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How You Can Get Kids Through the Winter Blues

Jan 2, 2018 12:00:00 AM

by Rob Samuelson

Winter vacation is over, and so are the days of kids being able to sleep in. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but there are plenty of ways to keep kids happy and healthy as they attend school during the height of the winter blues. Depression festers when people don’t eat well, so remember to feed kids a diet high in antioxidants. Fill them up with berries, greens like kale and nuts like walnuts and pecans.

How To Convince Them

If there are any picky eaters in your family or classroom, you can always turn a healthy diet into a game. The folks at Eat This, Not That have a simple and elegant solution: Focus on the colors. If you tell children to try to eat as many colors as they can, they’ll likely have a strong and balanced diet. That’s because, as the Eat This, Not That editors write, “the colors represented in foods are indicators of nutritional value—and different colors mean different vitamins and minerals.” That way their brains will be primed and ready to learn—and their attitudes won’t be so down in the dumps, either.

Get Their Legs Moving

The wintertime can really cut down on exercise opportunities, and recess can become much less fun when it’s 15 degrees. But exercise is incredibly important for kids, especially with the season’s added depression risk. At Teach Hub, David Reeves has a few ideas for wintertime recess activities. You can definitely let the kids go run around outside, but make sure they have the proper warm clothing for the environment. If the weather is too punishing, though, an in-classroom recess could be in order. It would require the kids to move their desks to the outer edges of the room and, Reeves writes, a game of four corners can be quickly initiated. With a proper diet and exercise, the kids in your life can beat the winter blues. https://www.facebook.com/BetterConversationBetterEducation/videos/742365952628769/
Photo by BATO BUDAEV, Twenty20-licensed.

Rob Samuelson

Rob Samuelson is a Staff Writer at Education Post and Digital Media Manager for the brightbeam network.

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