As we all know, children mimic our behaviors. Remember your momma saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” However, that’s not exactly how it works.
Children do what they see us do. If we do not take good care of ourselves, our children will also pick up on these negative behaviors toward themselves.
If you are in a toxic relationship and your children see you put up with the abuse day in and day out, they, too, will grow up to accept abuse as normal and equate it with love.
So, what better time to try to set our children up for greater success in life than now? This year, 2024, is going to be a magical year of transformation for many, many of us, so it’s important that we learn to set good examples for our children, too.
They will be part of the rebuilding process in the years to come.
So, if you don’t have a good self-care practice in place, then it’s time to start!
But if you do have a good self-care practice in place and you want to learn some cool tips to teach your children, then this article is for you.
Let’s dive into some self-care for kids, why it’s important, and some great little activities that you can get them started doing today.
Why Should You Teach Self-Care to Your Kids?
It’s important that you set an example for your children. If anything happens in their little worlds, they look to you for tools on how to deal with life’s stressors that come their way. So, set up a self-care practice that they want to model after.
Make sure that you are fixing healthy foods for you and your family. Cut back on soda, and if you are drinking alcohol, you should stop, especially in front of them. Do you want them growing up and reaching for alcohol in times of stress? Or would you rather they reach for a healthy diet to heal their issues instead?
One of these days, you want your child to be able to stand up on their own, and when you enrich their lives with self-care as a child, they will grow up with a strong foundation for later on in life. Your child will grow up to become independent and self-reliant, and who knows, maybe even entrepreneurs?
Children who are taught self-care learn how to recognize emotions and feelings as they come up instead of letting them take over. So, if you have a child who is quick to anger, self-care is a must!
Self-care will help reduce their stress, teach them to regulate their emotions better and help them create a powerful mind-body-soul connection that they can use for the rest of their lives.
Let’s jump into some of the best self-care for kids activities that you can employ now!
Self-Care for Kids: Practical Tips
Encourage Creativity and Right Brain Skills
Self-care for kid’s tip number one: Encourage creativity. Creativity and right brain skills are the perfect self-care activities. We feel Zen when we use our creativity and are one with the planet, so why not let the kiddos learn to do this for themselves as well?
Even if you aren’t exactly creative yourself, just go on Pinterest and look up fun crafts with kids; there are plenty of creative moms on there and even on a budget.
We do lots of creative stuff in my homeschool. Get out some old board games and let them play together. Board games use the right brain and some logic from the left side, too, here and there, but they get to be creative with most of them.
Guess where critical thinking skills come from? Right brain.
We want our children to grow up and think for themselves right. We don’t want them to blindly believe everything that they are told. So, by teaching them to use creativity and the right brain skills, you are teaching them how to practice self-care in a fun way that will make everlasting changes and impacts on their future.
Some fun ways to do this include:
- Crafting
- Painting
- Sculpting
- Sewing or Knitting
- Coloring
- Learning to play an instrument
- Singing karaoke
- Dancing
- Making Mandalas
- Practicing spatial designs with toothpicks and marshmallows (yum)
- Art journals
- Teaching them how to identify tones on a keyboard or even drums
- Reading
- Finger painting
- Creative writing
- Breathing exercises
You can also look up fun, creative activities online; mommy blogs or teaching websites have all kinds of great ideas.
Nutrition
The most important self-care for kids is proper nutrition. What you are feeding your child plays a huge role in their mental health and stress development.
Processed foods, foods high in refined sugar, and foods that cause acidity in the body decrease mental health and well-being. Instead, you need to give your children a diet full of raw foods, filled with life-force energy, and foods that can help increase their mental state.
For example, you must ensure your child gets enough magnesium, iron, potassium, silicon, manganese, calcium, and phosphorus. Too much of any of these essential nutrients can lead to mental health issues, too, so it’s best to try to keep everything balanced.
The issue is that every child is chemically composed of different organic materials, so what works for one child will not work for another. You have to feed your children raw, healthy fruits and vegetables and then see how they act and feel after.
If you see that something seems to make them drowsy after they eat it, then maybe cut that food out and try something else.
See, both of my children get good energy from eating broccoli, even if it is cooked. So, I know that broccoli is good for them. But one of my kids always seems to get tired after they eat certain fruit, so we don’t give them that fruit anymore.
But, if they eat anything processed, like if it is a VERY SPECIAL OCCASION, they both get tired, cranky, and usually go straight to the bathroom as their healthy bodies are trying to force the unhealthy fake food out as fast as they can.
If you haven’t seen the video where the lady was studying the plastic, I mean, microwaveable noodles, and watch how long it takes her body to, um, break it down, you might rethink those easy, convenient “foods.”
Oh, this is a good time to mention that I am educating, not “doctor-ing.” So, if your child has any food issues that you want to speak to a naturopath or other medical professional about, then that is going to be your best bet for medical advice. I don’t offer medical advice, nor do I claim to be a part of that industry at all. I’m simply passing along important information that I’ve read, experienced, and know to be true for me and my family.
They knew well over a hundred years ago how important diet was for health and that organic foods, as they were found in nature and as God made them, were the healthiest to consume and offered the best nutritional value.
I cannot stress the importance of real food for the development of a child’s body, mental health, and well-being. Just research it for yourself.
You don’t have to avoid candy and cakes altogether, but you know, there should be a limit on the excitotoxins that cause ADHD-like behaviors.
Check out this article by Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing founder, who explores six of the most dangerous excitotoxins to be on the lookout for in your child’s foods.
Yoga and Qigong or Other Exercise Movements
Yoga and Qigong, or any other type of movement exercise, are great self-care tools for kids. Not to mention, yoga can increase flexibility, balance, and coordination, help develop concentration and focus skills, boost self-esteem and confidence, and increase the mind-body-soul connection. So, let’s say that you are not a yoga expert. That’s okay. I wasn’t at first before I took the classes, but you can find plenty of kids’ fun yoga exercises on YouTube.
I like Cosmic Kid’s Yoga. She even offers some mindfulness videos that I think are great, and both my kids love doing Cosmic Kid’s Yoga as they are fun for girls and boys.
Yoga is a lifestyle, too. So, if you get your child into practicing yoga or Qigong on a regular basis, they will notice that they feel better. When they miss a day, they will feel that, too, so it helps to teach them routine and structure in a positive way. If you homeschool, yoga is a great gym class, too.
Connecting to Nature
I can’t stress connecting to nature enough. Going outside barefoot will do wonders for a child. If you have a kid getting overly excited, get them outside to run on the grass barefoot for five minutes. They will come back happy and healthy and not even remember what they were so upset about five minutes prior.
If you are fortunate enough to live by a creek, get them in the creek. While this is great fun in the summer, as we have a couple of different creeks that my kids can explore, it is more challenging to do in the colder months.
So, during the colder months, let them go outside and play in the snow when it snows. If there’s no snow and it’s too cold for water, you can take them through the woods to explore and look for mushrooms. See which ones they can name and what trees or plants they can name in the woods, too. This teaches them to connect to Mother Earth and Her loving energy, and it also teaches them to become mindful and relaxed.
If you don’t have woods, then go to a park and let the kids hug a tree. Hugging a tree reduces stress; the tree seems to absorb and transmute the negative energy away. Kids love hugging trees, so you’ll want to have fun with them, even take pictures of them, and make memories while hugging the trees.
We need to remember that our ancestors knew how to connect to nature and live in harmony with nature.
This is the future I dream of for our planet: getting back in harmony with nature instead of living in boxes, watching boxes, and carrying around tracking boxes.
Cuddling a Stuffed Animal (Stuffy)
A great self-care activity for kids is to cuddle up with a stuffed animal. Cuddling a toy teaches a child how to self-soothe. No matter how old they are, if they can still hug their favorite stuffed animals, they can release stress and calm down on their own.
Heck, even teenagers can benefit from hugging something soft like a special throw pillow or an older childhood toy.
Meditation
Meditation is a perfect self-care activity for kids. Now, teaching kids to meditate is easier than it sounds.
You just need to teach them to sit, be still, and quiet their minds for 5 minutes at a time to start out. Once they get the hang of it, they can move on to ten or fifteen minutes, but it doesn’t have to be very long for them to reap the benefits of this self-care for kids’ activity.
Every kid is going to respond differently to meditation. Some kids may not like the sit-still-be-quiet type of meditation, so for this kid, you will want to try movement meditation, like yoga, or walks in nature.
If you have a child who enjoys coloring, let them color for meditation. Any way that they can calm their brain down a bit will work. You just have to get creative with some kids.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a great self-care technique that you can teach kids. You can find videos on YouTube of short, 4- or 5-minute mindfulness practices that they can watch and learn to do on their own.
A study showed that mindfulness was a successful intervention for anxiety symptoms in children.
This, to me, is obvious, as mindfulness and meditation work wonders for me as an adult regarding anxiety. I used to be riddled with anxiety until I started my self-care practice and learned to incorporate yoga, meditation, breathing, and mindfulness.
Now, I teach these valuable tools to my children, too, and they are doing wonders, especially for my oldest.
Music works for mindfulness practice, too. I would suggest classical music like Beethoven, Mozart, or even Wagner.
Most children understand the vibrations of music almost better than some adults. Let them listen to music and try to pick out each instrument in the orchestra, or let them pretend they are the one playing the violin or an air guitar while listening to the Trans-Siberia orchestra?
My daughter loves to pretend to be the conductor for those, and my little one plays the drums! What a fun way for everyone to use their imagination and relax for five to ten minutes!
A life Coach Can Guide You on Your Own Self-Care Journey
Teaching self-care for kids is so essential for their little self that they will have such a great foundation to build their lives upon when they grow up. When kids fix their own problems, they feel a sense of empowerment.
So, once you teach children how to regulate their emotions and other self-care for kids’ benefit, you will get to see how independent they can begin to feel. They might even go to the bathroom by themselves at night! Haha, one can dream, right?
Anyway, if you are struggling with self-care, you should get a coach specializing in self-care. I can help you develop a self-care routine that will ensure that you reduce your stress and become the role model that your children can copy!
We can get your diet under control and work on your spiritual side, too, to ensure the whole mind-body-soul connection is going strong. Reach out for a free discovery call today!