Self-care for your entire family is vitally important. And as the leader or happy co-partner of a loving family, you want the best for those around you.
This means we need to focus on how to move forward and take a family-wide approach to self-care, so we not only care for ourselves as adults, but ensure our children develop in the best possible way and learn amazing lessons for life.
In this post, we hope to help you achieve exactly that. It may take a little time to achieve, but in the long run, the approach will be so worth it. What’s best to focus on are not immediate actions that make the most difference, but habits you can sustainably keep for some time to come.
But where might that even approach itself? In this post, we’ll discuss all of that and more, and hopefully, help you feel as though the care of your family’s health is easier to approximate.
Without further ado, let’s begin:
Regular Health Trips
It’s good to make sure your family becomes comfortable with visiting their doctor, dentist, and any other specialists. If you make a big deal of it, or react to your child’s hesitancy with validation, then it can be hard for them to view these specialists as the friendly helpers they are. Thankfully, if you attend a wonderful institution such as Wayne Health, you shouldn’t have that problem to begin with, which should be some comfort.
Putting together those worthwhile habits now will certainly prevent issues in advance, and your children are more likely to keep them in place (like visiting a dentist every six months for a checkup) when they leave your home. Regular health trips matter, as not only can they ensure the long-term well-being of your family, but may even catch potential health problems well in advance.
Get In A Great Routine
Routines make self-care much easier, and that goes for a family-wide approach to self-care. For instance, as children you may have ensured your children brush their teeth straight after their morning shower, and then right before they head to bed. Keep that up with worthwhile discipline for years and years, and then when they grow into adulthood they’re sure to keep up the habit.
This can also go for keeping a tidy bedroom environment, cleaning up after themselves, and of course essential measures that help them grow well, like checking for cancerous lumps on their chest or genitals as a matter of regular habit – the sooner you can catch something like this, the better. A great routine is a worthwhile use of your time, even if that means showing them how easy it is to cook your own nutritious meal rather than relying on unhealthy fast food too often. You can bet they’ll take these habits with them when they fly the next – so integrate appropriate ones now for the best results.
Mutual Accountability & Care
Accountability is an important approach towards families learning how to care for themselves. It might be that as children, you implement a reward gold-star board, where if they clean their bedrooms, wash themselves properly, and go to sleep at the right time, they can gain another gold star which leads to a reward.
Before long they begin to associate this good behavior with something worth keeping on top of, even if the rewards decrease in their quality over time. This can be a good way of helping an unruly child slowly start conforming to good practice, which is something any parent has to deal with. On top of this, mutual accountability can grow from simple necessities – like making certain no teenager takes their meals to their room, but rather eats with you at the dinner table at the same time each night.
A Free-Talking Environment
Following on from that last point, often the best way to encourage a sense of mutual care and consideration in your home environment is to allow people to speak freely, within reason. If your child has to come to you about a problem that’s been affecting them, like mistreatment at work, then ensuring they feel happy to do so is a sign of wonderful parenting.
A free-talking environment like this can also ensure a long-term sense of well-being, because honesty, no matter how hard it is, can also prevent secrets and smaller problems from growing without you noticing. When it comes to family-care and self-care, there could be nothing better than this.
With this advice, you’re sure to take that family-wide approach to self-care in the best possible sense.