In our family we take Friday seriously. I not exactly sure why I love Friday so much, but I have to tell you it is hand downs my favourite day of the week.
Here is how we celebrate!!!
Our Friday celebrations center around changes in our menu planning. These changes make my kids happy and me even happier (because I get one extra snooze on the alarm!):
- Cold cereal for breakfast
- Easier lunches – sometimes a lunchable, or a thermos of ramen noodles
- The easiest dinner we can scratch together – it’s often scrambled eggs and toast
One other way we celebrate…
I almost tried to hold back on you guys and not tell that we do CANDY FRIDAY in this house. There is definitely some shame associated telling people about it on the internet.
I am worried that you must be thinking in one week this family has McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets, Hot Dogs and Donuts?
We started Candy Friday a few years ago. The when my husband’s job schedule changed from shift work (a rotation of days/nights/evenings and weekends) to a standard Monday to Friday pattern. After years of him missing evenings and weekends, that shift meant that we all got to spend more time together and in came our Friday Celebrations.
But (from my two hats) here are the reasons Candy Friday works for us:
| Dietitian Hat | Mom Hat |
|---|---|
| – It gives my kids a chance to control their own food environment by making choices about what they eat when offered a variety of treat foods | – It makes my kids happy |
| – It teaches my kids how to incorporate treat foods into a weekly meal plan | – Any time they ask for a treat midweek, I get to tell them to wait until Candy Friday |
| – It helps them stay in touch with their hunger and fullness cues because it avoids giving them the impression that they have to fill up on healthy foods first and then only eat candy after you stop being hungry | – the often are less hungry at dinner time (due to the candy) and so I feel less pressure to make a beautiful meal |
| – It gives them a chance to practice going to the corner store and pick out their own food so that it is less appealing, overwhelming for them when they start going with their friends as adolescents | – It helps set the tone for a happy, family weekend because my kids are in a good mood and so I am! |
So what was for dinner?
Well, with the pressure off (ready the candy section above if you don’t know why!) and a fridge full of left overs, dinner last night was a breeze.
We had the leftover greek giant beans and rice, spinach salad with mandarins and candied nuts, and leftover ramen for their lunch thermos. I also had some leftover frozen mango in the fridge, which was now melted (and therefore no longer appealing to my children), so I made a quick batch of mango muffins using a new recipe. They were pretty good.
My one little guy was feeling pretty hungry and promptly filled his plate with every yellow and beige food item on the table. You can see that I let him fill his own plate, because you probably noticed that some of his ramen didn’t actually make it to the plate. He ate everything – except the rice.
My other little guy only wanted the muffins – and I think he probably ate 3 or 4 but to be honest, I wasn’t counting. His plate finished empty, since he just kept grabbing muffins and chatting happily about this day until he told us he was full and brought his plate to the dishwasher.
So what?
Well a work-week’s worth of family dinners is making it abundantly clear to me that our family dinners are far from “ideal” or “perfect” if serving Healthy Foods was my only goal. But, honestly, it isn’t. My goal is to give my kids a chance to explore the food environment that we are all exposed to in a way that helps them build the skills they will need to navigate these environments in the future.
I do the best I can to ensure that they are offered a variety of healthy foods at every meal and I also welcome unhealthy foods at our dinner table as they arrive – though I don’t seek them out. Somehow they just seem to arrive. How have your family meals been going this week? Leave a comment or send me a message. I would love to hear about it!
4 thoughts on “Day 5 – Happy Friday”