A healthy family lifestyle will vary from household to household based primarily on parenting style. However, most healthy family lifestyles boil down to taking care of your family physically, mentally, and spiritually, which is the same as if you were to take care of yourself. The main difference is that instead of attempting to satisfy your own needs, you must include your family’s needs as well.
Here are 4 influencing factors for creating a healthy family lifestyle:
- Eat healthily or cook at home. You can also include other family members in cooking, teaching them life skills they can use later on while spending quality time together.
- Exercise or recreational activities. This could be going to a soccer field, playing active games, walking, going to or signing up for sports leagues. Any number of activities that can be done in groups are perfect to include the whole family in.
- Keeping mindful communication. Communication is key to understanding and reciprocating feelings. You’ll have to play an active listening role to get to know how the people around you are feeling and what you should do about it.
- Although this one may be difficult, and it will depend on your own preferences, it could involve going to church, answering philosophical questions, meditation, or a variety of other various forms of spiritual liberation. The primary point is to establish morals and gain an ethical understanding of the world.
Once you have a plan on how you are going to approach these key factors, the hard part is starting to change. Your significant other will also need to be willing to change or at least recognize that you want to improve and create a healthy family lifestyle.
Creating a lifestyle is all about building healthy family habits that let each person grow in their own way constructively. It’s all about teamwork and building upon the relationship that you all have as a family while letting your children and the people around you experience the world. Transparency, communication, and desire play a big role in leading a healthy family lifestyle.
Article source: Excerpt from Sage Clinic by Lesley L. McKinney, MA, LPCC, NCC.