Parenting is not always the easiest thing to do in the world. It can be hard juggling daily responsibilities with disciplining your children. Add a pandemic nobody had ever foreseen into the mix, and it becomes ten times harder.
Many parents have suddenly found themselves becoming teachers as their kids are forced to stay at home and continue their education through online classes. Suddenly, the home is also now the school, the office, the gym, the playground, among other things, as they learn to oversee their children’s schooling and activities while working from home and performing all the other necessities of daily family life at the same time.
Constantly dealing with such demands every day can bring about a lot of stress on the part of the parents. At the same time, the children too might get stressed out from having to stay indoors all the time and from not being able to interact and play with their friends. Such stress might induce them to misbehave or regress to negative behaviors that they’re supposed to have long outgrown.
It’s certainly not an understatement to say that taking care of your children and supporting their health and wellbeing during these unprecedented times is more challenging than ever before. But what if we told you that there are ways you can make the situation better? Try the following tips to keep your kids healthy and happy during these trying times.
Managing Your Kids’ Snacking Habits
When you’re at home all day, every day, it can be all too easy to reach for the cookie jar. But frequent snacking can interfere with your children’s nutrition goals and mess up their eating patterns as well.
- Schedule their meals and snack times. Because kids are normally active creatures, you’d want to let them eat every three to four hours, scheduling their snack times in between actual meals.
- While it’s important that you let them eat healthy meals, it’s a good idea to let them have their treats every once in a while. Giving them Appleton sweets sometimes is okay and will teach them healthy eating behaviors and the idea that it’s fine to give in to indulgences sometimes, provided that it’s done in moderation.
Helping Your Kids Stay Active
As they are indoors most of the time, your kids might not get many opportunities to be active anymore. They might be tempted to just watch TV or play video games all the time. Thus, it can be a challenge to get your kids to engage in regular physical activity.
- Limit their screen time. This includes their time in front of the TV or the computer. Introduce them to hobbies that allow them to have fun without screens. Teach them some arts and crafts, read their favorite books with them, play classic board games with them, and even let them play outside in your backyard.
- Organise fun indoor activities for them such as birthday parties and Disney movie nights. During such occasions, let them indulge in their favorite sweet treats. It might also be a good idea to listen to their suggestions as to what they can do in terms of activities.
Finding That Happy Balance
Parenting in a time of lockdown is all about finding a happy medium—that balance between disciplining your kids and allowing them to have fun. As long as you allow them a moderation of both, they’ll be fine and you’ll be relatively stress-free.