How to Have Healthy, Happy Children
The 10-Step Plan
By Kristina Murrin
December 2007
BBC Activel
Distributed By Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9781406638936 
192 pages, Illustrated, 6 3/4" x 9 1/2"
$49.50 Paper Original
It seems the health and happiness of our nation’s children has never been more publicly discussed and analyzed than it is today. Daily, we are reminded of how child obesity is on the increase, literacy amongst children is worsening, children are increasingly suffering from depression and how they’re spending far too much time sitting idle in front of the TV or computer games.
With every piece of bad news comes another expert telling you how you’re failing your child and how you should be doing things differently. It’s hard to know, from all this differing advice, what really works and whether these problems really do apply to you and your child.
So how, in this modern age of convenience foods, TV, mobile phones, the internet, computer games, rising crime rates and bad school dinners, do you know exactly what is best and what you really need to be doing to foster a healthy and happy life for your child? How do you protect your child from all these negative influences? How do you know whether you’re doing it right, doing it wrong or not doing it all?
This new book aims to help you sort the facts from the fiction and guide you, step-by-step, along the best and most reliable routes to ensuring your children grow up healthily and happily.
Healthy, Happy Children takes many of the most common parenting questions and, by digging out facts based on the best available science and research, gives you the answers.
The book will encourage you to make a connection between your parenting style and its implications on your child’s present and future. Then, through an easy-to-follow ten-step plan and some simple principles and advice, you’ll discover how small, yet significant, changes can bring huge, immediate and long-term benefits.
Discover all the facts about your child’s diet, what they should be eating, how much sugar and salt they should be consuming, how to pack a good, healthy lunch and all about vitamins and minerals.
Find out why communication, safety and good discipline are all important in your child’s development, how you can encourage them into exercise and help them to find a sport or pastime they can really enjoy. Learn how you may, at times, have to put your own preferences to one side in the best interests of your child.
Other themes covered include sleep; learning; respect and responsibility; love and praise and how you can get more involved in and share your child’s interests. You’ll find information and advice on a huge range of pertinent subjects including limiting TV and computer games; how your smoking may be affecting your child; how much homework your child should be getting; to smack or not to smack and how to manage your anger.
The book covers the wide range of subjects and numerous factors important to your child’s life expectancy and quality of life. There’s no agenda, no strict rules and no rights or wrongs. How to Have Healthy Happy Children simply gives you the facts, advice and guidance you are looking for and allows you the freedom to decide if, and how, you apply them to your own situation.
Author
Kristina Murrin has presented three phenomenally successful series of Honey We’re Killing The Kids for BBC1 and BBC3 where she uses her experience as a leading authority on child development and family psychology to guide parents on how to set their children on the right path. In October of 2005 Kris was appointed by Education Minister Ruth Kelly to The Board of Schools Food Trust in recognition of her work bringing Jamie Oliver's vision for school dinners to the political agenda.She now splits her time between researching and developing new children's products, and working as a government consultant. She is co-author of Sticky Wisdom and What Worries Parents. Kris is married with three children.
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