There is no doubt there is a real loss of cooking skills amongst our generation and as a result, our own children’s generation.

The busier life gets, the more we rely on processed packaged foods to get us by.

Which not only means we are missing out on nourishing our families properly, but also that we are slowly losing the art of cooking simple, delicious meals from scratch and passing this lifelong skill onto our children.

In 1984 we made 72 percent of our dinners from scratch, but by 2008 that number dropped to 57 percent …

What will happen with cooking in the future?

And all the while obesity is on the rise. And increasingly, we are seeing more illness and disease creeping in earlier and earlier with our children.

Getting kids in the kitchen goes a long way to improving children’s health and wellbeing both now and in the future.

I would love to see cooking classes become compulsory again in high schools, and I am thrilled my son has elected to do food tech at high school as he delights in food creation, presentation and eating! 

In fact, all that time in the kitchen with me has meant my kids have turned out to be a massive help when it comes to cooking, often helping out with all the meals of the day which substantially lightens my load. We have a good time in the kitchen together too.

The school holiday’s provide a great opportunity to embrace your kids in the kitchen so why not give it a go with this round up of the best healthy recipes to make with your kids these school holidays. 

By teaching your kids to cook you’ll also be …

• boosting their maths and science skills
• fostering their social skills
• teaching them about healthy food and good eating habits
• building responsibility and independence
• creating great memories and conversation
• improving their reading and comprehension
• taking inadvertent steps to unfuss their fussy eating
• and learning a skill that will benefit them for life by keeping them well and happy, and will also one day pass this skill on to their own children

Here’s to our budding chefs changing the future of health and well being.

Let’s get their health back on track.

Bren x

Connection has been something he as craved, but has found difficult to find outside of his family. Sometimes connection is even hard to find within your own family, but as parenting author and educator Maggie Dent says, “the great memories of our childhoods play an important role in our outlook on life….building memories that last occurs simply when we repeat significantly positive experiences“.

Through the ritual of cooking, a major point of connection for Orlando and I (I do not, and will not, play golf!) is the kitchen. For us, it’s a place where we can talk about life’s problems and stresses and fritter them away into the ether, to replace them with a sense of peace, joy and fun.

In the kitchen it’s just me, my son … and food!

Pic: Banana-Choc Cinnamon Icecream from Real Food For Hungry Teens

Everything just feels all right when we are in there together. It’s our own little club where we can relate and speak on the same level, try new approaches and create different taste sensations. I have the extra sense of smell, but he definitely has the highly evolved taste buds!

Sure, we’ll disagree on recipes from time to time (and can’t he put his foot down?!), but for the most part, our time spent together here is a very grounded and deep.

Food and nutrition has been an important part of my life since before he was born. I suppose it’s only natural that some of this will rub off on him, and he has certainly grown up to embrace my love of good food.
Pic: Hearty Black Bean and Sweet Corn Quesadilla

He trusts me enough to tell me when he’s indulged and made some poor choices (which happens more often as he gets more freedom and autonomy), even though he knows I won’t be that happy about it. I guess he feels he can confide in me because he knows the reason I won’t be happy is simply because I love him. I think he trusts me because he doesn’t feel judged, or that he’s let me down.

I do my best not to create fear around food, and the key (to me) is to not be judgmental. Who needs it, right?! It’s about teaching the right lessons and our kitchen experiences allow opportunities for explaining why good, real food is so beneficial. I find that accentuating the positives naturally draws us to positive habits. In doing so, I’m comfortable that I have given him the right set of tools to make the right choices, and can trust him to do so, even if he goes through the inevitable period of rebellion.

My son is big, bustling, sporty, developing and HUNGRY and needs as much nourishment as he can get. It’s critical for his development, but even more important is making sure it’s the right kind of nourishment – the kind that his body requires for sustainable, long term development.

So, this is why we decided to write a recipe book together. And it’s one of the most important things I’ve created in my work because my son and I created it together.

I know I will cherish the memory of this experience forever, as well as all our special moments in the kitchen. I have a feeling he will too.

When I tell him that one day his future wife will thank me for teaching him how to cook, and how lucky his own kids will be having a Dad who knows how to nourish them, he shoots me his proudest grin.

REAL FOOD FOR HUNGRY TEENS is the eBook we created together. We hope you love all the recipes and maybe even create beautiful long-lasting kitchen memories together.

About the eBook: Created by certified health coach, Brenda Janschek, and her hungry and creative son Orlando, this eBook contains a rich variety of over 20 nourishing, real food recipes designed to satisfy the tastebuds and growth requirements of developing teenagers.

Teenage years place a great burden on the body as it transforms into adulthood. These tasty recipes are designed to help our growing kids through this period of physical, emotional and intellectual upheaval with food that actually supports their accelerating growth, without simply resorting to a loaf of bread at each sitting.

You can purchase it here.

She had even chosen a topic that had been dear to his heart at the same age – dinosaurs!

Back then, as he had narrated many a time to a spellbound young girl thirsty for knowledge, he loved dinosaurs so much he had wanted to become an archaeologist. His sister even wanted to be a ‘digger lady’ to help him uncover the treasures buried by the sands of time.

Dinosaurs were it. Huge and ferocious, old and mysterious, and some a little dopey (like the Stegosaurus, or modern-day ‘Brother-o-saurus’). Daddy’s pipe cleaner versions of skeletons of ancient monsters such as Triceratops and T-Rex were famous (within the household, alas …), and they were sure to bring gasps of wonder from the assembled throng of Year Twos.

That was until Daddy was called upon unexpectedly to rescue Mr 9’s cricket practice  – cricket practice! – from the work commitments that had enveloped other fathers like the tentacles of a corporate squid.

Daddy wouldn’t be able to fulfil his promise that day, and no explanation of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few was going to cut it. Nor was the idea that we still had the weekend. Kids live in the now, and this was NOW!

As Daddy trudged off with a heavy heart, Mrs Chopped Liver (me) had some thinking to do. I knew that the art of distraction was a time honoured technique that was almost guaranteed results, but sometimes the transformation of a child’s mind from heart-set plans to a new activity wasn’t complete without a little more mental manouvering. Anything less than full focus on my part was fraught with danger, and I wanted to avoid Miss 7-osaurus turning the house into Jurassic Park.

And that’s when inspiration hit.

Spending time with the kids has been my developing mantra for next year, but starting now. However, while quality time and complete focus is one aspect of this (and rich with double-sided rewards), I remembered another technique we had used in the past, which worked beautifully, but which, as all parents know, can get blindsided by life’s demands like any good intention.

Child-centred play is a step up again from a parent giving their child full and undivided attention. The idea is not to ‘instruct’ the child, but to have them direct the play (or activity) completely for periods of 10-30 minutes.

This is harder than it sounds, because there are times when you either don’t feel like partaking in a particular activity, but have to run with it (watching my husband play along with craft-based play is a comedy all of its own). Even more difficult is catching your ‘helpful suggestions’ before they escape from your lips. Zip it! They’re running the show.

While my episode was an impromptu one, the best way to engage in child-directed play is to set a time for it, daily or otherwise. It can be surprisingly difficult to slot in regularly, but just watch them naturally fit into a timetable and crave it! In this way, you are giving your child positive and good-quality attention when you are able, making them less likely to demand it when you can’t.

It’s about stimulating the child’s creativity, sense of autonomy, leadership and teamwork all fused into one. The boost to their self-belief and esteem are quite striking, and who doesn’t want to see their child thinking confidently for themselves, making and rationalising decisions and even calculating the pros and cons of them?

Pretty soon we found ourselves making Orange Poppy Seed Cake, with Miss 7 driving the bus – collecting ingredients, measuring, calculating portions, pouring and stirring (with me adding advice only when asked, and only in a way that made her come up with the answer herself).

The result was a delicious cake that the whole family loved, and which also gave me breathing space for little-lunch snacks for school.

Child-centred play is a positive and rewarding relationship experience for both parents and children, generates a natural warmth and affection, and makes them feel ultra-special. And they kind of are, aren’t they?

Bren x

Perhaps he is just more cunning than I give him credit for, but he really is as useless as a chocolate teapot!

On the other hand, my little helpers, Mr 9 and Miss 7, are more than happy to help out with the cooking. True, it’s a far easier sell when there’s a cake bowl to lick,  but Mr 9 is on board whether it’s a savoury or sweet concoction. I call him ‘my little chef’, which prompts him to ask if he can go get a job in a restaurant and start making ‘real’ money. Mmm, child labour … kids have rights too! You have no idea how it warms my heart to see him collecting chicken bones (unprompted) so I can use them for stock.

Miss 7’s ears prick when ‘baking’ is mentioned. She is also very concerned about her memory and requests I feed her more fish (and now chia seeds!).

They even know the ingredients and proportions that go into making a healthy smoothie, muffin, or biscuit. It has now reached the point where they are actually schooling my husband on kitchen basics.

The other day I was greeted with the look of a (more than usually) stunned mullet after asking hubby to separate the egg whites and yolks. The look on his face suggested this was not one of his underhanded excuses, but was a look of genuine bewilderment. He couldn’t have looked more confused if I had asked him to recall something I said two minutes ago.

Now, hubby is no stranger to egg-related incident and controversy, so while this was not a surprise (in a kind of surprising way), it did add an element of humour to the situation.

One person who I knew could help was Mr 9 – “Stand aside, Dad, let me show you how it’s done”. He may have said “Muppet”, but I can’t be sure …

“Make sure you ….”, hubby couldn’t help himself, before Mr 9 interjected with the talk to the hand movement.

“Ah … ah … watch and learn.”

I am so proud of my little chefs. I love knowing that they are well on the way to looking after themselves. And, loving it!

So here’s my tip: resist the temptation to shoo them out of the kitchen in the interest of time. After all, time with your kids is a precious experience, particularly when you are imparting life skills such as cooking, sharing, creating, measuring, and how to best nourish themselves.

You can be sure they’ll never forget it.

If  you want to read more about the benefits of having your kids in the kitchen check out my blog “What’s Cooking Kids”

Bren x