7 Ways to Help Kids Build Healthy Relationships with Food Without Cooking or Eating
At Culikid, we encourage healthy food relationships by creating pleasurable experiences around food and encouraging participants to make their own food choices. Although much of our work is centered around cooking and eating, we also focus on other activities, like the ones listed below, that strengthen this relationship. These activities are helpful for all kids, but especially for those who may not be ready to cook, have difficulty eating, or who have had negative experiences around food in the past.
1. Play a Scavenger Game in Your Kitchen
Playing a scavenger game in the kitchen is fun, but also teaches a child where items are located. This game also encourages children to interact with food and appliances they may not normally interact with.
To play this game the adult asks the child to look for a specific item in the kitchen and then the child uses their senses (ex: eye sight, touch, etc.) along with problem solving skills to figure out where that item is. If the child would benefit from having visual directions, you can check out our two free scavenger hunt printouts below:
Download free kitchen scavenger hunt #1
Download free kitchen scavenger hunt #2
2. Visit the Farmer’s Market
Visiting the farmer’s market can be an exciting and sensory rich experience for everyone. Being outdoors surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar foods often inspires visitors to experiment with new ingredients. Asking your child to choose something “new,” “fun looking,” or “interesting” at the farmer’s market gives them a fun task where they can tap into their decision-making skills, flexibility, and curiosity with food. Another great thing about farmer’s markets is that the people who are selling are usually excited to talk about where the food comes from, how to use it in a recipe, and more. Try encouraging your child to ask questions to the vendors, I’m sure it will make their day!
If you’re local to the NYC area, you can check out Grow NYC’s website to find a farmer’s market near you.
3. Have Your Child Choose a Recipe
If you were to ask your child “what do you want for dinner?” they will probably recite their favorite meal without thinking. But, what if you were to give them a cookbook with inviting photos or have them look through a youtube cooking channel and then ask that same question? They might still choose their favorite meal, or they might feel inspired to try something different. If your child enjoys this task, consider expanding upon this interest by finding new cooking videos or borrowing cookbooks from the library together. To get started, have them check out Culikid’s cooking channel. Our chefs break down recipes into simple tasks which often encourages our young viewers to try cooking on their own.
4. Teach Them How to Write a Grocery Shopping List
Before you go ahead and write a grocery list for this week, consider encouraging your child to take on this responsibility instead. To do this, start by explaining why people use shopping lists in the first place (ex: don’t want to forget anything). Then, create a list with your child in whatever way that best suits their learning. For example, some kids will be able to write a list on paper, some on a phone or tablet, while others will do best by creating a shopping list using photos. Once you have all the ingredients jotted down, ask your child if they want to use check marks or cross out the items once they find them at the store. Now here is the hardest part…make sure your child puts the list in their pocket before they leave the house! Remembering to bring a shopping list to the supermarket is just as important as learning how to write one!
5. Show Them How to Find Groceries at The Supermarket
Adults who go to the same supermarket each week often take for granted how overwhelming and complicated grocery shopping is. A supermarket is a giant store with thousands of items and almost every single item is packaged with different colors, text, and images. The amount of visual scanning, problem solving, emotional regulation, and flexibility that is required while grocery shopping is extensive! Our kids often accompany adults passively during this experience, maybe spotting their favorite snack here or there or simply just watching adults shop. However, grocery shopping is an independent life skill, and teaching children how to do it effectively can save a lot of stress in the long run. There are many ways you can teach a child how to shop at the supermarket, but at Culikid we like to focus on a few areas. This includes pointing out key visual elements of the space like the signs above that list ingredients and the fridges that hold cold items. Pointing out these elements is helpful because they can be used when trying to figure out where an item is. Other areas we focus on include showing how food is grouped together (ex: pointing out how the cake mix is going to be next to the frosting and sprinkles). Lastly, going over what to do when you can’t find an item is helpful so the child feels prepared to solve problems on their own. This might include knowing how to identify the store employees, knowing what questions to ask employees, knowing how to navigate the space in an efficient manner, and looking up ingredients beforehand so they know what text, colors, and images to scan for. Culikid provides grocery shopping support services and can help your child navigate these challenges. Feel free to reach out to us at info@culikid.org if interested.
6. Play a food sensory game
Most food has some sort of sensory quality that can be enjoyed before eating (ex: smell, texture, etc.). Exploring the sensory qualities of food through a game can be fun and educational. One way to play with food is to have your child close their eyes while they touch and smell different foods and try to guess what it is. Foods that are perfect for this game include fresh and dried herbs (ex: mint, rosemary, thyme), citrus fruits (ex: lime, oranges, etc.), pasta (ex: bowtie, penne, etc.), and hard vegetables (ex: pumpkin, squash, etc.). To take this game up a level, have your child manipulate the food in order to enhance the sensory quality. This could include rubbing herb leaves between their fingers, cutting into a citrus and smelling the difference between the inner flesh versus the skin, and putting dry pasta into a container and hearing the sound it makes when they shake it.
7. Encourage Them to Create a Menu For a Restaurant
If your child loves to pretend and think about what they are going to be when they grow up, then this activity is for them! Encouraging your child to create a menu for a restaurant as if they were the chef and owner, gives them an opportunity to share their favorite meals in a way that is new and exciting. To make this activity even more exciting, you can make a menu as well and share it with your child and compare/contrast the menu items.