not to tease anyone.
29. Do not harm animals or birds
Though animals and birds cannot speak but they are living beings too. The do not do anything and this doesn’t mean that anyone can hurt them.
Never hit or harm the innocent birds or animals. These faultless animals don’t say anything to anyone.
One must be kind and friendly towards them. Teach the kids to be harmless towards them.
30. Wait in queue for your turn
One should always wait for their turn to come while in queue. Educate the children not to push anyone or break the queue.
As everyone is waiting, you also have to wait for the same time. There is no point in pushing while disturbing everyone, and getting your work done early.
Always allow the elderly or the people with very urgent work to move first.
31. Please, thank you and sorry
One of the most important and the basic rule is to say please, sorry and thank you whenever required. This golden habit makes one respectable in the society.
Please and thank you are referred to as the ‘magic words’. Both are the polite ways to show that you appreciate one’s feelings and actions.
Thank you is the expression to say that you are grateful to someone who has done something for you. Sorry is said when someone has done something wrong and is guilty for it.
The three golden words can handle even the worst situation without any hassles.
32. Hygiene; wash hands before and after meal
To be safe from many of the diseases, the first and foremost step is to be hygienic. For this you need to wash your hands before and after having the meal, been indulged with sand or getting in contact with something unhygienic.
Hand washing is on the top in the list of healthy habits that children must inculcate in themselves.
Just washing the hands properly can prevent many diseases like cold, flu and other infections that can be caught to the children easily.
Doing it often would not help, but doing it correct can change the situation fully.
33. Go to bed early and wake up early
To have a fresh and active lifestyle, add going to bed early and waking up early in your list.
This is a healthy habit. Waking up for late at night is not good for the body. Even the body needs some rest. Give yourself a proper and sound sleep.
Sleeping for long is also not good. Eyes gets tired, so wake up early as well. Though one can go for a nap in the afternoon.
34. Value Time
It is said that a person who is before time is on time and a person who is on time is late. One should always be punctual as time does not wait for anyone.
This habit is introduced when your little one starts going to school. As, in schools, children are punished if they are late and a child would never want to be punished in front of its mates being laughing on it.
Your little one will get this habit right on his own during his lifetime, but parents should also keep on telling the advantages of being on time.
35. Exercise regularly
Exercising regularly makes a person fit and active. Children are much flexible than adults and thus can exercise more.
Try waking the kids early and have some exercise or the yoga session at home. Kids will definitely be enthusiastic for it. It will add up to a healthy lifestyle.
36. Do not criticize anyone
Do not say anything bad to anyone that would hurt him or her. Criticizing is a bad habit and one should never pass negative comments for anyone.
Using bad or abusive language should not be tolerated.
Parents should not use any kind of harsh words in front of the children.
37. Helping others
Always teach the children to offer a helping hand to everyone. At times, anyone would need some help, so help others and get help from others as well when in need.
May it be your friend or the stranger, help all. But, be cautious while with the strangers.
At the end
Always remember that parents are the role models to children. Also, it is really difficult to be a positive and fine parent when you have had an exhausting day. Children try to imitate their parents as much as they can. Their many actions are based on their parents’ behaviour. Parents play the major role in developing the good as well as the bad habits in children.
So, act wisely with the children around. Tell them the difference between the good and bad habits and teach them the good ones to inculcate in themselves.
Article originally published here.
