your child’s overall health and wellness. I also love the fact that they help my notoriously picky eater get all of the nutrients she may miss from her strict diet.
3. Healthy before and after-school snacks:
Even if you give your child a vitamin each day you should still try to make sure they are getting as much nutrition as possible from their meals. This can be a challenge since kids, especially toddlers, are notoriously picky eaters.
Luckily there are a lot of healthy before and after-school snacks that boost the immune system. If you can’t get your child to eat things like Kale or mushrooms, you can always keep things simple by offering them oatmeal or yogurt at breakfast.
These foods are rich in probiotics and antioxidant qualities that fight against the Flu. If those options don’t work, most children love apples and oranges. Easy to prepare and even pack with lunch, apples and oranges are full of fiber and vitamins that help your child’s overall health every day.
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READ: How Much Sleep Does Your Child Really Need?
4. Setting a bedtime:
Children really thrive with a consistent routine in their daily lives. Adding a designated nap time and a set bedtime can also do wonders for your child’s health. Making sure they get an adequate night’s rest will ensure that their bodies have enough energy to fight off germs they may come into contact with so these germs won’t progress into colds.
Setting a bedtime for your kids can also do wonders for parents. The time in between your child’s bedtime and your own can be a really great opportunity to decompress from the day, do some last minute cleaning and just be unbothered!
5. Getting a flu shot:
With back to school season also comes the flu season, the contagious virus that can be very dangerous for children. The CDC recommends that children over the age of 6 months get vaccinated every year. This can be very important to children who are in daycare, preschool or grade school as they are exposed to many different germs from their classmates, teachers and other parents.
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I know from my own experiences and research online that many black people simply do not trust the flu shot and avoid it each year. I myself have only been vaccinated while pregnant but I generally do not go out for a flu shot each year. Now that I have a young child in daycare I plan to vaccinate her. The benefits of avoiding the dangerous sickness far outweigh whatever social stigma or paranoia I’m currently operating under.
The flu shot doesn’t protect your child against the common cold but it will help fight off the sickness that could leave them feeling crummy for weeks.
Us parents are facing an uphill battle as far as germs go this fall, but at least we know that there are some things we can do to arm ourselves. Our main goal should be being proactive about preventing the colds, and if we cannot avoid them at least be proactive about treating them while stopping the spread to other people. Good luck out there parents! Godspeed!
Brittany Wright, B.A in Creative writing and English – University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, is an aspiring writer and creator of the She’s Wright blog. This black, millennial mom loves everything beauty, motherhood, and marriage related!
