Posted by Sue Landsman on Sep.29, 2009

©iStockphoto.com - Jennifer Sheets

We’re all worried about the flu, but with children the concept of avoiding germs sometimes seems hopeless. Get them to wash their hands at all? Stop sneezing on each other? What can you do to help get through the winter months without being sick all the time?

Here are a few stealthy tips for how to encourage good health habits:

Teach Them How to Sneeze

We always tell kids “cover your mouth!” But that doesn’t help so much when they sneeze or cough into their hands and then proceed to touch you or everything else in their path. Turning away from other people doesn’t even help much; the germs still end up in the air and moving around with the air currents. Have kids sneeze or cough into their elbows if they don’t have a tissue. Yes, you’ll have to clean their clothes, but you will anyway. At least their hands aren’t dripping with germs and the whole sneeze won’t blow your way.

Make Hand Washing Take a While

There’s a lot of variables here. Water. Soap. Time. Hopefully at least most kids turn on the water, but from then on the commitment goes downhill. Help your kids spend some actual time scrubbing their hands by photocopying something for them to read and sticking it on the bathroom mirror, or posting the times tables. Very young children can recite the alphabet, or sing a favorite song.

Don’t even assume that your kids know how to wash their hands. Many kids will wash their palms and not even touch the back of their hands, never mind the wrist area. It doesn’t hurt to remind them to pull up their sleeves and really give their entire hands some attention with the soap.

Food on a Stick

If your kids like to snack but don’t often remember to wash their hands, you can keep them from picking up their snacks with icky fingers by making fun, popsicle-like snacks out of whatever bars or cookies they like. Insert a stick in them, and they can hold them without touching them. This is also a good strategy if you make your own brownies or bar-like snacks. Many kids will often fondle all the pieces before they pick the one they want; if they’re on sticks, then they’ll just grab a stick and go.

You can also make your own orange juice popsicles during the winter to get a little extra Vitamin C into your kids.

Help Them Recognize Who’s Sick

Moms often give their kids cold medicine or Tylenol at the first sign of symptoms in order to get them moving and send them to school. What this does, though, is make sure that no one else really knows the child is sick until it’s really too late. A medicated child may still touch their face and transfer germs to other children.

If your child recognizes how they feel and act when they’re coming down with something (slow and lethargic, nasally-voiced, irritable, etc.), then he might have the extra sense to be careful around a friend who’s acting the same way. This also applies to husbands who medicate themselves so they can go to work, and forget to mention that they’re sick.

Serve Fruit Salads

Many kids won’t eat fruits, or are horribly picky when it comes to fruit but the vitamin C and other vitamins in fruits are vital to maintaining health. The child who ate apples last week suddenly doesn’t like them, or will only eat them if they’re fresh picked. If you’re trying to serve fruit, it doesn’t take much more work to make a fruit salad, which is a lot more fun and hard to resist. If your kids are particularly difficult, you can put in some yogurt and granola (or ice cream if you’re desperate) and call it a parfait. A drizzle of chocolate or caramel sauce will make most fruit instantly more palatable to even the pickiest eater.

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Posted under Family, GDM Kids, Tweens, Teens.