One of the advantages of being an adult is that you can make choices by yourself, to decide what is good about you an what isn’t! What happens if despite of your desire to change, there is something stuck, somewhere deep inside your unconsciousness, which is resisting the positive transformation? Why is that unconscious denial? No will? Bad goals? Or maybe, truth is somewhere far away in our past, dug in our childhood?
If we realize it or not, most of our habits and the following behavior are formed in our childhood. Our unconscious is a powerful “engine”, which controls our reactions, feelings and behavior! Could we influence our unconsciousness, so it could be under our control, but not vice versa?
Probably you couldn’t guess what is on my mind, and because I do not want you to get bored, I will get more specific! More often than not I meet parents that decided to lead healthier life. That is a wonderful thing, but what bothers me is their approach to their children’s nutrition! How often do you hear “ Oh, I do not eat pizza, but I am taking one for my son!”; “ I just cooked a delicious healthy dinner, but now I have to prepare some fries for my children!”; “ I love eating fruits and vegetables, but my children consider them tasteless, that is why I have to prepare some cookies for a dessert!”…
Parents are those that are supposed to educate their children. When you habituate them to be good,caring and honest to treat others well, you could try harder and teach them to respect and love themselves and their own health! It is a fact, that the habits from our childhood, accompany us throughout our entire life. A change is always possible but it is a really hard thing to do!
Do you remember how hard it was for you to give up on soda or your grandmother’s pumpkin pie? What about the pop corn in the cinema? Or the ice cream after the hard day at school or at work? Is that what you’d like for your kids? Do you want to condemn them to a similar future? Do you want them to feel the way you did, when you were trying to get rid of the bad habits? I doubt it!
If your child is eating junk, don’t blame commercials, or “the better tasting” ice-cream, pizza or you name it. The fault is all yours! Yes, you read it right-YOURS! There are always side factors, which are making an influence, but as you could educate your child to respect people, even when there are a bunch of arrogant and bad people out there, you could also teach them to love tasty, real, nutritious, healthy food!
4 things I want you to do
As a beginning, I want you to do four things!
1. Stop using food as comfort!
How often do you ask your son to go out for an ice-cream, after he had a bad day at school?
How often do you encourage your daughter to go ahead and grab some of the cookies you prepared, after she got home feeling sad?
How often did you ask somebody that had a bad day, to go with you and grab some food or drink, so he could feel better?
2. Stop using food as punishment!
When was the last time you told your child, that he couldn’t go out and play, before he eats his dessert?
How often do you tell your son, that you are not taking him to the park, if he doesn’t eat his veggies?
3. Stop using food as an award!
When was the last time, you bought a chocolate treat for your children, just because they behaved good?
When was the last time you took your children to a fast food restaurant, just because they got an A at school?
When was the last time you “black mailed” your child to clean up his room, if he wants to go to the football game?
4.Stop using food to make children feel guilt!
How often do you tell your kids, to eat everything in their plate, because there are people dying from starvation?
How often do you make your kids, eat the whole sandwich, “because mamma gave money for it”?
I am sure that you can give a positive answer to a lot of the above questions! Do not get me wrong! I am not trying to tell you that you are a bad parent! You just need to try harder and change your approach to educate your children! You wouldn’t wanna encode a behavior in your child’s subconscious, that is later gonna harm their life and make the suffer!
You have to realize that food is just fuel for your body and this refers to every person, no matter the age! There are a lot of approaches you could use, if you wanna punish, reward or comfort your children! Your children need you, in order to be happy! Make sure, you are gonna educate them to respect not only their friends and family but also themselves!
