Back when I was a single mom, having healthy, disease-free kids was on top of my prayer list.I believed that anybody sick in the family would bring me grief. Talk about the trouble of having sleepless nights, being absent from work and school, not to mention the high price of medicine these days.
Thankfully, my kids have grown up to be healthy, with no hospitalization or prolonged illness on record. Blame it on luck, good genes and other things. But I really attribute it to being proactive, rather than being reactive, to matters of health and wellness. Being healthy is something you never really leave to chance. It’s something we have to practice everyday through such things as diet and lifestyle choices. It’s always been my dictum that good health is the supreme key to happiness.
Here are some pieces of advice I can give to fellow moms, and especially new moms who are rearing their children into their first years:
1. Complete your child’s immunization cycle. Believe doctors when they say that vaccination prevents childhood mortality and the onslaught of common childhood diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib). Keeping our child immunized means that he or she will be better equipped at keeping germs and infectious diseases at bay.
2. A healthy diet is important. I found this hard at first since my son is a picky eater who dotes on hotdogs, instant noodles and anything ‘processed.’ My twins are the exact opposite since they eat pretty much what’s on the table and so, we never miss out on serving vegetables and high-fiber food like oatmeal. One trick is incorporating vegetables like squash, carrots and cabbages in usual kiddie meals like spaghetti, meatballs and cupcakes. We can also make food more appealing by planning the kids’ baon and preparing these in colorful bento boxes.
3. Making the home environment healthy. Parents must practice what they preach. You can’t really expect kids to follow a healthy lifestyle if they see you regularly smoking in the living room or loading lots of beer on the refrigerator. Curiosity will get the better of them in the end. It is also important to keep the house always clean and regularly ridding it of airborne irritants which can lead to allergies and such.
4. A healthy balance between school and play makes Jill a bright girl. Although my kids go to traditional schools, I do adhere to non-conventional ways of educating them. I let my children learn at their own pace. I never impose on them to just hit the books because there are certainly other ways of learning, such as those which can be gleaned from travelling and interacting with different kinds of people. I also let them be comfortable with the use of the computer because there are lots of educational software (and even Wii games) that’s out in the market which they can learn from.
5.Being healthy is a continuing learning process. As parents, it always pays to read up on the subject, attend health and parenting seminars, join forums and refer to helpful websites like the newly-launched immunityfoundation.com With advances in the World Wide Web, learning about immunity and being disease-free is just a click away!
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