Life Skills: 5 Lessons in Teaching Children Respect of Their Body and Mind

We must use the word RESPECT when we are teaching our children anything that is important for them to learn to do on a regular basis.  Respect for their body and mind can start at a very early age as we begin to teach them their own life.  We show respect for our bodies first and foremost by what we put into it.

Lesson #1: We show respect for our body by knowing about the nourishment we put in our bodies.  What kind of food are we delivering to our body?  Should it not be fruits and vegetables, water, maybe some milk or juice, some forms of protein.  We can help them to understand how to use the local farmers and the benefit of doing so.

Lesson #2: Getting a good nights sleep also shows respect for our bodies.  Children who are 5 and 6 years old need up to 12 hours a sleep per day.  Children 7 – 12 years old need 11 hours per day and 12 – 18 year olds need 9 hours per day.  Getting the correct amount of sleep shows respect for our bodies.

Lesson #3: Exercise is also an important way of keeping our bodies in their best shape.  We like to see children play both inside and outside as this balances the amount of air and sun they get with physical activity that may normally be done inside.  We are going to build stronger muscle and bones, reduce the amount of calories our bodies maintain and increase our ability to sleep and the energy we have for mental exercise.

Lesson #4: Hygiene is also important in showing respect for our bodies.  Taking a regular bath or shower, brushing our teeth, washing our hair are all parts of taking care of the physical side of our body.

Lesson #5: Making good choices about what we will put into our body.  If someone asked us to smoke a cigarette, or to take part in a dangerous activity that we were not trained to do, our choice should be to avoid such things, because do not want to break and destroy our body.  Finally though and to be discussed in more detail later, we must take notice of what we put into our mind, including the way that we speak to ourselves and who we allow to get inside our head.  Our personal way of talking to ourselves will have either a positive or negative affect on how we feel about ourselves.

More on what we put in our mind and who we hang out with later, but as parents we can set the example by taking care of ourselves in these areas and helping our children to see the importance of doing the same.