Encouraging Kids to Make Healthy Choices

Christian parents want their children to be faithful, kind, and helpful individuals. Use these tips from Camp Sonshine to learn how you can empower your kids to grow up making healthy choices that bring them closer to God.

 

Create a Healthy, Christ-Centered Home

Multiple adults and children living under the same roof often means a lot of activity. While a lively household is by no means a bad thing, it’s essential to balance busyness with peaceful moments.

Designate an area of your home for mindfulness. Use light sources that emit a soft, warm glow. Add a speaker to pipe relaxing or inspirational music. Let this be a space to gather together for family prayer or for your children to seek quiet or alone time.

Invite all family members to participate in household tasks. Sharing responsibilities serves several useful purposes. The burden of caring for the home does not rest entirely on one person. Everyone, including little ones, is considered an equally valuable contributor. Children learn necessary life skills. With many helping hands, your home can stay clean and clutter-free, leading to healthy and harmonious living.

 

Teach Them to Lead as Jesus Did

As children enter adolescence and face mounting peer pressure, the ability to lead rather than follow will be more important than ever. What better example of leadership than Jesus Christ? Jesus led and inspired others to lead by the way he lived and the way he loved. Use Him as a guide to instill leadership qualities in your children.

First and foremost, love your children unconditionally. Let them know they matter simply because they exist. Remind them they are enough because God made them in His image. Having a strong sense of intrinsic worth will carry them through challenging times when external forces cast feelings of temptation or self-doubt. It will enable your children to become who God intended them to be.

Allow your children to experience failure. Freedom to make mistakes is a cornerstone of healthy risk-taking. Through failure, children learn the perseverance, resilience, and determination needed to be a leader.

Model leadership skills that prompt children to make healthy choices:

• Demonstrate active listening
• Follow through on promises
• Treat everyone with respect and dignity
• Own up to mistakes
• Seek and grant forgiveness
• Lose and win gracefully
• Act with integrity

Encouraging your child to get involved in charitable work is a wonderful way to teach them about empathy, generosity, and social responsibility. One creative way for your child to support their chosen cause is by writing a newsletter to share with others. This allows them to learn more about the issue they care about and inspire others to get involved as well. To make the process even more fun, you can suggest using web tools for designing the newsletter that are both easy-to-use and free of charge. This site could be helpful for allowing your child’s creativity to shine through while also providing valuable information about their chosen charity or nonprofit organization.

 

Encourage Nutritious Eating

God gave us one body which we are to treat with the utmost care. Guide your children to develop wholesome eating habits by preparing nutritious meals together, offering healthy snack options, and allowing them to follow hunger cues rather than arbitrary eating rules.

Eat meals together regularly. Research shows that family meal times filled with warmth and positive interactions contribute to healthier eating patterns, better emotional health, and reduced high-risk behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and teen pregnancy.

 

Keep the Faith

Children’s decision-making skills can be positively influenced by their faith. Beliefs and practices that contribute to a solid moral foundation help children develop healthy coping mechanisms for stressful situations. They also enjoy higher self-esteem, increased mental health, and greater contentment with life.

Helping your kids make healthy choices is a monumental task but not one you have to do alone. Ask God to give you the wisdom and patience to steer your children in the right direction and be all that God calls them to be.

 

If you’re searching for a Christian summer or day camp in Maryland for your children, check out the activities available at Camp Sonshine today!