12 Days of Resolutions. 12 resolutions that will help steer you towards a healthier lifestyle, whether you've got weight you'd like to lose or not. 12 resolutions that are each in and of themselves extremely straight forward and doable. Some might involve doing, others simply thinking, and if any of them don't seem useful to you, skip on to the next.Day 5: A New After-school Activity!
There's no debate, exercise is the single most important modifiable determinant of health. The even better news is that there's really no need for skill - plain old walking works great. Of course that doesn't stop any of us parents from schlepping our kids here there and everywhere for exercise "lessons" - soccer, hockey, skating, dance, the list, and the time involved, can sometimes seem and feel endless.
But with all of those after-school sports, is something else suffering?
I'd say so. In fact I'd say that perhaps all of those after school skill building activities are actually decreasing the likelihood of parents teaching their children the single most health conferring skill imaginable - the skill involved in transforming raw ingredients into food. The skill of cooking.
Cooking is quickly becoming a lost art.
With the incredibly fast pace of our lives and world these days, it's no wonder cooking's falling by the wayside. Between chauffeuring kids to their various after school activities, to the electronic tethers we all now wear, time has become more pressured than ever. And of course restaurants of all sorts are everywhere to fill the void.
Resistance isn't futile.
Resolve this year to ensure you teach your children how to cook (and if you yourself don't know how, this is your opportunity to ask them to help you to learn).
Find a simple and easy to follow cookbook (like for instance any of the Looney Spoons' books) and book off one night a week as a family cooking night.
Each week a different family member gets to take a turn picking, prepping and cooking a recipe. Of course parents can and should help, this isn't about division of labour, this is about sharing and learning the love and joy of cooking.
Pick the recipe out on a pre-specified night each week at the dinner table. Ensure you schedule a time to shop for the recipe's ingredients before the day of, and perhaps even prep the ingredients together the night before cooking so that putting things together the next day is a quick snap.
Your kid missing one extra after school activity isn't likely to have any negative long term impact on their health. Their leaving your home not knowing how to cook will, as not only will it lead them into the processed food world's nutritionally bereft embrace, it might lead them to lead their future families into it as well.
In a sense, your family cooking nights? They're for your unborn grandchildren.
(P.S. - Not my wife and kid up above)
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I realized after reading this that the meal I had planned for dinner last night would be perfect for my 5-year-old to help with. It's a salad with whole wheat pasta shells, black olives, steamed broccoli, hard boiled egg, and tuna. She tore the broccoli into pieces by hand and cut up the black olives and eggs with a plastic knife while I cooked the pasta and opened the cans. She had a blast and felt very grown up! Thanks for the reminder - sometimes it's easier to just do it yourself and forget that you are supposed to be teaching! We will have to make this meal more regularly.
ReplyDeleteI started requiring that my young teenagers make one meal per week mostly because I was tired to everyone sitting around while I was doing all the cooking (after working all day). They had to choose their meal in advance so I would be sure to have the ingredients available for them. I still had to put in quite a bit of effort at the start, but they learned how to cook and were proud of their meal.
ReplyDeleteMy oldest daughter took the leftovers of her meal to school the next day and when a friend commented that it looked delicious, my daughter was able to say that she made it herself!
That comment prompted the friend's family to implement the same plan.