Keeping Your Kids Healthy: Tips for Avoiding the Common Cold
Keeping Your Kids Healthy: Tips for Avoiding the Common Cold
As the fall and winter seasons approach, many parents stock up on tissues and throat lozenges in anticipation of the sore throats and runny noses to come. After all, the colder months of the year find everyone cooped up inside, providing a prime opportunity for the common cold to be passed around. The common cold — which is an illness that can be caused by a number of different viruses — is responsible for countless absences from school throughout the course of a year. Fortunately, there are some daily habits your child can implement to help prevent the common cold from interfering with his or her life over the coming months:
Wash Hands
It sounds like a no-brainer, but plenty of kids neglect to wash their hands — or wash their hands properly — during cold and flu season. Yet, washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds is one of the most important things kids can do to help prevent the common cold. If you’re on the go with your child and don’t have access to a sink, alcohol-based hand sanitizer can be used in a pinch. However, soap and running water are always preferable. Make sure your child washes his hands frequently, too — particularly when out in public places where door knobs and stair rails serve as ideal germ hangouts.
Get Plenty of Rest
If you think letting your child stay up an hour or two past bedtime is no big deal, you better think again. Without adequate sleep, the body’s natural defense against germs — known as the immune system — becomes compromised. Thus, it’s important to make sleep a priority so that your child’s body has time to rest and become rejuvenated. To help ensure optimal rest, have your child follow a set bedtime routine every night. Make sure her bedroom is dark and at a comfortable temperature, and avoid allowing her to indulge in any caffeinated products in the hours before bedtime.
Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate
It’s no secret that water does a body good. During cold and flu season, it’s particularly important for your child to stay hydrated. In fact, he should aim for six to eight glasses of water a day. Remember: sodas and other sugary or caffeinated beverages don’t provide adequate hydration. When it comes to relieving thirst and staying healthy, water is always best.
Exercise
Regular exercise provides well-documented benefits in terms of physical and mental health. It’s no surprise, then, that maintaining a fitness routine during cold and flu season can help your child ward off some of those nasty germs. That’s because, in addition to keeping her fit and increasing her self-esteem, exercise also boosts your child’s immune system. Additionally, regular exercise helps combat obesity; being overweight is linked to a number of health concerns, including a greater susceptibility to illnesses like influenza and the common cold.
Give Germ-Covered Areas a Wipe-Down
While you can’t follow your child to school with disinfecting wipes, you can make sure your home is not a germ sanctuary. Pay particular attention to those areas that are most prone to germs, including: light switches, door knobs, television remotes, computer keyboards, and cell phones.
The Face is Off Limits!
Kids inadvertently touch their faces several times a day, whether it’s to wipe a nose, rub itchy eyes, or bite nails. Any time your child touches his face — and particularly his nose, eyes, or mouth — he’s giving germs a prime opportunity to get inside his body and take over. Frequent hand washing helps, of course, but it’s best to encourage your child to have a hands-off policy when it comes to his face.
While your child might not be able to avoid illness entirely during the coming months, making an effort to implement these habits on a daily basis can go a long way towards preventing the pesky common cold. And if you do need affordable health care for you or your kids, use Sesame today!
