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Child Development
The Art of Cooking: Teaching Kids Emotional and Physical Health
Personal Perspective: Children learn from what they see and hear around them.
Posted April 22, 2024 Reviewed by Abigail Fagan
Do you want to ensure your kids will grow up to be happy, successful adults? Many parents do their due diligence researching topics on good parenting styles. And if you are relatively new at parenting, I am sure you have a library of books on your bedside table. I have parents enter my office often stating that they want to do a better job at parenting than their parents did, while others only hope they can parent as well as their parents raised themselves.
Yet there is one area of parenting that I do not feel enough parents pay attention to, but which plays a substantial role in your child’s success and happiness.
This is how much time parents spend in the drive-through of fast-food restaurants versus time spent in the kitchen.
I was never a stay-at-home mom. I cherished my time on maternity leave but quite quickly re-entered my sole practice as a therapist. I loved my work, and I also loved my kids. We, like most parents, wanted the best for our children. The first activity we enrolled them in was swimming, which most consider a life-saving skill. Secondly, we enrolled them in the community soccer league. Apart from these two activities, if they made a specific request for another activity, we checked to see if it fit our schedules and bank account, and if it did, we gladly considered it.
But even in our most challenging times managing kids’ activities, we never lost sight of the importance of feeding them homemade nutritious meals, even if they sometimes needed to eat them in the car. Also, quite often, I would be the one staying home for cleanup while my husband drove them to the game or practice. I would often join them later or stay home with another child. Other times I simply made lunches for the next day or completed other necessary house chores.
It turns out time spent in the kitchen is a compounding asset, whereas the drive-through is a depreciating asset.
Have you ever realized that your kid’s health may be your grandchildren’s health? The benefit of whole, unprocessed foods weighs far above the actual nutrition at the time of consumption. Not only are you ensuring your child’s brain receives the essential vitamins and nutrients to grow a healthy brain, but you are also modelling what is slowly becoming a lost skill in this decade.
That is the art of cooking.
Cooking is a creative, fun art, but lately, it might appear as a waste of time. Why would we spend our ‘free time’ preparing meals when we can pick up food? Or get it delivered in a box with colourful PDFs, providing a step-by-step process and robbing us of even more creativity?
In my view, this is not ‘free time’ but necessary time. It seems ridiculous how some helicopter parents screen their children’s consumption of media because of their children’s emotional health yet pay little attention to what these children put in their bodies.
I often hear the comment that children are resilient and bounce back quickly, emotionally and physically. To some extent, this is true. But as adults, we know how difficult it is to change a habit.
Most families gather and eat a meal three times a day. When and how you eat starting from a young age can create very ingrained habitual behaviours — some would argue addictive behaviours. Thus, if eating is a daily habit, let’s create habits you are proud to teach your children.
Most elementary schools have incorporated topics on nutrition as part of their curriculum. As adults, we often hear and read about the new and best ‘power’ foods for our brains and bodies. It can soon become overwhelming. However, a simpler way of sifting through all the nutritional information is to think of food through the lens of micronutrients rather than macronutrients. In other words, not to think of food as protein, carbohydrates, and fat but as vitamins and minerals. In other words, no food is neither good or bad; what is important is that by ensuring a suitable amount of foods come from plant sources, we don’t need to worry about ensuring essential micronutrients.
As a therapist, I have had many young adolescents and children in my room asking for assistance with anxiety. I have offered many psychological tips and tricks to help manage their anxious brains, but occasionally, I cannot help but ask what they have eaten in the last couple of days. That provides good insight into their diets and their parents’ lifestyle.
In summary, children create habits based on what is modelled for them. We are our children’s mentors, first-line teachers, and educators, and it is our job to teach our children what healthy food is—not only for their physical health but also for their mental well-being. Finally, eating at home as a family is becoming a pastime of generations, contributing to anxious children. Routine is non-existent. These children tend to eat more in front of a device, in a car, and rushing, which often leads to mindless overeating, contributing to overall well-being.
Let’s start reevaluating our dinner routines and ask ourselves honestly whether Michael will become the next David Hart or if Sarah might be the next Cindy Klassen. But perhaps even more importantly, is it our or the children’s dream to excel at water polo or speed skating? Once we ensure it is not our egos driving the ship, ask yourself, is this lifestyle conducive to our family’s needs of raising emotionally and physically sound children?
