Teaching and Modeling Self Care

“Give yourself the same care & attention that you give to others and watch yourself bloom.”

Introduction

Hello! If you are new here, my name is Leah. I am an Early Childhood Education major with a minor in STEM. Something you should also know about me is that I am huge into health and wellness; I actually help run a health and wellness organization for women at Millersville University. As a pre-service teacher and as a wellness person, I find self-care to be crucial.

What is self-care?

There are many different definitions, but according to the International Self-Care Foundation (ISF) self-care is what people do for themselves to establish and maintain health, and to prevent and deal with illness. It is a broad concept encompassing hygiene (general and personal), nutrition (type and quality of food eaten), lifestyle (sporting activities, leisure, etc), environmental factors (living conditions, social habits, etc.) socio-economic factors (income level, cultural beliefs, etc.) and self-medication.” 

Based on the above definition some examples of self-care can be:

  1. Taking a bath
  2. Putting a facemask on
  3. Exercising
  4. Eating a snack that makes you happy
  5. Yoga/Meditation
  6. Journaling

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Why is self-care important?

Lifestyle diseases such as heart attack and stroke, cancer, and respiratory diseases are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. It is most common in the United States. The leading cause of all of this is not taking care of your body. Stress plays a huge factor in causing lifestyle diseases, so it is important to take care of yourself.

Why is this especially relevant to teachers? As teachers, we are leaders and role models for the future of our society. If we model healthy behaviors, those we teach will adopt those behaviors. Teaching children to adopt healthy behaviors will benefit their future and their health.

Self-care Ideas for Children

  1. Do zoom workouts! There are youtube channels that have kid-friendly workouts.

2. Meditation! There are plenty of meditation activities on GoNoodle.

3. Lessons on healthy eating

4. Journal Activities

These are just a few of the awesome self-care activities that you could do with children!

But don’t forget… always take care of yourself first!

Right now, it is very difficult for everyone with such a terrible pandemic happening. As teachers, it can be extremely difficult to not have a classroom full of our favorite kids, but we must make the best of it. Self-care is especially important right now during a time of stress. Stay healthy and put yourself first so that you can be the best version of yourself for the children.

Work on you, for you. 

Resources:

International Self Care Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://isfglobal.org

Youtube

Pinterest

GoNoodle