Supporting healthier children
By changing parents’ responses to illness, we can support healthier children. My daughter had three prongs of strep throat in first grade. In second grade, she was starting her second round of strep throat when we sat quietly in the doctor’s office and held hands. My daughter looked at me with tears streaming down her long lashes and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sick, Mommy. I promise I’ll get better.”
His words hit me hard in the stomach. I wonder how she thought her illness was an inconvenience to me, another problem in my day. His words made me review what she had said, as well as my non-verbal language and my actions to be healthier. How was my upbringing a message to feel guilty about being sick?
Reduce parenting stresses
Evidence of my stressed-out upbringing was easy to find: the frown over missing another day of work; the rush to find a babysitter; the trip to the pharmacy. My daughter was soaked in these tensions and words. Certainly my concern about parenting made her feel worse and led me to understand how I could help my daughter be healthier.
It could reverse her unnecessary guilt while helping her reduce the likelihood of being further stressed.
All of us could do these simple things in our upbringing to help our healthier kids stay that way. These small actions have big results in reducing children’s stress.
1. Smile – I realized that when I approached my daughter when she was sick, I looked worried or worried. This did a lot to make her worried. Simply by smiling at her, I eased her tension and created a healthier attitude instead of a sicker one.
2. Use positive phrases – You know how your sick son feels. Instead of repeatedly asking the obvious, he tries to say “You look good” or “You’re doing better.”
Ask “What’s up?” forces a child to think about it. Ask “What is good?” or “What is the right thing to do?” or “What feels better?” or “What has improved?” encourage positive thoughts about feeling healthy.
3. Touch and hug – Yes, we are all busy and yes, it is easy to park a sick child in front of the TV. But that does nothing to lessen the child’s awareness of the burden he or she places on you when he or she is sick. Children feel safer when we can touch them, hold them and hold them when their world seems sad. Studies show that touching and bonding strengthens the immune system, literally. Sit down and hold your sick child during some of that TV time. Put him on your lap and read a story together.
4. Do quiet time activities together – Doing quiet activities together helps both you and your child feel better. When my daughter was sick, we would draw pictures, color patterns, play cards, and watch the birds at the feeder through her window. These joint activities, more than his illnesses, are times that he still remembers when we talk about childhood memories.
5. Visualize healthier children – Another quiet activity we enjoyed was closing our eyes and pretending our eyes had X-ray vision like Superman. My daughter would scan her body with her x-ray vision and she would tell me which parts felt best, what her tummy would like to eat and how she was improving. It may sound like a silly activity, but recent studies have shown that for patients with serious illnesses, including cancer and immune system disorders, highly similar healing images have a positive effect. Thinking about being healthy can actually help make our bodies healthier, and that’s exactly what we want for our healthier kids.
6. Listen – Stress weakens the immune system, and yet the things that cause stress in our children’s lives often go unnoticed until they erupt into stomach aches, headaches, an accident, and more. Simply by asking, “What’s going on at school?” or “How are your friends?” or “What seems difficult in your life right now?” can make a difference. As parents, we don’t have to fix it or make it better. Often listening is enough!
Exposure to viruses and bacteria that can lead to common childhood illnesses cannot be avoided. But we can protect ourselves against them. Giving our children a healthy diet and making sure they get enough rest are some ways to do this. Just as important is providing a loving environment and minimizing stress. And if illness does come, letting your child understand that her first wish is for her good health, and not simply ending the inconvenience of having a sick child, can help make the recovery process easier and faster. .
