Cooking with Your Kids — Fun or Crazy?

Our next meal makeover from Real Simple’s October 2011 edition is called “I Have No Time to Cook” in the magazine, and “Dinner Makeover: Cooking with My Kids” on the website. I don’t know why they do this, but I’m sure it’s to keep you wasting trees and keeping yourself surrounded by magazine clutter so you keep wanting to read their magazine for inspiration. And frankly their site is VERY difficult to maneuver so I’m not surprised at all! But I digress. This makeover features Carline Louise-Jacques and she’s a working single mom who I suspect is either a Smart or a Fun, but almost all of Real Simple’s tips for her will work for any busy cook, save one.

Real Simple’s main solution for Carline who shares custody of her boys is to get a better repertoire of meals going and to do some advance cooking and freezing for when things are hectic and this is sound advice for all. She’s a busy OB-GYN, so she has to be able to run out at the drop of a hat when a baby is coming. This is why I peg her as a Fun Structure or a Smart Freedom. By and large doctors tend to be logical thinkers and an OB-GYN has such unpredictable hours that only types who live for these kind of interruptions could base a career on it.

But frankly anyone who has a full time job and kids is pushing ALL their natural personality type preferences to the limit, and so we have to be careful when giving advice to make things easier because not all types are going to find the help of children to be easy. And at the end of a long hard day the last thing you want to do is make your life harder.

Real Simple’s suggestions will work great for Caroline who like most Organic Freedoms, Smart Freedoms and Funs can take and actually relish the unpredictable nature of children’s helping abilities, even after a hard day. It’s a great idea for types like her, but it’s one that’s going to be really hard for Classics, Organic Structures, and Smart Structures who thrive on structure and order. And then it also might make some of those types feel guilty for actually being annoyed by their children trying to help. But frankly, they’ve got enough chaos happening when cooking after a hard day’s work, why add the unpredictable nature of children to the mix? I actually know one Classic Freedom who recently bemoaned the whole open kitchen family room idea because of all the noise the kids make while she’s trying to cook.

So. Make meals all at once and freeze them? Great idea for all types pushed to their limits. Find a food that everyone likes that you can make in many different ways like meatballs? Great for all. Have a bunch of quick and easy recipes that everyone likes that you can go to quick? Perfect for everyone. Letting kids start dinner? Only for the unstructured types like Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms. It’s not that Classics, Smart Structures and Organic Structures can’t or don’t want to let the kids join in from time to time, or even teach them to set and clear the table and take on some other kitchen chores. Just know that when you’ve had a busy, hard and difficult day it’s going to be much harder for you to let them help and that maybe you should wait until the weekend or until the children are your grandchildren to let them help!