September is National Self-Care Awareness Month and it is spent trying to remind everyone that self-care is extremely important and if you do not care for yourself, you will never be able to truly care for anyone else. Advocates of self-care awareness month spend their time letting everyone know that self-care can look different for everyone and there is no right or wrong way to do it as long as you are putting yourself and your feelings first. That being said, there are always helpful tips on ways to practice self-care and how to teach it to others.
Here at The Safe Place, we think it would be best if parents would talk to their children about what self-care is and why it is so important. Teaching self-care from a young age is important because it gets the child thinking about what they feel is important to them and teaches them that they deserve to be happy and live healthy lives and that they should never let anyone bring them down. Blurtitout.org talks about 15 self-care idea for children and some of them are things we think about teaching our children daily such as getting into a routine, especially when it comes to hygiene, staying active and being outdoors more, getting plenty of sleep, being responsible for their own belongings, eating healthy, and being a kid while they are still a kid. These are things most of us teach our kids on a daily basis, so we are teaching self-care without even really thinking about it.
Blurt goes a bit further in talking about other types of self-care for children. They first talk about teaching about boundaries and opinions. Often as children get older they are taught to “do what they are told because it is the right thing to do,” but this can be a slippery slope, especially once they are old enough to start dating. Teaching about healthy relationships and how to set boundaries in those relationships (whether that be dating relationships or friendships) will not only help when someone is trying to cross the boundaries your child has set, but also when they are accidentally crossing boundaries of their friends or acquaintances. Often, teens who don’t know much about healthy relationships or how to set boundaries, find themselves in relationships that involve dating violence. Blurt goes on to talk about how important it is to talk about emotions and teaching skills for calming down. Some people have higher tempers than others and if they are taught how to identify the emotions that bring about these tempers and how to deal with anger, they are less likely to lash out on someone when they don’t really want to. Anger often leads to violence, so being able to stop this before it gets too far is a very important skill for children to learn. They also talk about how important growth mindset is when it comes to self-care. Teaching your child to say something as simple as “I can’t do this yet” instead of simply “I can’t do this,” is teaching your child about confidence and resilience. Children will always be faced with obstacles whether that be bullying or someone being better at something than they are and if we can teach them from a young age that that is okay and they can keep working to grow and get better, it will change the mind frame of that child and help them to overcome those obstacles without having as many issues.
Self-care is extremely important to not only adults, but children as well and the younger we can teach them about how important it is and the best ways to go about exhibiting the self-care, the less likely our children will be to get in dangerous or hurtful situations as they get older.
If you or anyone you know needs to escape domestic violence to help with your own self-care, please call The Safe Place at 501-354-1884, our hotline at 1-888-554-2501, or our Perryville location at 501-889-2030.
Sources:
Leave a Reply