How to Help Your Kids Make Healthy Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions aren’t just for adults! Here’s a handy guide for helping kids make healthy resolutions - like learning to make time to brush

As a busy mom of two small children, I make New Year’s resolutions to give myself something personal to work on and a new goal to achieve. Last year, it occured to me that my kids might find making resolutions just as empowering as I do.

Because it’s not always easy to teach new habits to kiddos under the age of 10 (mine were 3 and 5 at the time), I wanted to share my experience helping my kids make healthy resolutions, in the hopes that other parents will be able to join in on the new year fun!

How I Helped My Kids Choose Their Resolutions

First, I talked to them briefly (and I mean briefly, their attention spans are short at this age!) about what a healthy resolution is. I basically told them that it was a goal; something you work towards that helps make your life better.

I used myself as an example, and explained my small, simple goal for 2019: to drink half of my bodyweight in water every single day. After I gave them my example, they started brainstorming.

We sat around the kitchen table together and I wrote down their ideas. Some of them were pretty silly, but I tried to get them to focus on living a healthier lifestyle. My son chose to eat one vegetable a day (this is a huge accomplishment in our house) and to brush his teeth twice a day, every day for two whole minutes at a time. My daughter chose to drink half her body weight in water just like Mommy and to brush her teeth like her big brother. What can I say? She looks up to us.

The water and vegetable parts of their resolutions were pretty straightforward and easy to tackle, but the brushing goals—I’ll admit that I was bit stumped on how to make sure they actually followed through on brushing for two minutes.

How We Made Our Brushing Resolutions Fun

We decided to drive to the grocery store and venture in to the toothpaste aisle to see what they would pick out to make brushing their teeth just a tad more exciting. The selection was a bit overwhelming, but in the end, they choose Aquafresh Bubblemint Toothpaste (and mama went with Aquafresh Extreme Clean Whitening Action to help get my teeth back to their natural whiteness).

The toothpaste trip was a hit! My kids loved that they got to pick out their own toothpaste, and that it had such a “cool” flavor. Allowing them to take full ownership of their resolutions, from the brainstorming to their personal toothpaste choice, made a huge impact. And they had fun doing it, too! I’d simply set a timer and they’d brush in the bathroom, giggling as their mouths filled with toothpaste foam.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how all of our New Year’s resolutions went last year. It was a fun experience that helped us bond as a family, and I’m excited to do again to ring in 2019.