You can teach Whole Self-Care
Teaching Whole Self-Care for kids is about supporting their growth on the path to caring for themselves physically, socially, and emotionally. You would be helping kids to navigate the worlds of their bodies, other people, and their own internal life. Caregivers help children in all of these areas with the goal of the child being safe, healthy, and happy while they are kids and when they grow-up.
Teaching whole self-care is different from taking care of a child’s daily needs.
The caregiver is helping the child in the present, while considering the child’s future well-being at the same time! When teaching self-care while taking care of kids, the caregiver is intending for the child to learn how to do elements of the task, be motivated to learn and do the routines themselves, as well as to learn why it is important. Caregivers also teach self care by how they role model their own self care attitudes and methods.
Maintaining your focus on a child’s future can be difficult (or even impossible!) to do sometimes! Just getting a child’s needs met in the present moment can be overwhelming enough! And, with the busy lives of parenting, caregiving, and teaching, it can also be hard to role model positive self care. This topic and tips for trying to reach the ideal of teaching children self-care in live time, is covered in my workshops and speaker events, and you can sign your team up with this link.
Here are a few questions that you can take with you to consider when you are caring for a child:
How will the way I am providing care affect this child today, and tomorrow?
How will the way I am providing care to this child affect how they learn to care for themselves?
What am I role modeling for kids with how I take care of myself?
