Family Fun with Food

Spending regular quality time with your children, especially when you give them important parts or tasks within the activities, can result in your children generally feeling less stressed, more secure and confident in who they are, and more cooperative.  Children naturally want quality time with parents to fulfil their healthy need for attention.

A lot of activities can happen around food, as we have to eat to live!  So this is a wonderful way to spend more quality time with your kids.  Here are some fun ways to make food and the preparation of it fun for the whole family. 

Eat dinner as a family – in interesting locations!
Eating together is one of the easiest ways to spend time together as a family.  We all have to eat dinner at some point, so trying to get the family together allows for quality time where everyone can get a chance to talk about their day.  Generally it is a good idea to have the meals at the dinner table, but every now and then it makes for a nice change to spice up the location.  Have an outdoor picnic after a walk or game with the kids.  You can even throw an indoor picnic – having variety in your family life can bring you closer together as a family!

Present the meal in a fun way
For younger children it is fun to present food as a game or a play-filled experience.  By cutting the food into unusual shapes, adding smiley-faces to certain foods, cutting foods into mini hearts and stars, or even giving foods silly names helps kids eat a greater variety of foods.

Get the kids involved in the cooking
If your children become involved in choosing and preparing meals they'll be more interested in eating what they've made.  Take them grocery shopping and let them choose some of the foods.  And even if they are young, let them help with the preparation.  Just being in the kitchen with you stirring a pot will make the younger ones happy.  As they get older they can have more and more responsibility within the preparation.  Once in a while look for some kid-friendly, fun recipes on the internet with your children, for them to make with you.  The Zucchini and Corn Pirate Boat recipe below is a good example.

Make a game of reading food labels
Reading labels is an important activity that everyone should be able to do.  If the kids learn to read labels from a young age they will learn what is good for their health and be more conscious of what they eat. While shopping, make sure they check the fat and sugar contents of their choices and let them decide whether it should be part of the menu.

Introduce an international dinner night
Once every couple of months pick a country that all of you are interested in and would like to learn more about.  Make foods that are characteristic of that country.  You could even make it into a learning experience where each family member brings a fact about the country and you all dress up in clothes that are commonly worn in that country!

Film a cooking show!
Cooking shows are very popular these days and with technology becoming so much easier, this is a fun activity to do with the kids.  Pick out a recipe that you would like to try and pretend that you are hosting your own cooking show!  If the whole family participates you will have a lot of laughs watching the video later!

It’s all about having fun with the family!  And since food is such an important part of our lives it only makes sense to have some fun activities around food to bring the family closer together.  Enjoy!

Kim Hofmann RD(SA)
Phone: 021 674 4666
Cell: 084 206 2715
E-mail: kimh.rd@mweb.co.za
Website: www.nourishdieticians.co.za

Harfield Village Online