A child growing up in a home where family meals are infrequent can lack a vital ingredient: a sense of well-being.
“Frequent family meals are inversely associated with disordered eating, alcohol and substance use, violent behavior, and feelings of depression or thoughts of suicide in adolescents.”
What this finding means is that if you don't make family meals a priority, then your children will become more susceptible to the above ailments. How susceptible they become will depend upon whether or not you regularly share at least one family meal a day.
The more likely you are to eat together, the less susceptible to mental disorders your children become.
Family meals are essential for a child’s mental health and ability to learn well. A secure and content child will be much easier to homeschool than one who is not.
But don’t panic! I’ve put together 9 easy steps to meal preparation to help you put regular meals on the table.
Five or six dinners per week should be enough to keep your children off medication and out of jail. We can take periodic breaks, but breaks should be the exception and not the norm.
The good news is that with the following 9 easy steps, you should have a foolproof plan for establishing family dinners in your home.
1. Plan your menu in advance
We need to decide at the beginning of the week what meals we're going to cook. Take a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper and map out your weekly menu.
Write down the name of the meal you will serve for each of the seven days.
Try to plan easy meals to cook that you serve as leftovers the next day. If you roast chicken one night, you can roast extra chicken and then use the leftover chicken to make a pasta dish the next day.
Cooking two meals you serve for four evenings will help you succeed in getting a family dinner on the table, especially if you're a homeschooling or working mother.
Finding ways to maximize your time is key to “no fail” dinnertimes.
2. Write down each dish for each meal
Using another sheet of paper, you want to list each dish you will serve per meal.
Let's say with the roast chicken you'll serve carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a green salad. You want to write down each dish in your weekly menu. You will need this list for step three.
3. Break each dish into ingredients
As tedious as it sounds, you don't want to skip this step. Do not leave anything out! Even if you think you have the ingredients, you want to write them down.
I cannot count the many times I’ve come home from the store only to find that I did not have an ingredient I thought I had. Can you?
4. Cross off any ingredients you have after you inventory your cupboards
To avoid the above scenario, you want to go through your refrigerator and cupboards to make sure you have every ingredient you think you have.
5. Make Your Shopping List
Once you know check off what you have, write down every ingredient you will need and how much of it you'll need to buy. Now your shopping list should be complete.
To make this last step ultra-easy for you, you’ll find a Shopping Checklist Download at the bottom of this page. It's a Master checklist, courtesy of my friend, Jason Monaco, who's brilliant wife Maureen has never failed to have a meal on the table.
This checklist alone will save you tons of time.
“The kitchen is the heart of the home”
6. Plan to Shop
Now that you've accomplished these steps, you can head to the grocery store with confidence. Whatever time and day you choose to shop, enter your grocery shopping excursion into your daily planner, so you don't run out of food.
Because, if you run out of food, your plan fails.
Try to shop in the morning or evenings when the stores are less crowded. Shopping then will be faster, take less energy, and it'll be kinder on your nerves.
Avoid shopping on Sunday if you can because the food tends to be less fresh. If you know what day the fresh meat and fish come in, you could plan to shop on that day.
7. Have a system in your house, so no one uses any of the ingredients you need for meals
If you have older children or a husband who likes to cook, you want to make sure they understand that you have meals planned and some foods are off limits.
Put your ingredient list on the refrigerator and train them to check it, so they don’t use anything on your list.
Your dinnertime success could mean the difference between a wholesome family and a broken family. Family meals are truly a serious matter!
8. Do some of your prep work ahead of time
When you wait until the last minute to make dinner, you usually have a lot to do, and it can feel more exhausting than it needs to be. One trick that might help you is to prepare some of the ingredients ahead of time.
Make some time during the day to marinate the meat, cut up the vegetables, and wash the lettuce. Employ little helpers to free up some of your time.
You can even prepare foods that will be used in multiple meals by cutting up all of the carrots for the week at one time and so forth.
I don't recommend the latter because some foods begin to lose their freshness and nutritional value after you cut into them; but if it means not having a family meal and cooking, then add this modification to your plan.
Food that’s a little less fresh is better than no food at all.
Prep work is an important step to keep you motivated when your energy starts to wane. If you get some of the prep work done during the day, cooking the meal later feels less exhausting.
9. Enjoy dinner and some good conversation with your family
The last step is self-explanatory. One thing I always marvel at is how much work goes into getting a meal on the table, and how fast our hard work is consumed!
Some Final Tips
If you have children who are old enough to help, by all means, delegate some of the duties around meal time like prep work, setting the table, clearing the table and doing the dishes.
“She who cooks does not do dishes.”
If you have children ten and older (using your discretion, sometimes even younger), they can prepare meals too.
If your husband is willing to do the shopping, it can be a huge help and guarantee you stay within your budget which is great for your marriage too.
No more irresistible chocolate bars and cupcakes sneaking into your shopping cart.
Unless, of course, they're on the list.
☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.
Free Master Shopping Checklist Download.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
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Enroll using the link below and feel confident knowing you have the guidance and support you need to homeschool successfully.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
She is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
“Elizabeth has given us counseling and guidance to help us succeed with our home school planning. When I feel overwhelmed, scared, or lose my confidence, she offers words of wisdom and support.”
— Sherry B., Pittsburg, PA
