Top tips?

randomer

Here I am again trying to be sensible. My main issues are husband working shifts,teenage son unpredicatable around food and meal times....makes for expensive chaos.

I'm thinking of saying to son " the meal will be at 6 take it or leave it". If he chooses to waste his money on expensive junk it's up to him:o

Need to plan and shop and cook but feel overwhelmed:(

winniepooh

take it step buy step. start with meal planning for a week make sure you have variety (rice, pasta and potatoes). the most important part is sticking to it.

make a list of food you need taking stock of the food you might already have in your cupboards and freezer. stick to the list

littlegreenparrot

Sounds like a tough one

I have no experience as a parent, but as one of 5 children of hugely different ages meal times were chaotic.

I would go with it, tell him what time it is, and what it'll be. Then its his decision whether or not to be there.
We had that, and knew that there might not be any leftovers - if not it was a cheese sandwich or going and getting something else for ourselves.

Things only calmed down once mum did, it was our decision, and therefore we couldn't have a go at her.

May or may not help - but something else she did was to portion out our crisps/biscuits for packed lunches into named tubs (before all this healthy eating nonsense : ) ). The effect was instant - what was fair game in the cupboard, became clearly someone elses. If we jad scoffed it by Tuesday it was our own look out, and we would never nick each others once it was clearly theirs.

Funny that it should make such a difference, I make us sound like right greedy little so and so's, but then thats what teenagers are!

storytime

When I had 3 teenagers at home I also put all the biscuits and crisps in named tubs, then they knew what they had for the week. I also gave up chasing round asking if they wanted dinner. I put the onus on them to tell me making sure it wasn't 5 minutes before I dished up! In the end I just made sure I had things in they could heat up like tinned spaghetti and those microwave pizzas( I stock up on them when they are on offer). My teenagers never liked eating healthily but now they are grown up 2 of them have improved now they do their own cooking. Don't feel guilty about letting them eat crap as teenagers they make their own choice. They were always around for their favourite dinners so I began putting up a weekly menu on a whiteboard in the kitchen . Hope these ideas help!

randomer

Thanks for replies...the whiteboard may save my sanity:T

Nicki

My eldest is just about to become a teenager so I don't have this exact issue yet, but my DH works variable hours and often doesn't get home when he has said he will.

Our solution is for me to plan the meal for when he thinks he will be home, but if he isn't the rest of us eat then, and his meal is plated up as if he were there and covered with a microwave safe plate cover. When he does get home from work, it takes him about 3 minutes to heat up his meal, and most things seem to be fine reheated in this way (other than pastry based things but I don't often make these anyway)

randomer

I don't have a microwave but I think I may need one.

Nicki

randomer wrote: »

I don't have a microwave but I think I may need one.

I think (though have never done it myself) that you can also heat a plate of food up by placing it over a saucepan of boiling water.