Cooking With Your Kids Promotes a Healthy Family Environment And May Make Them Less Likely To Abuse Drugs

From the moment you hold your child in your arms, no parent imagines their chid will grow up and abuse drugs. As parents, we try to provide a nurturing and loving environment, with boundaries and consequences. And one of the most available resources we have to promote a strong family bond is sometimes taken for granted, family mealtime. 

According to a report Family Matter: Substance Abuse and the American Family from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, parents can take some simple steps to preventing substance abuse and many revolve around family mealtime.

Mealtime can be as simple as microwaving a bowl of oatmeal to preparing an elaborate 5-course meal. In both scenarios, the environment is controlled: you, your child, conversation, quality time together, and cultivating life skills.

Does mealtime overwhelm you? If so, start small with the first meal of the day: breakfast. Children who eat breakfast are more likely to have a better memory and better test grades. Meal preparation can begin as early as 18-months. Encourage your child to gather fruit and yogurt from the refrigerator, cereal from the pantry, or a bowl from the drawer. Place a child-safe stool next to you and watch the delight in your child’s eyes as they contribute to mealtime preparation. Remember, when you make meal preparation achievable and age appropriate, you build confidence and increase your child’s self-esteem.

Have a toddler or preschooler at home? Ask him/her to help set the table, fill a water glass, prepare simple snacks like wash fruits and vegetables in a colander, spread hummus on a pita or prepare fruit kebabs. Drying dishes and sorting utensils are other fun activities for children to engage in, build their vocabulary, contribute to the home environment and help develop fundamental life skills. 

Struggle with a picky eater? Encourage children to chop vegetables, peel potatoes, crack eggs and prepare age appropriate meals like homemade pizza, taco station and meatballs (yes, kids love to get their hands dirty rolling the meatballs)! More likely than not, kids will have a feeling of accomplishment when they contribute to the family and are more likely to want to participate in family meals if they help prepare the foods.  For a healthier twist on meatballs, substitute lean ground chicken or lean ground turkey instead of ground beef.

Tired of making lunches? Teach your child how to prepare his/her lunch. Exposing children to healthy options in their environment will help them make healthy choices when away from home. Prepare lunch the night before (if appropriate) and avoid the morning rush! Remember, offer praises and words of affirmation on a job well done, even if there is a big mess when they finish. Be sure to hug your child when he/she contributes in a meaningful way.

A consistent mealtime preparation and ritual benefits the entire family. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, “research consistently demonstrates that teens who eat dinner with their families frequently are at half the risk of substance abuse as teens who have family dinners infrequently.” Use this activity to spend quality time together, help build conversational and organizational skills, and promote a healthy lifestyle. Happy eating!

Niccole Maurici, University Park mom of four and former certified personal trainer, is the co-founder and creator of the StrongestMom.com website and fitness videos, which promote values important to moms: encouragement, support, positive thinking, and dedication. To learn more visit our website strongestmom.com. 

To help prevent accidental injuries to children, StrongestMom.com has released a free video in which one of the country’s top emergency room physicians and one of the country’s top child trauma surgeons talk about their daily experience in the prevention and causes of accidental injury to children. 

Accidents are the number one cause of death and injury among children and teens, and their prevention should be a priority for every parent. 

The video is presented in seven feeding-length segments.  “You can watch a segment while feeding your baby, so just set up in front of the computer, feed, and learn how to protect your child,” says mom of four and StrongestMom.com co-founder Niccole Maurici.  

“If your physicians could spend an hour with you talking about how to keep your child safe, this is what they would tell you,” says father of three and StrongestMom.com co-founder Tal Franklin, who conducted the interviews.  “This was a truly eye-opening experience.  These doctors are great at explaining not only the risks to our children but also the reason behind preventative measures.  And when you’re dealing with accidental injury to a child, the old saying about an ounce of prevention rings particularly true.”

“Although no environment can be entirely safe, it is important as parents to know what the risks are and what we can do to prevent injury to our children,” Franklin continued.  

“As you watch the video, you get struck by how heart-wrenching it is for these heroic physicians to see preventable traumatic injuries to children, and how they want to make sure that no parent or child has to go through that ever again,” Maurici added.  “I urge all parents to watch this video.”  

The video is available free of charge to every parent at:

http://www.strongestmom.com/doctors-safety-videos/. 

Niccole Maurici, University Park mom of four and former certified personal trainer, is the co-founder and creator of the StrongestMom.com website and fitness videos. StrongestMom.com is dedicated to making moms the strongest they can be, both mentally and physically.  We produce fitness videos to help moms stay physically fit while keeping to their busy schedules, and at the same time through our be+positive™ messages promote values important to moms.  Our website serves as both a platform to sell our videos and as a public service to provide free resources to moms on all aspects of parenting. 

That is a frequently asked question and as a woman’s body ages, our midsection changes. Hormones are a leading cause of this change in our body and as we age, our metabolism slows down.

Several hormones can affect midsection weight gain, primarily: 1.) Cortisol “the stress hormone”, which is released when we go into survival mode and can trigger an increase in appetite; and 2.) Estrogen, the “female hormone”, decreases as women enter menopause and can lower their metabolic rate. Simply stated, metabolic rate is the rate of energy expenditure when the body is at rest.

So what can you do?

1. Reduce the release of cortisol.
√ Breathe deeply. This can help release toxins and tension, bring clarity, and relieve pain and emotional problems while delivering more oxygen to your muscles and organs.
√ Sing out loud. Endorphins and oxytocin are released when you sing out loud. These hormones give you feelings of pleasure and can alleviate anxiety and stress.
√ Eat well. Choose nutritionally balanced foods. Your plate should have lean protein, fruits and vegetables and a minimal amount of fats. Try and avoid processed foods.
√ Sleep more. Make an effort to get to bed earlier and manage your time better. Seven to eight hours of sleep is still the recommendation of doctors.

2. Boost your metabolism with these exercises. You can’t control your age, genetics or gender, but here are things you can control:
√ Perform muscle defining exercises. High reps and low weights are not going to give you a sculpted physique, nor will they build muscle that will burn fat. Proper form during each rep will allow the muscle to contract long enough (3-4 seconds) to achieve the best results possible.
√ Perform weight-bearing exercises to help preserve bone health and bone density, build lean muscle and burn fat even when you are sleeping.
√ Perform compound exercises to build muscle strength, burn fat and improve endurance. Multiple muscle groups and multiple joints work simultaneously to help build lean muscle and improve your body image.
√ Get moving as often as you can. Park a little further from the store, take the steps instead of the elevator, and play outside with your kids. Enough little changes can add up, particularly if you have added lean muscle and are therefore burning more calories no matter what you are doing.

Remember, muscles require more energy and burn more calories. The more lean muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even at rest. And the more calories you burn, the less muffin top you will see in the mirror.

Niccole Maurici, University Park mom of four and former certified personal trainer, is the co-founder and creator of the StrongestMom.com 30-minute workouts designed for moms at any age and stage of life, which incorporate muscle defining, weight bearing and compound exercises to achieve the best results possible. To learn more visit www.strongestmom.com.  

FREE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL DALLAS HALF MARATHON TRAINING GROUP FOR MOMS with purchase of StrongestMom.com™ fitness videos
Sponsored by StrongestMom.com, which was co-founded by University Park mom of four Niccole Maurici.

Most runners will tell you that finishing a race requires as much mental preparation as it does physical preparation. StrongestMom.com is sponsoring a FREE training group to equip moms across the DFW area with the mental and physical strength needed to finish the Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas Half Marathon on Sunday, March 22, 2015.

The training program will begin on Sunday, January 11, 2015 and consist of a 6-day/week, 11-week program to develop strength, flexibility, endurance and mentality to finish the race. There will be three days of running and three days of StrongestMom.com 30-minute workouts. Once a week, participants will receive a FREE 30-minute training class with Niccole.  The StrongestMom.com workouts will be used to cross train, strength train and build stamina.

The half-marathon training program is free. The race entrance fee is $115, the StrongestMom.com fitness videos are $109, plus tax, S&H (can be purchased here) and the StrongestMom.com race day t-shirt is $20. If you have already purchased a StrongestMom.com fitness video, please bring proof of purchase to your first FREE training class. 

StrongestMom.com is committed to making moms the strongest they can be, both mentally and physically.  If you are a mom, or know a mom that wants to finish the Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas Half Marathon on March 22, 2015, email Niccole Maurici at niccole@strongestmom.com. Together, let’s commit to be fit and see our lives change!