Cooking with my children has brought something unexpected. It’s brought joy back into my home, and it can for you too. What started out as a way to offload a tiring chore, has grown into a time to connect with and teach my children. I actually look forward to it, and they’ve stopped complaining, so I’ll take that as a good sign.
At first, I gave them the chore but realized it wasn’t something they could do alone – if I wanted to eat well. So I started helping them with meal planning and preparing, then it grew into creating more dishes. The thing that shocked me most, is that they listen to me (for the most part) and I am actually teaching them. You see, for the better part of Covid at home, I focused on tutoring them in areas they were weakest, handwriting, conceptual math skills and reading. My job loss created lots of time to take teacher training, and that is what I did, then practiced on my children. Plus, I figured why not help them when now I know-how. The complaints were loud, even paying them didn’t work. Near the end of 4 months, with school starting, I stopped working with them. I finally accepted that it doesn’t work for me to teach my own kiddos. It hampered the relationship with all my children. Better if I work with other people’s kiddos. My youngest even noticed how different (much nicer) my voice is with my students vs. with them, so have been working on that too. The frustration was apparent.
To my surprise, cooking with my children has become a time of learning, teaching, connecting, and growing. They seem to feel proud of their accomplishments and appreciate the compliments on their cooking. It’s renewed my interest in cooking and I enjoy cooking again. And they are learning life skills.
I don’t know how long this will last, but I’ll take any time with my teenagers that brings joy and connection. On the menu, tonight is a surprise pot roast, veggie stir fry, and kale chips. Yummy…