Well parents, it's that time again! Time to start a new school year. I'm sure you've shopped for their clothes, bought all the best school supplies, and feel like you're all ready to get started! But I'm thinking there may be a few things you left off the checklist! As an elementary teacher for grades 1-8, and a parent, I want to share with you some major essentials to having a great school year for your whole family. You will see some great accomplishments - whether it's better behavior at home and school, better attitude, higher grades, or grades reflecting solid learning! Guaranteed . . . that is, IF you are willing to make each of these a priority.
Here are the top 7 absolute essentials for success in school:
1. Sleep! Seriously! Lack of sleep is a major problem for children as well as you adults. When you don't get enough sleep, you compromise some major body functions that are absolutely necessary to survive and thrive. Your body needs the right amount of restful sleep each night to rebuild, repair, and rejuvenate your mind and body! Not having a deep, restful sleep for the right amount of hours each night can:
- Cause major lack of ability to concentrate and impairs memory and learning. If your child is tired or struggling to stay awake in class, they aren't learning anything!
- Lower your immune system function greatly, causing sometimes severe illness and health problems. During sleep, interleukin-1, an immune boosting substance, is released. Several nights of poor rest can hamper one's immunity.
- Affect the ability to metabolize sugar and trigger insulin resistance, a well-known factor for diabetes. At the American Diabetes Association's 61st Annual Scientific Session, new evidence was presented that inadequate sleep may prompt development of insulin-resistance, a well-known risk factor for diabetes. (In recent years, there has been a dramatic rise in the incidence of childhood obesity as well as type 2 diabetes.) This also contributes to weight gain and obesity!
- Impede Physical Development. The highest levels of growth hormone are released into the bloodstream during deep sleep. Because sleep deprivation results in a decrease in the release of growth hormone, height and growth may be affected by a lack of sleep.
- Affect mood and behavior. Lack of sleep can cause children to behave as if they had ADD or ADHD. Some children's activity levels increase dramatically the more tired they are. It's their body's way of trying to stay awake and alert. It can also cause stress, anxiety and depression, irritability or emotional highs and lows. Not what you want your child to deal with during school or ANY time!
- Contributes to heart disease - even in the young! Stress due to lack of sleep causes a very sharp rise in cortisol levels. Such an imbalance can lead to hardening of the arteries, something that can cause a heart attack. In addition, we also know that very high cortisol levels lead to muscle loss, increased fat storage, loss of bone mass, causes hypertension, and reduces testosterone production.
In pediatric research, poor sleepers reported being significantly more depressed and were even more likely to have a negative self-image. They were also more likely to exhibit type A behavior patterns, inferior coping behaviors, and have more behavioral problems at home and in school. One study showed that students with C’s, D’s and F’s went to bed an average of 40 minutes later and got 20 minutes less sleep than A students.
Your child needs between 8.5 and 12 hours (depending on the person) of good sleep every single night - including your teenagers! They need to sleep in as dark a room as possible, no music playing, without too much food on their stomach in order to have the deep sleep and REM sleep that's necessary. Not making them go to sleep on time is a major fault of parental decision, discipline, and over scheduling the kids. Check this link for more important info.
2. Reasonable schedule/stress. This is a tough one! You must find a balance in your family's schedule in order to keep everyone on task, accomplishing what needs to be done without overdoing the activities and burning everyone out. There are some great things to be involved in for kids and adults alike that are worthwhile, just be choosy and reasonable about what each of you can handle. Trying to do all the things they are interested in at the same time doesn't work. You will just end up being average in a lot of areas, but master of none. Pick only those things that your child wants most, or benefits them most without filling up every day after school.
Kids also need plenty of time for homework/study, chores, bedtime readiness, and actually most of us need some down time to just lay around and daydream, or draw, or listen to music, or read a fun book - just some empty "me-time" to de-stess and decompress from the day's work! Now, if you are an average child who gets up at 7 a.m. each day for school, your bedtime should be between 9 and 10 p.m. (as in asleep at that time), giving you 9 to 10 hours of sleep. If you wake up at 6 a.m., then you need to back up bedtime to 8 to 9 p.m., or even earlier if you child needs 11 to 12 hours! Most people need about 15 to 30 min. to fall asleep, so you need to calculate that into your bedtime. Figure in your homework time, exercise, dinner and chores, baths, activities, and family time or personal down time. When you start adding it all up, you have maybe 3.5 to 5 hours available each evening depending on when school lets out and bedtime!
Keeping a family calendar and schedules will help keep you on task without overdoing things. It also helps when you're asked to do something you know you can't do such as: "let me check our schedule. . . I'm sorry, but I'm already booked that day (or time). Maybe next time." It beats feeling guilty, or over scheduling yourself because you can't say no!
For those of you who aren't involved in anything, and keep no schedule, I encourage you to find a hobby or interest and get involved! Read some good books, join a club, learn something you've always wanted to, it's a great way to stay young and interesting! And definitely get into the habit of scheduling your days - it will keep you on task and help with your new healthy habits.
3. Good nutrition - Many kids today don't eat nutritionally sound meals, even at school! As parents, we don't set the example many times because we eat mostly junk food, and the whole family ends up without quality food on a daily basis! Good nutrition is the fuel for your body, and if your family were sized up and graded, where would you stand? An A+, an F, somewhere in between? Good nutrition means healthy bodies and revved up brains - ready to learn and grow.
Diet issues could easily take pages to write about, but I'm going to touch on the major issues for now. Stop drinking sodas is a great place to start! It is singularly the worst thing you can drink - diet or regular - for your health. And as parents, you're hooked on them, and your depriving your children of good health now and in their future by letting them drink mostly soda as well. Water should be your primary liquid - period! If you don't like the taste, get a water filter (which I recommend anyway for optimal health). You'll get used to the taste! And don't add in the "sugar free" flavors all the time, particularly anything with NutraSweet or aspartame. Click here to find out why! If you must have flavors, add in some lemon or lime juice and just enough organic sugar to taste, or best yet, get some Stevia sweetener from your health food store. Milk and dairy should also be included for your child's health - teeth, bones, weight and more. If they just can't drink it, make sure you're giving them supplementation.
As for solids, you need to start enjoying veggies and fruit! Eat whole grain rice and real potatoes and even whole grain pastas in the right portions. Cut out anything processed, fried, white, or artificial. Eat foods that are real and as fresh as possible. As for meats, try to choose those that are not breaded or pre-fried or too processed. Organic, grass-fed, no hormone meat and dairy are optimal, but at least choose lean and cook it healthy.
Realistically, I wouldn't expect the average junk food eating families to take on all these changes well in the beginning, so these are at least some basics. Find a few and start there and add in one more healthy choice per week. I'd love it if I could convert all of you to the knowledge of truly healthy foods, as in organic, non-genetically modified goodies, but I'll save that for another day as well!
4. EFA's omega 3's - Some people aren't aware of what kinds of fats they are consuming, or how much, and others go for low fat at the expense of healthy levels. But our bodies need the right amount of the right kind of fats each day for optimal health. One kind is essential fatty acids, particularly omega 3's. The American diet is greatly lacking in this because of our food supply, so supplementation is a must. Omega 3 is brain and mood food deluxe! There was a study done on a group of the more violent of prison inmates. They were given the right amount of EFA omega 3's daily, and their aggression and violent behavior came down significantly! Many children who are labeled ADD or ADHD are simply deficient in this vital nutrient. It also has been shown to help with depression, autism, and weight control. Those with dyslexia, dyspraxia and compulsive disorders have gotten a new lease on life thanks to omega 3 oils. The primary source of omega 3 is fish oil and to a lesser degree, flax seed oil. Krill oil is optimal even over fish oil. Check out more outstanding info from Mayo clinic here.
5. Immune building - If you want healthy kids, you need to strengthen their immune systems! Sleep and good nutrition are key, but so are the right vitamins and supplements. Vitamin C is a great immune building nutrient as well as an anti-viral. Many of us don't get enough vitamin C. Vitamin D is also essential to immune system health. Check out the Sunshine and Sunscreens post on this blog for the details. Another great item to consider is a good probiotic. These are the good bacteria that live in our gut - there are 3 lbs of good and bad that live there and are needed for our survival! Keeping the good bacteria strong and balanced is a great way to stay healthy and fight off sickness. Also, look for a good mushroom complex, as certain ones are great for immunity as well. There are others of course, but any health food store will carry several varieties for kids and adults.
6. Exercise - there is no way around this one! No shortcuts, no pill to take it's place! We all need daily exercise for optimal health and wellness. Younger children usually get to go outside and play at least once a day in addition to some P.E. time, but as they get into Jr. and Sr. High, that changes. It's crucial for your teens health now and in the future to make sure they are getting in the habit of exercise along with the good nutrition. It will benefit your waistline, your heart, your mind, your mood, your quality of sleep, your immune system, your strength, and to de-stress. Get them into sports, an after school program, or find a way to exercise as a family.
7. Allergy/gluten testing - one item that is often never considered for children who are not doing well in school - behavior or grade-wise - is food allergies. Many children have diseases such as celiac disease who don't know what the problem is and it is slowly and sometimes silently affecting their health and success. Some just have an allergy to a certain food or foods that when the offenders are removed, the child's mood, behavior, and level of health dramatically improve. Check the celiac page for more information and testing. For food allergies, there are tests available for the most common ones through your doctor or allergist and even some labs you can find online. The most common are: milk/dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish, shellfish, and wheat. Wheat intolerance should be screened for celiac disease, which is much more serious than just an allergy.
In my years of teaching, the parents who followed the above guidelines had the better behaved, least sick, and more successful children in my classroom. Everyone can succeed far beyond what you think can be achieved by staying healthy, cultivating good habits and positive changes for our families. Next time, we'll talk about how to help the inner emotional health and success of your child.
Until then, get busy making the right choices and changes so that this year will be the beginning of your best years! It's better than the coolest school supplies you could ever buy!
for enhancing education,
Majetta
p.s. if you need quality supplements as described above, check out Wellness Resources or Life Extension for the best, pharmaceutical grade, and also Puritan's Pride Vitamins on the side columns!
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