Children need to drink more water than adults. The effects of dehydration on a child's ability to think has been well studied and researched.
Research shows that dehydration is a common occurrence and even mild dehydration can impact a child's mental functioning. The good news is when given just a cup of water (300ml), a child's memory recall is significantly improved.
Another study showed that children who drank additional water performed better on attention tests compared to those who didn't.
So drinking water can have a positive impact on your child's mental performance and wile we can't make any definitive claims on increasing IQ it seems that like a good health measure to ensure your child is adequately hydrated as developing healthy hydration habits while children are young is a smart thing to do!
How Much Water Should Your Kids Be Drinking?
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academics has the following recommendation for kids:
- Infants: breast milk is enough
- Children 1-3 yrs: 4 cups per day
- Boys and girls 4-8 yrs: 5 cups per day
- Girls 9-13 yrs: 7 cups per day
- Boys 9-13 yrs: 8 cups per day
- Girls 14-18 yrs: 8 cups per day
- Boys 14-18 yrs: 11 cups per day
(I cup = 250ml = 8 fluid ounces)
Tips to Encourage Kids to Drink More Water:
- Total water intake comes from all sources: drinking water, beverages, food with lots of water content. Offer fruits and veggies with a high water content such as apples, cabbage, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, grapes, pears, sweet peppers, watermelon, zucchini. A side of soup with meals can be an easy way to increase water count.
- Encourage your children to drink water regularly throughout the day and be a good example by drinking regularly yourself!
- Use fun drinking straws, special drinking cups and colorful water bottles. Stainless steel or BPA free are the best containers.
- During physical activity, kids need more water, especially in hot weather. Encourage another 1/2 cup for every 20mins of activity.
- It's helpful for kids to make drinking water a part of their daily routine. Encourage 1/2 to a full glass on waking, offer water with meals, snacks, and when they arrive from school, and again before they brush their teeth.
- If your child says they aren't thirsty, encourage them to have a few sips of water. Generally this will encourage them to drink more on their own. Younger kids may need to try water about a dozen times over a two week period before they start to develop a taste for it. You can infuse water with sliced lemons, limes, berries, cucumbers or sprigs of fresh mint. For older kids, you can freeze berries or sliced fruit in ice-cubes, and add these to water for a hint of flavor.
- Consider a reward system to motivate younger kids to drink such as posting stickers on a daily water log which can help (and you) track their consumption amounts. Even consider doing something special to celebrate their new healthy habit, like a trip to the water park or lake perhaps?