Preventing Back Pain in Kids
By Sara Butler
Children are so full of promise – they have their whole lives ahead of them! As a parent, you want to set your child up to have the brightest future possible, and that future hopefully doesn’t include back pain. Here are a few tips to help keep your child free from back pain and teach them good spinal health habits along the way!
Keep Them Active!
Your child is growing up in an era of electronic entertainment. When you were a kid you probably stayed outside until the sun went down, but many children today don’t get enough time outside and not enough exercise. Helping your child to remain active can ensure:
- They maintain a healthy weight – This will help them to not only be healthier overall but also put less stress and strain on their little spines.
- They build muscle – Healthy and strong muscles will help to support the spine, and strong abdominal muscles will help keep the spine stable too.
- They don’t get aches and pain from sitting at school – You should encourage your child to take a few minutes between classes to stretch and move around. Maintaining one posture for too long will eventually lead to back pain.
Proper Posture Police
It may be one of the most cliché things you do as a parent, but instilling the importance of proper posture in your child is really important. Proper posture isn’t something that people just automatically do; you have to teach good posture.
Show your child the right way to sit, stand, walk, and lift. When they sit at their desk in school they should have both feet on the floor, their backs should be straight and they should try not to slouch.
When they’re playing video games or using a tablet, they should try to hold the device in front of them so they don’t have to look down. Hanging your head forward for long periods can lead to stress and strain on the neck, shoulders and upper back – a sure fire way to create painful symptoms and lasting problems.
How Your Chiropractor Can Help
Chiropractic care is safe and effective for people of all ages, so your child should be seeing the chiropractor just like you do. Your chiropractor can help to reinforce some of these ideas about proper posture and exercise, and they might even have a few more ideas to encourage overall health in your child too.
So, let your chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic be your partner in raising children with no back pain in their bright futures!
