Mothering Corner

 I let my kids fix their meals once in a while, and I would like to share how I do this with them.

Out of the blue, my boy wanted “to play with his food” last night, but I didn’t prepare any ingredient for him. Thus, I asked him to draft out his idea, and I promised him that I would fix one for him the next day. If you would like to get your children involved in decoration their meals, try to get them to visualize how they want the lunch box to be decorated. If they are too young for visualization, you may ask them to draw a picture first, like what I would usually do with my kids.

My boy’s drawing his favorite train.

After that, you might have to spend some time brainstorming with them about which food can they use in their lunch boxes. Try to go for colors like cheese for yellow, carrot for orange, ham for light pink and etc. Some times, I would let my kids pick the food from the fridge and freezer, and I will prepare the food ingredients according to our “discussion”. If you don’t have time for that on the same day, you can always keep their drawings away and do this during your free time. I guess I can put my kids drawings in art storage soon as they are so many pending food ideas! LOL!

I try not to pack process food every day, and I prefer to pack more fruits for my kids. I don’t worry much about those tiny details of ham, fish cake and artificial crab meat as I only use them in very tiny bits.

Try to get your kids involved in cutting the bread with cutters, and also decorating the food, if he’s old enough to use the tweezers. Just make sure that their hands are clean before they start off with the food! Rice molds are great for kids too, and it’s not too hard to form the rice balls, if you have some fancy rice molds. If you are preparing the food decoration a night before, try to wrap the food ingredient in cling wrap and refrigerate them in air-tight container. So far, I haven’t tried refrigerating rice balls as I hardly pack rice for after school tea.

For older kids, you can get them involved in packing food into their lunch boxes. Silicon cups and food dividers will be great to separate different types of food. For example, if you don’t want the bread to be moist by fruits, try to place the bread in silicon cup first. Then, add in the decorative details you and your children have prepared. Even if the end result might not be exactly the same as their drawings, it’s still a great achievement for kids.

My kids will have a satisfying smile on their faces if they take part in preparing their meals. Nonetheless, cleaning up the after mess can be quite tedious, if you don’t have an extra pair of hands at home! But it’s fun, so give it a try.