Getting the Kids Involved

I have a 2 week meal plan.

I posted a while ago about wanting to try planning a month of meals and have never gotten around to actually making it happen.

I still believe that it’s a good idea and would like to test it out soon.

I am also aware that soon I shall have a newborn and all the fun and sleeplessness that brings.

As a general rule, I expect my children to help out around the house. I like to think that I have a pretty good balance or at the very least that I’m attempting to have a pretty good balance when it comes to allowing my kids to just be kids, but at the same time learning valuable life lessons.

All 3 of the older kids know how to do laundry from picking up the dirty clothes all the way through to putting the clean clothes back into their drawers. This does not mean that they always do their own laundry, nor do they always put their dirty clothes into the dirty clothes hamper, nor do they always put their clean folded clothes into their drawers, BUT….that is the goal and we manage to accomplish this a decent portion of the time.

All three of the kids also know how to cook and while Angelica and Alexandra obviously know more than Jeremy does, I am confident that all three of them could put together a decent meal with very little prompting using both the stove and the oven and having a balance of veggies, carbs and protein in the meal. This is not to say that if we had a box of sugar cereal in the cupboard that they would bypass the sugar cereal to have a well balanced meal….no, they are actually normal kids, BUT, they do know HOW to prepare a balanced, nutritious and delicious meal AND…..they regularly get the opportunity to grow these skills.

Each kid helps out with making meals and with cleaning up after them about twice a week. Even Siah gets in on the action in whatever small ways he can. That kid can help to make a mean batch of pancakes, let me tell you.

I know that with the new baby coming that I will need the kids to pitch in and help out, maybe even more than they are right now…

I don’t want it to feel like I’m “dumping” anything on them when the baby comes and so I’d rather start preparing them now so that when the baby does come….it’s just a normal part of their lives and responsibilities.

I had the three older kids sit down with me on Sunday night and we planned out the next 2 weeks of meals. They each got to pick their favorites and which nights we would make them on and I think that also helps for them to feel invested in this concept of meal planning.

They are constantly asking what’s for dinner anyway and so now we have the next two weeks planned out and listed on our big fridge calendar and the kids are excited to help out on their nights to be able to make their favorite meals.

Here is what we had/have planned for this week

Monday: Homemade Chili and Rice

Tuesday: Chicken and Bean Fajita’s

Wednesday: Beef and Broccoli

Thursday: Almond Chicken and Veggies over Rice

Friday: Roast Chicken with Potatoes & Veggies

Saturday: Nacho’s

Sunday: Bar-B-Que Chicken and Potatoes and Salad

I love that the kids are excited about helping out. It makes such a HUGE difference that they have “buy-in”. I’m looking forward to seeing how this idea plays out.

Again, it’s not that my kids are perfect, and they have their days when nothing seems to go right for them and they melt down regardless of how excited they were at one point, but when they are looking forward to something and it was their choice…..there are a lot less break downs, melt downs and flip outs. And that makes for a much less stressed and a much more peace filled environment.

Do you have a meal plan? Do you involve your kids and if so, how? What seems to work best for you?