The Joy of Cooking with Children While Camping
Are you a mom who winces at thinking about planning all of the food and meals for a weeks worth of “vacation?” Vacation, what vacation many may ask? For moms, camping is not necessarily a vacation, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially with meals.
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Unless we really enjoy camping, we do it for our children and husband if that is something that they love. But as moms we can use the time to slow down and spend time with our children whether on a hike, around the campfire, or making meals outside and enjoying them together.
Would you look forward to camping more often or at all, along with all of the food planning, shopping and preparation if it brought you closeness with your children and created bonds and great memories with your whole family?
Whether you are a working mom or a stay at home mom, whether you have 1 child or 8, cooking together can create a closeness between you and your children.
Children are such an important part of your family and they need to know that they are an important contributor to your family. Being able to help Mom and Dad helps them to feel important, valued and significant. Inviting your children to help you and be close to you as you work and cook blesses them and invites them to be apart of a significant part of your life.
7 Steps to Having Your Children Help You Cook While Camping
1. Presence - If you want them to help you in the kitchen (or with the laundry, cleaning, etc.) when they get older, encourage their “helpfulness” now when they are one and two and want to help, even if things take longer, make it fun for them. Keep them helping. Keep them near you as they want to be near you and help you. Keep them in your presence. If you keep them near you now and part of your daily activities they will want to be nearer to you as they grow older.
2. Patience - There are many times that I want to just make the meal alone as I am tired and need a little quiet time or just want to go faster and don’t have the patience at the moment. There may be a small place for those times, but we as moms have such a great opportunity to encourage and grow our children as well as teach them a very helpful skill, we must choose to take advantage of the time regardless of our weariness.
Children can also be messy or demanding as they help in the camp kitchen. They want to be able to do most everything to “help” and it takes great patience sometime to encourage them, and let go and let them do things to help you. Have patience to tell them what the ingredients are. Have patience to show them how to measure and let them measure (sometimes they miss as they aim for the bowl). Have patience to allow dinner to take longer than normal because of their “help.”
3. Preparation - Children love to help! Sometimes I get overwhelmed when all of my children want to help me cook or bake at the same time and then there can be bickering and the time ends up being more stressful than fun. One way to curb this, especially while camping, is to give each one a different job while preparing and cooking the meal depending on their ages.
Another thing that you can do depending on the length of your trip is to assign each child a set day or meal to help you prepare the meal(s).
Having jobs and helping with meals can also help with idleness. There are times when children play so nicely and times when they are idle. Having significant things to do around the camp helps to curb the idleness.
One thing I have tried to do with recipes that we post, is to highlight things that children can do to help you with the meal. Each child can have a part if they would like with the preparation and making of the meals.
4. Plan - It would be fun to invite your child to help you plan meals for “their day helping you” as you are preparing for your trip. You will be teaching them how to plan a menu, what kinds of foods are needed for different meals, this gives them ownership for the time that they will be helping you and will be even more excited to help.
5. Play - Have fun with your children. Choose to laugh with them, be playful with them, talk with them, and share with them as you cook together. Speak words of blessing to them as you cook. For example: This is wonderful to cook outdoors and so fun to do it with you…, I appreciate when you…, What did you most enjoy about our hike today…
6. Persistence - Things may not go smoothly at first or it may take a lot longer to cook and prepare a meal. Be persistent and know that what you are doing with and for your children is a good thing and soon they will be a huge help to you in the kitchen. Don’t give up. It will be a great reward for you and for your child as you persist in cooking together.
7. Perspective - Your children may be young now, but as they grow they will learn valuable skills that will help them as they grow into adults. Looking back in 20 years, you will NEVER regret spending the time with your children no matter how tired or hard it is in the moment. Cooking together cultivates responsibility in your child and teaches them lifelong skills. Most of all, you get work done that has to be done, and you get to spend some special time with your child/children at the same time.
Things do take longer with really little ones or when you are first teaching your children, but the time spent with them and the training will pay off and is worth the time, effort and the closeness that cooking while camping brings.
What have you done to keep your children close to you and help you with meals, especially while camping?
