Yo yo yo!
Here we go again with another sure-fire way to make your modern dadding run as smooth as a well-oiled wheel bearing!
Thankfully, not all household hacks are for the laundry regime (see posts #1 and #2).
One of the biggest mine fields within the modern dad-iom is a dog fight called dinner time. If your squids are anything like mine, then grub o’clock is generally fraught with all sorts of culinary catastrophes.
The “can I finish this game first!” when the dinner call comes.
The battle for who sits where.
The spilt drinks. Every. Single. Time.
Dropped cutlery, dropped food (accidentally on purpose), dropped guts (they’re animals, I swear).
All this though, pales in comparison to the heartbreak of an uneaten dinner. When you’ve not only spent a small fortune on ingredients but also spent a good hour or two in the kitchen prepping and cooking, it really does cut like a knife when it goes unappreciated, unloved, and ultimately, uneaten.
So, to today’s household hack: the Keep it Separated.
My youngest has what I call food phobia; inherited from his very own father (it took me three decades to overcome). It’s a genuine fear of certain foods, tastes, textures, smells, colours. The look of something used to tell me I wasn’t going to like it. The smell told me the taste. It dogged me so hard that eating food in front of people became a genuine cause of shame and anxiety.
Because of this, I’m happy doing anything in my power to stop dinner time becoming a traumatic experience. I’m going to Keep it Separated (at least until they’re 30!).
Some kids like the meat, some like the veg, some just like the carbs. Rarely though, at least for kids with food phobias, do they like everything, everywhere, all at once.
To make separate bowls may seem like extra work but it’s completely worth the effort if the food gets consumed. Serve as standalone items. Deconstructed but still delicious. Everybody then gets to eat what they like without the fear of contamination from the food that they don’t.
Picture it, you’re cooking spag bol. Pasta, mince, vegies (I like peas, sometimes going even heartier with broccoli or similar). Normally, pre-children, you’d throw everything into the pot and you’re done. Sadly, this doesn’t work with all kids.
Instead, cook the mince and sauce, but keep the veg separate and don’t mix it with the pasta at the end. I know, some would consider this sacrilege. But it’s a compromise. Just put a little sauce in, or none if your kid has a melt down from the slightest speck of red on the pasta!
I’d rather they eat something than nothing at all.
This can be applied to pretty much any dish – curries, salads, even desserts (work with me here).
Trust me. Try it and you’ll never look back (at least until your kids move out at 30 and normal life can begin again).
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