Hendersonville Pediatrics cares about your family and the health of our community. Here are some resolutions that can have a major effect on your family's health, as well as happiness.
1. Have Meals Together
Family meals foster family connectedness and benefit child and family health by:
- enhancing language development
- improving nutrition
- decreasing risk of drug, alcohol, and nicotine use
- improving family relations
- decreasing risk of engaging in sexual activity and
- decreasing emotional stress.
2. Play Outside as a Family
Reasearch shows that play helps children develop social skills like cooperation and empathy; and for adults, play can help boost energy and vitality and improve resistance to disease.
3. Reach Out to Extended Family
For single parents, extended family members can serve as a support system and can often substitute as role models for children missing a dad or a mom.
4. Work on Family Relationships
Work on your marriage, spend quality time with your spouse and watch the benefits accumulate, not just for you and your spouse but for your children and the family unit as a whole.
5. Replace Screen Time with Family Fun Time
Instead, play board games, listen to music, and talk about your goals and dreams as a family. People often use screen time as a way to de-stress and 'veg-out' after a busy day; but spending quality time with people you love is an even better way to relax and take your mind off the stresses of the day.
6. Get Adequate Sleep
Adequate sleep on a regular basis leads to improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health.
Any work toward these is great. Ultimately, don't make your resolutions so lofty that you and your family are unable to keep up with them. Keep it simple and make some general decisions that apply to the whole family. If you have questions, contact Hendersonville Pediatrics at 600 Beverly Hanks Centre Hendersonville, NC 28792 at (828) 693-3296. Happy 2019!