How to engage your child in the food shop

The weekly shop is part of most people’s weekly routine, and it offers a fun and easy way to engage children in learning about nutrients. Most children learn from hands-on experience, and although taking your kids could make the process that little longer, it could also have huge payoffs in terms of learning opportunities.

In today’s post, we’ll offer some tips and tricks for engaging your little ones in the food shopping and cooking process. 

Let’s go shopping

Have an extra yoghurt pot or aluminum can lying around? How about empty egg shells? Your child can use them to grow their very own indoor herb garden in just a week!

Before you even leave the house, start by planning out your food for the week and try to incorporate your child’s favourite dish into your weekly menu. Grab a pen and paper and excitedly tell your child that today, they have a huge responsibility: they are going to help you with the cooking.

Tell them that first, you need to make a shopping list. While they won’t be able to write this independently, you can always get them to draw pictures of the items they need!

This will be the perfect opportunity to start teaching your child about the kind of ingredients that go into their food. You can make this as fun as possible, offering up silly ingredients and asking them whether they think that goes in or not: “Chocolate in spag-bol? Noooo.”

This will help your child to feel involved and engaged in the process, whilst also feeling that you trust them enough to give them some responsibility.

Choices, choice, choices

As you’re walking around the supermarket, point out the foods that offer important nutrients as well as those that don’t. The key is to advise them that it’s okay to eat any kind of food in moderation, but that we have to be careful we don’t eat too much of anything.

If your child is still young and in the trolley seat, let them pick between certain items. Give them two garlics, for example, and ask which is best, or teach them how to tell if an apple is fresh.

The more excited about the process they are, the more likely they’ll be to learn from the experience.

Get your child involved 

Perhaps the easiest way to get your kids involved is to allow them to help with the cooking, and they’ll often be excited to see this process through to the end. The extent of their involvement will obviously depend on the age and capability of your child, but most children will relish the chance to stir, add ingredients, or do the scrumptious taste test!

Eat me

Before you sit down to eat whatever you have prepared with your child, get them to help you lay the table. If you have a wider family eating with you, make sure to tell them how your child helped with the meal, to make them feel proud for what they’ve done. You want them to know they’ve really helped with the meal!

Nutritious food is essential to growing children, but we know how hard it can be for them to understand its importance. It is especially hard when they are surrounded by easy and tasty but unhealthy choices.

After you’ve all enjoyed the meal, we think that your little one deserves a nice little treat for all their help. We suggest grabbing their favourite game, toy, or film and spending some time doing the activity with them. Hopefully, this will encourage them to learn more with you in the future!