Teach Your Child Cough and Sneeze Techniques

As parents, we try our best to teach our children all we can. We teach them many things by talking to them, reading books, or using audio-visual aids. However, children best understand and learn from the examples set by others.

I think that the only way to teach is by example, as children will more easily follow what they see you do than what you tell them to do.

Gloria Estefan

We can tell children thousands of times that they should wash their hands with soap before they eat, but unless they see you doing it yourself, they will not follow it.

As parents, we want to keep our children safe. One of the best ways to do that is by teaching them the right techniques for coughing and sneezing. When kids learn the cough and sneeze techniques, they help prevent the spread of germs and illnesses like the flu, the common cold, and even more dangerous ones like COVID and swine flu.

If your child is coughing or sneezing, please take the following precautions:

• If the child is very sick, please do not send him to school/play.
• If he is coughing or sneezing, keep a pack of tissues with him and instruct him to use them while coughing and sneezing. He can blow his nose into the tissues and discard them in the dustbin.
• After disposing of the tissue, please ask your child to wash his hands thoroughly with soap and water or use a hand sanitizer.
• Handkerchiefs are not advisable because germs settle and multiply on the surface of the handkerchief. The next time you use the handkerchief, the germs will spread to the environment.
• If he does not have tissues, ask him to cough or sneeze into the lower arm, as seen below: