The 20 best habits for your child

| Habits and routines are necessary for proper child development. Here we present a selection of good habits and routines for your child to grow up healthy at all levels.

It is important to maintain routines in our day to day, but above all to be able to apply them to children. We detail the 20 best habits for your child.

Top 20 habits

Pediatric Specialist

• Mediterranean diet: eating fish, using olive oil in the kitchen and filling our table with products from the garden, are nutritional values ​​that educate the palate and cultivate health as a family.
• No to sedentary lifestyle: doing physical exercise and outdoor activities as a family, as well as avoiding spending the weekends watching television or playing the console, improve health and prevent long-term illnesses. If the children move and practice some weekly, we are establishing one of the basic pillars of the health of their future adult life.
• Brush your teeth: as soon as they are born, we can clean them with the appropriate brushes according to each age. When they are older they can do it alone and use a special toothpaste from the age of two or when they are able to spit. It is one of the best essential habits to avoid cavities and maintain a healthy mouth.
• Wash hands before eating: hands are one of the most important transmission routes of diseases, so children should be taught, from an early age, to wash them before eating and whenever we return from the street, school or park.
• Read every day: it is necessary to promote the habit of reading daily and from babies. The first picture stories strengthen the father / mother-child bond and stimulate their language. Getting them used to the bedtime story enhances the child's taste for reading and, when they are able to read on their own, a little bit each day favors their academic performance and personal enrichment.
• Limit screens: television, console, PC ... should not be used for more than half an hour or an hour a day. The child must read, play, paint, go out to the park or practice some sport. It is not good for your correct intellectual and physical development to spend hours and hours in front of a screen.
• Play: children will never be children again. Their most enriching activity is the and should not be deprived of it. Through play they learn, experiment and interact with other children or with the adult. We cannot impose a strict “agenda” on a child, since he needs free time to let his imagination run wild.
• Full breakfast: it should be the most important meal of the day or, at least, the most important. A should be made up of dairy products (milk, yogurt or fresh or slightly cured cheese), cereals (in flakes, bread, cookies ... avoiding industrial pastries), fruit or natural juice, and a fat (the best, olive oil or , failing that, a little butter). It is essential in order to obtain the necessary energy to face the activities of the day, both physical and mental
• To sleep early and the necessary hours: children should go to sleep according to their age and have to sleep the necessary hours to wake up fresh, happy and rested. They cannot make adult schedules and they should be established as soon as possible, adapting to the idiosyncrasies of each child, of course.
• Be orderly and careful with things: values ​​are important in adult life and in childhood, they can be cultivated. Valuing what they have, taking care of it and being organized at home, will allow them to enjoy things more and give every little detail the value it deserves.
• Respect for others: we live in society and we have to teach the child to be sociable and adapted to the society in which he lives: school, city, country ... For this, it is essential that he respect himself and others, valuing to other people for what they are and giving them tools to cultivate a good coexistence in society.
• Respect for the environment: we must teach our children to be sustainable, to recycle, not to consume what we do not need and to respect forests and animals. The future of our planet will depend on these good habits being perpetuated for years.
• The use of the handkerchief and covering the mouth when coughing: not only is part of the good manners but it is also possible to avoid one of the easiest ways to spread infectious diseases of the respiratory tract
• Express what you feel, manage emotions and work on tolerance to frustration: from a very young age we can work with our children on emotional intelligence. Knowing how to say things to others without hurting them, being aware of what you feel and of our limits, knowing that we can make mistakes, naming emotional states and knowing how to manage stress are essential to know how to weather emotions on a day-to-day basis.
• Encourage a sense of humor: providing a good atmosphere at home, the ability to laugh at yourself and take away things that do not have it, is a small measure to be a little happier despite setbacks.
• Drink water: from a very young age, the daily drink has to be water. Juices, soft drinks and smoothies should be for occasional consumption. Excessive consumption of sweet drinks is related to cavities and being overweight in children.
• Road safety: pedestrian and driving behaviors save lives. We must always comply with the safety regulations when the child is inside the vehicle (seat belt, appropriate seat) as well as when he is a pedestrian (crossing in green and at the crosswalk). It is an investment in the future.
• Eat when it's time to eat: we should have breakfast, eat something in the middle of the morning, have lunch, have a snack, and have dinner. With this routine we must avoid snacking between meals, which is satiating, and makes the child arrive without appetite at the time it is time to eat and we avoid bad habits in which they favor obesity.
• The bathroom: maintaining good daily hygiene favors a correct state of health. In addition, when they are young, the bath routine favors their relaxation and rest at night.
  • Necessary routines: help them to position themselves and give them security.
  • Good foods: accustom them to enjoying the Mediterranean diet (fruits, vegetables, cereals, olive oil, fish ...).
  • Exercise, games, reading and good humor, among other things, should be part of the education of all ages.