Day 19 – How to make a stress-free meal so that your kids can tell you about their latest adventure

Well first off – lets start off by taking a moment to celebrate that we made it through another week! We did it! We are amazing!

If you have been reading my blog, you know that my family celebrates Friday by buying candy at our local corner store. We do this every Friday and have done so for years. We started doing it when my husband moved from a rotating days/night schedule to a Monday-Friday day job.

This week we added allowance into the mix

After my first post about Candy Friday, my friend told me about Lördagsgodis – the Swedish tradition of letting kids eat candy on Saturday. Prior to this I had never heard about Lördagsgodis, but after doing some research learned that it was an initiative started by the Swedish government to help reduce cavities.

The other praise for Lördagsgodis is that it helps teach kids about money as they use allowance to buy their sweets. Traditionally we have been using the “they pick, I buy approach”. But after learning about the benefits of teaching my kids about money – we decided to switch it up and let our kids use their money to buy their treats.

Earning Allowance

My husband and I had been talking about giving our kids allowance for a while but hadn’t made any moves to make it happen. So last week, over family dinner – where we often have our family meeting kind of discussions, we decided to talk to our kids about allowance and candy Friday.

We decided that we would give our kids $5 each every Friday. This money wasn’t tied to any specific new chores or expectations, though we did reiterate that after school we want our kids to:

1. Take their lunches out of their back packs and put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher, put any left over food they want to eat at dinner on the table
2. Take out their agenda and leave it on the counter for us to look at
3. Hang their backpacks, jackets, hats (etc) up in the boot room
4. Set the table for dinner

The other weekly family expectation is that they pick everything up off their floor on Friday before school as our robot vacuum vacuums their rooms on Friday and needs a clear path. This also means that after school on Friday, everything that they lifted off the floor, needs to get put away/put back on the floor afterwards. (I am doing my best to avoid digressing into how much I love my robot vacuum – but it’s hard because that thing changed my life!).

I know that giving kids allowance and what they may have to do or not do to get it is a big parenting topic and one that I am not qualified to advise you on. So, if you are interested in learning more about it, I found this blog helpful. It goes through some different ways to teach kids about money and helped me identify the system that felt right for our family.

$5 in hand and off to the store

When my kids got home from school yesterday, my husband was home but I was still out. He told me that the kids got home, did their list of “get home duties” and my husband gave them each a $5 bill.

When he started putting on his shoes to walk with them to the corner store, they turned to him and said that they thought they were going on their own. “Oh!” he said, surprised.

Clearly something about our allowance discussion had flipped a switch in their heads and in their minds this $5 meant they were going independently.

I can’t tell you what would have happened if I had been home, because I wasn’t there. I will tell you that our kids have never been to the store by themselves before. My list of concerns goes something like:

1. What if they drop their money?
2. What if they pick out something more than $5?
3. Do they know about taxes?
4. What if they drop a slurpee or something in the store?
5. What if….?

My husband said he had the same concerns, but after double checking with them he said it was clear that they wanted to do this and it was part of the experience for them. So he let them go!

And they came back! Candy in hand, change in hand, happy, excited and proud. Don’t mind me while I get verklempt thinking about my big boys!

Dinner time!

In part due to the appetite dampening effects of large amounts of candy on Fridays and my need to celebrate, I always give myself permission on Friday’s to do something quick and easy. My husband had planned our Friday dinner – which included boiled hot dogs for my kids and BBQed sausages for him and I (or whoever wanted one). If you have been reading my blog, then you already know how much me and my family love hot dogs!

What did they eat?

My one son asked for 1 hot dog on a plain bun and another hot dog on the side. Through out the meal he decided he wanted to try a sausage too. He tried a few pieces, liked it and ate 1 full sausage. He ended up leaving half his hot dog on a bun.

My other little guy wanted a hot dog on a bun with ketchup and ate two. He also finished his sandwich from lunch.

So what?

There are probably not many families out there that would struggle to get their kids to eat hot dogs (or something equally as “unhealthy” for dinner). And, you know what, that’s exactly why we should choose this menu every so often.

As a working parent, it is nice to come home to a meal that cooks in under 20 minutes, requires no prep and the whole family enjoys.

I was amazed to hear about my kids adventure to the store and I felt so proud of them! I wanted to hear every detail about their journey and I loved doing it while we ate together.

What amazing things are your kids up to these days? Do your family meals help create time and space for them to tell you all about it? If yes – amazing! If not, keep reading, hopefully this blog will give some ideas on how to turn things around.

Do you comments or questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out by commenting below or sending me an email at contact@kellypicard.com.

Thanks for reading!