The school year is back and with it comes a barrage of germs that your child faces every day in the classroom. “When you’re around a whole bunch of other kids and somebody gets sick, it’s easier for it to spread around,” says David Becker, MD, an integrative pediatrician and assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. It seems inevitable, but you can help your child keep healthy this school year.
Tips to Keep Your Child Healthy
Your child’s immune system is under more than just an attack from germs from hundreds of other children. Stress and poor eating take a big toll as the school year begins. Kids are more prone to sickness than adults as their immune system continues to develop. So, aside from putting your child in a plastic bubble, can you actually avoid sickness this school year? What’s a parent to do? Help your kids follow these rules for stressing less, eating better, and dealing with the inevitable germs that come their way. Here’s how.
Help Your Child Stress Less
Any transition brings anxiety, and school is full of transitions and uncertainties with new rules, social minefields, and loads of schoolwork. All of these stressors make it more likely that your child will get sick. Stress keeps your child’s body busy dealing with it, so your child does not have the same ability to fight off the germs that also typically assault as the school year begins.
Calming Kids
Get outside
Exercise is a perfect way to lower stress and boost your mood. Spending just 15 to 20 minutes outside four times a week will help our child relieve the stress of a new school year, feel happier, and get the vitamin D their immune system needs to stay resilient though the school year. Outside time helps ground your child’s nervous system and gives them peace during the many uncertainties of school. Research shows that spending time outside benefits mental health, focus, and lowers mental fatigue in children.
Listen to Music
In stressful situations, music lowers blood pressure and anxiety, helping the body regulate the nervous system. So, when your child or teen comes home from school moody and withdrawn, or easily provoked, crank up the tunes. Music can help children and teens express their feelings in a healthy way, instead of keeping them bottled up waiting to explode. Music can also regulate and bring balance to your child.
Do Yoga
Children and adolescents benefit from yoga and gives them tools to manage stress during and after school. Some schools bring yoga into the classrooms and the number of children who do yoga continues to grow. In 2023, 12.3 percent of children did yoga compared to 8.1 percent in 2017.
Visualization/Meditation
Bring mindfulness practices such as visualization and meditation into your home to ease stress and anxiety this school year. Visualization can help kids tap into their imagination and restore calm, Ask your child to close his eyes and picture himself in a place where everything is peaceful. His body will react as if he’s actually in that peaceful place. Ask questions that evoke all five senses, such as, “What can you see? What do you hear? How does the sun feel on your skin?” The more sensory details he fills in, the more his body will be convinced that it’s time to chill
Go for a Family Walk
Unwind on foot. Ditch the dinner dishes, and head out for an after-supper stroll together. Teens are more likely to spill the news about their day if you’re doing something else, like walking. And once they’ve vented, they’ll feel calmer and sleep better. The end-of-the-day exercise endorphins will help you relax, too.
Strengthening Your Child’s Immune System
Eat Well
Unhealthy diets, loaded with junk food, take their toll on our youth. In the short term, a nutrient-deficient diet makes it difficult for kids to stave off illness. One of the biggest immune-system offenders is inflammation—and the biggest contributor to inflammation is high-sugar and processed foods. Long term, an unhealthy diet can lead to obesity and an immunes system that is constantly in overdrive. The resulting chronic inflammation can lead to a host of health woes, from the common cold to more serious diseases. Promoting healthy eating in your home will give your child the nutrients needed to strengthen their immune system and maintain a healthy weight. A healthier meal plan will give your child a better chance of fighting off the viruses and infections that the school year brings.
Sleep for Your Child’s Immunity
Don’t underestimate the power of sleep. When your kids don’t get enough z’s, they’re three times more likely to catch a cold—possibly because sleep deprivation impairs immune cells that fight infection. If your child or teen is struggling to sleep, ban television, computer time, and video games an hour before bedtime, since the bright light can throw off a child’s natural circadian rhythm, making it harder to nod off.
Handwashing to Fight Sickness
Make hand washing a habit. You’ve heard it before: Simple hand washing works wonders when it comes to staving off illness. But while antibacterial soap or gel is what’s on hand at school, research from the Mayo Clinic shows that anti-bacterial products may actually contribute to the spread of superbugs—antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause longer-lasting, harder-to-treat illnesses.
References:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0272494495900012#preview-section-cited-by
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473587/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db324.htm
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