When you look at the world map, and you take into account the air quality index of your area, it might not be as green as it used to be. This has become a recurring situation where you need to remain at home with your kids because of some air pollution.
There are also times when our kids get a runny nose or cough and need to stay at home for a while until they recover. So, at that point, they should be able to spend quality time with us and spend it in a healthy environment.
How to Improve the Indoors?
To create a healthier home environment for your children indoors, you could do it through renovations, construction, and minor home improvements. Here are some great things you can do to improve your indoor environment:
- Low volatile organic compounds: Don’t use adhesives, sealants, or paints that have a high concentration of volatile organic compounds, because they can increase the air pollution inside your home.
- Energy efficiency: Make sure there aren’t any air leaks in your home. Get to know what is a blower door test, because with it you’ll be able to seal any leaks that consume the heat and make your home a little less efficient energy-wise.
- Natural materials: Using natural materials eliminates the possibility that there are hazardous adhesives or other chemicals that can affect the environment. Natural stone, bamboo, recycled glass, etc. can be used.
- Ventilation: Try to provide your home with natural ventilation. It’s always good to provide a way for fresh air to enter your home, but still make it so that not too much heat escapes or enters depending on the season.
- Insulation: Don’t use synthetic materials for insulation, use ones that don’t contain formaldehyde or other chemicals that can be harmful. Think about wool, cotton, or natural fiber.
- Lighting: Large windows account for more natural light, skylights and light wells the same. With natural light, you’ll be in a better mood and more productive, and so will your children.
Improving Your Children’s Overall Experience
All of these improvements will eventually lead to the overall experience of the indoors being improved for yourself and your children. Here are some little daily things you can do to make everything better for everybody:
- Clean air: You don’t have to install ventilators around the home to have clean air inside. You can use air purifiers, but the best thing to do would probably be to crack a few windows and let the fresh air in.
- Healthy diet: Eliminate fast food as much as possible. Even though everybody likes a delicious slice of pizza, you should create healthy eating habits for your children in your home. They should know that this is a place where they eat this kind of food.
- Regular exercise: Sometimes, we expect too much of our children, but exercise is very important. Make sure that you provide a safe space for your kids inside where they can run around and have fun.
- Limited screen time: The particular thing you should limit for your kids is screen time, because of the blue light which hinders sleep, and sleep is valuable in all phases of development. They should know that at home, they have other more exciting things to do.
- Encouragement to be independent: There are many things you can do at home, and so can your children, they don’t need or shouldn’t need your help for everything. Encourage them to be independent in your living space.
- Positive examples: For all the things and factors that make a healthy living environment that you can do, you need to set a positive example for your children. Show them that they can do it too.
- Safety measures: Although a healthy environment is not necessarily childproofed to the extent that even adults can’t do something properly, do not leave out childproofing really dangerous things.
Conclusion
To make a healthy living environment for your children in your home, make sure that you’ve used the proper materials and proper guidelines for the air to be fresh and clean, but also think about what you can do to improve the overall experience indoors.
