Keeping Your Child Healthy During the School Year
The school year has just started and your children are excited about their fresh new pencils, crayons, paper, and other school supplies. They get to play with their old friends, make new ones, and be outside participating in activities. What’s not to love?
As a parent, you may fear the illnesses your children are exposed to as they surround themselves with so many other children. A change in routine for your child could also lead to some bad habits.
Schedule a tour to learn how Calvary Lutheran School prioritizes the health and wellbeing of our students.
Ensuring your kids are healthy throughout the school year can be easy. It just requires you to be proactive about making health-conscious choices at home and implementing them into your child’s school life. The best ways to keep your children healthy during the school year are:
Keeping a nutritious diet
Children need a high amount of fruits and vegetables to boost their immune system. A weak immune system means your child will have a harder time fighting off infections. Incorporate different fruits and vegetables into your children’s meals to see which they like, and how to prepare them.
Exercise outdoors regularly
As the summer heat fades into autumn, your kids will be begging to go outside and enjoy the cooler weather. Go on walks, hikes, or rollerblade around your house or a nearby park to get proper exercise. Exercising regularly helps to boost your children’s immune system. Being outside also exposes your children to small amounts of bacteria that improve their immune systems ability to fight off similar infections.
Have a consistent bedtime and enforce it
Sleep-deprived children are highly susceptible to developing illnesses. Their immune systems are inherently weaker because they’re kids, and depriving them of sleep will only exacerbate their issue. Doctors recommend children get an average of nine hours of sleep per night to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Teach them how to properly wash their hands
Proper hand washing technique is one of the easiest ways to keep a child from catching illnesses from classmates. Thoroughly washing the highly used areas like underneath the fingernails, and between the fingers can eliminate the majority of bacteria that has accumulated from touching infected surfaces.
Tell them not to share drinks with others
Sharing is caring, except when infections are involved. Ask your child not to take drinks or share her own drink with other children. Their classmates may be infected with an illness and isn’t showing symptoms, but is still contagious. This is one of the most common ways bacteria is passed from person to person.
Keep their hands away from their mouth
Your children may bite their nails, suck their thumbs, or scratch their faces often. Try to have them avoid touching their face as much as possible. Germs on the fingers are easily transmitted when these actions take place. Even if your children properly wash their hands, there could be residual bacteria leftover.
Calvary Lutheran School provides a healthy and safe environment for your children. We focus on nurturing children academically, spiritually, physically, emotionally and socially. Contact us at 816-595-4020 or schedule a tour and learn more about our academic program.
