The Family Dinner
Not only is eating together important, but so is preparing the meal together. Getting everyone involved can be fun and it’s important to teach kids the necessary life skills of cooking. What better way than to do it as a family! We asked a patient of ours to describe how she and her husband involve their five children to prepare dinner (Easter Dinner).
Husband Larry and 13 y/o Danielle are in charge of the mashed potatoes while the mom, Jill, figures the time to prepare the sides and ham. 14 y/o John is the “master of asparagus” so he washes, snips and drizzles it with olive oil and lightly sprinkles it with salt.
11 y/o Nichol helps mom with the green bean casserole. He easily reads the directions, opens the cans, and gets it oven-ready. The 9 y/o, Kiera, is in charge of setting the table while 8 y/o, Jane, is summoned as the retriever; he will fetch anything needed to make dinner a success. He also loves to set the timers!
Jill says, “At a young age we had little stable chairs they could pull up to the counter to see what we were doing, and
of course they wanted to help. We put child friendly dishes where they could reach so they could set the table, and they were happy to be involved.”
At Banister Nutrition, we encourage you to let children help in the kitchen and start teaching them to cook at a young age. Cooking is a great avenue to teach about food, nutrition, planning, organizational skills,
math, creativity and follow-thru of clean up. When a child serves a dish to the family he/she has prepared it is a great self-esteem builder.
Cooking as a family is a very fun activity to share. When starting at a young age children will start a routine of helping and learning how to cook new dishes. This will also help children not eat out as much as they grow older, but
instead use fresh ingredients to cook something at home.
Mom/dad — if you don’t teach your children to cook and eat healthy foods, who is going to? This is an essential life skill for your children and future generations. sy