They say that children learn through mirrors, looking at what they do and how their relatives behave, so setting an example is the best way to teach positive habits for life.
We are the adults closest to the boys and girls, whether we are their parents or grandparents or uncles, their greatest references. Experts often emphasize that the most effective learning in childhood occurs through “mirror” : looking at how older people behave. Therefore, there is no more effective way to teach positive habits to our sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, than by setting an example.
You may think that setting an example is a great responsibility, which can become exhausting at any given moment due to the “tension” of not wanting to fail in front of the little ones or give bad examples. Remember that no one is perfect, so it is best not to obsess over it, which is not the same as throwing in the towel.
Teaching habits for life is easier from a balanced position, naturally, taking advantage of everyday situations that life puts before us.
Seven positive habits for life
Below, we share some of those habits that we can instill in our sons and daughters from a young age. Habits that will serve you, positively, for your entire life:
- Respect and empathy: for yourself first, of course, but above all for others. The self-care that is rightly talked about so much today is necessary, but it is also advisable to water the flowerpot of care and respect for others.
- Eating habits: if your son or daughter includes a piece of fruit in their snack and breakfast as a boy or girl, they will have a lot of gains for life in terms of nutrition. Grandparents will tell you that you had milk and cookies for breakfast and that nothing happened to you, but scientific evidence has shown us the tremendous impact of eating habits on health. And the same thing happens with the consumption of vegetables, natural yogurt instead of flavored yogurt, eating with water and not soft drinks, and so many other small habits that you can instill in them.
- Physical activity: it is a pillar along with diet and rest for a healthy life, so it is a habit that we can teach them from a very young age. And not only with extracurricular activities ; It is enough to take family walks, ride a bike together or spend many hours in the park. Not everything has to be through extracurricular activities. What's more, it is recommended that it not be until approximately five or six years of age.
- Reading: there is little to say about this wonderful habit that is a door to knowledge and curiosity, essential in training as the reflective human beings that we are. The sooner we transmit our passion for reading to them, the more options there will be for them to develop it as well.
- Responsibility: this is a habit that is linked to the promotion of personal autonomy. If we give them options to express themselves and decide, always in contexts and things appropriate for their age, we will be enhancing their sense of responsibility as well. For example, they should choose their shoes or clothes on a given day and assume the consequences of that choice. Or that they participate in household chores little by little as they grow. There are thousands of examples to encourage this habit.
- Personal hygiene:personal cleanliness and hygiene is not a decisive habit in happiness, but it is in health, and it is also another way to promote autonomy and a sense of responsibility. The simple fact that they have it in their head that brushing their teeth is good for the health of their mouth is already a habit with potential impact throughout their entire lives.
- Set limits: we could make it the last habit for life that we teach them to enjoy themselves, to not let those trains pass that they want to catch, but this also has to do with something even more important in our opinion, setting limits . They have to know how to assert themselves and have to be able to set limits against abuse in a respectful but clear way, with assertiveness , and this is a habit that we can teach them from a young age.
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