Episode 385 – Life Skills for Kids with Katie Kimball

Ingrid: In today's episode, we're delving into life skills and independence in kids, and have invited Katie Kimball from Kids Cook Real Food to tell us more about this topic. Katie's a former teacher. Two time TEDx, speaker, writer, and mom of four. We'll chat first about the essential life skills kids need, including household chores, how to teach them and what age appropriate at different time stages.

Then we'll dive into involving kids in cooking, meal planning, and how to save money on groceries. We're so excited to chat with Katie and find out. Why she's on a mission to help families stay healthy, organized, and empowered.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Well, hello and welcome, Katie. I'm so excited about our conversation today.

Thank you for coming on the show.

Katie Kimball: Oh my gosh. Thank you to Ingrid. We're like, our energy is so high right now and we're so excited to talk about stuff.

Ingrid: Definitely, definitely. So let's, I mean, I've got so many questions for you because I, I was pre preparing this podcast and I'm like, we must be like kindred spirits because I love life skills, I love evolving kids with cooking and all of those things. So let's start first, but why are life skills so important for kids?

Katie Kimball: You know, it's hard to even narrow it down to tell you the truth. So we, I mean, obviously when we launch our kids into the. World as young adults like they have to be able to know how to do stuff. But that seems like the very simple answer. There's a really, really deep answer, and it has to do with the anxiety epidemic that we're seeing in our kids and teens.

We know statistically one third of our teenagers are clinically diagnosed with depression or anxiety. Oh my gosh. Like they're just dealing with so much in the world, and is that the problem in the world coming at them? Or is it that our kids don't really know how to deal? I would posit it's the latter. And, and here's how we give our kids skills, like resilience and, you know, tough skin and the ability and confidence and self-esteem they have to know how to do things. Okay? So when someone else is doing stuff for you, when all the edicts are coming from above and a problem happens and a some adult somewhere, usually your parent solves it for you.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: What happens when the next problem occurs? Well, the child or the teen thinks it. I hope someone's around to help me. You know, they're sort of flailing and if they don't have the skills to really do anything for themselves, the anxiety is so high. It's so high. What do they, what do they have to have self-esteem about if everyone's always done something for them?

And so it's, it seems almost, it seems almost too simple,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: so simple that we're missing it.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: that we are missing the point that our kids need really basic skills that they can be successful at, that they can see their progress, right? You dust the coffee table, you know if you've done a good job, you clean the toilet, you can see the result. You make a dish to feed your family. You can literally see other people deeply enjoying that dish, right? And you know that you're doing real adult authentic skills that keep people alive. There is no better self-esteem builder

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: And, and again, and I, I hate to even say it, that it sounds simple. Because it kind of is. We just have missed it in our current culture in, and I think very well-intentioned parents, we're all kind of like, well, we want our kids to have a childhood. need to play. And they do, but they also need some skills so that they have something about which to have confidence.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think I, I, I totally agree. Can I just, can I just put that out there immediately? Because I think, and I think it's also help with that. My husband always said to me, Ingrid, we are teaching them to be independent from the age of 18. They're gonna go off, whether it's college or uni, or work or whatever.

And they need to be able to do stuff for themselves. And so I completely love that. And but how do you think it's possible that, that we've lost this over time? Because I remember when I was young, I always had to help, you know, always. And I still was playing, but we had to help around the house and everything.

Katie Kimball: You know there, there's a couple reasons. There's been a major shift in the parenting culture. So if

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: all the way back to, you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, parenting was pretty structured, very regimented. Children were expected to obey.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: up you and

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: you had to help around the house because there were likely families were larger, there was lots to get done.

Okay.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: have Roombas vacuuming our floors back then. and it was just the way it had been done. And then parenting started to shift a little bit, probably in the eighties, eighties and nineties for sure, where parents wanted to be more gentle, more emotionally present and, and a lot of that is good and well-intentioned, and I think it's probably. for our kids' nervous systems. However, when that spilled over into the structure and the logistics of the family and thinking errantly, oh, like I want my kids' childhood to be easier than mine,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: actually, I think that's my parents wanted my childhood to be easier than theirs in

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: I'm a C child of the eighties, and so that meant they didn't give us chores as much. They didn't teach us as much in the kitchen, and that made our adulthoods harder.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: right? That was the, the unintentional effect. and so now we are this next generation of parents. Sometimes we don't have the skills, so we're already in like the second generation where sometimes the reason we're not passing on the skills is dog on it.

We don't have them. We are

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: a YouTube video for every old tour we need to do, or like maintenance problem. and you can't pass on what you don't have.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: actually you can with a little help, right? If you get like a, a side mentor or you get a class and you learn along with your children, that's actually a beautiful thing and I highly recommend it.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: I think part of it is we're not passing out what we don't have. Part of it is we, we want our kids to play and we want our kids, and we're so overscheduled. We have the soccer and we have the karate, and, and we're thinking, oh, they do, they have so much on their plate. know, I can't ask them to do anything else.

And the problem is, is that we're filling the plates maybe with the secondary important things and we've

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: off the, those of primary importance. so there are lots of, I mean, there are lots of parents wanna be their kid's friends. I think a lot of parents struggle with like, real discipline. It is not easy

Ingrid: No.

Katie Kimball: you need to help with dinner tonight, or you need to dust your room.

it's another power struggle and some of us parents are just so exhausted. We

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: we don't have the skills. To parent with that discipline and to have those high expectations, but it's super possible, like you

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: can learn them very quickly.

Ingrid: Yeah. And of course, which is so interesting because now a lot of the women also work part-time or full-time. So the help actually is more needed than ever before because like my, my mom used to work part-time, so she would do things around the house and she would, you know, get all of the stuff done.

That has to be done by running a house. And we still had to help. But now so many of the moms are working full time. So actually having kids help in my opinion, is more important than ever. So if you then look at, household skills, what kind of things, I know we're gonna dive into cooking and things like that after break, but what else are things that you think about when you think about chores and things that kids in your opinion, should help with and create life skills?

Katie Kimball: For sure. I mean, we've been running our life skills now, summer camp for four years now. So we've amassed over 350 skills. I will not read down that list point by point, don't worry. but when it, when I think about categories, we think we wanna think about those household skills, the basics of cleaning the bathroom, dusting, sweeping, mopping, whatever, we wanna think about. Those, options that pop up every so often. So how do you check the air in a tire? How do you, we did an awesome series on bike maintenance. Is that necessarily a, you know, really important life skill? No. Is it really motivating to 8-year-old boys? Yes. Which is why you might wanna include it.

Ingrid: Depends on where you live. I'm from the Netherlands. Bike maintenance is crucial.

Katie Kimball: I love that. I would love to live there. and so like we taught cleaning out a shower drain. It was one of the most popular workshops this year because my 9-year-old dug into the shower drain and we had like a warning like, look away if you're easily grossed out. You know, because it was so interesting.

It was so unique to the kids and very much.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: a 7-year-old, to just do on their own. So honestly. Well, and, okay, let me do a couple more categories. Finances, major

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: Kids have to understand how to think about money and how to use money, how to save money.

Ingrid: Hmm. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: whether they start their own business or not.

Like I'm an entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur. We wanna hire people who have the entrepreneurial mindset because entrepreneurs know how to solve problems. Think out of the box and serve. Their community. And I want everyone to think that way, whether you are an employee or an entrepreneur. Okay. So I think that's a huge category. and then, so those are like, a lot of those are hands-on. And then we talk about minds on skills as well when it comes to emotional regulation. Organising your time, Organising your space, Organising your calendar It's again, over 350 and we have a huge wishlist of things to come. So there are many, many skills, but what I really want parents to, to drill that down to is what can my child accomplish, independently? What's something my child can accomplish completely independently that will make them fill that self-esteem bucket that will

Ingrid: Mm.

Katie Kimball: So. I, you know, you might have a task in your house that I've never even heard of,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: be the perfect task to teach an 8-year-old or a 12-year-old or a 16-year-old kid to do because they can completely take ownership of that.

The more we can teach our kids what it feels like to have ownership of something, the more they'll be prepared to take ownership of everything when they launch.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So are your kids like, mom, seriously, why are we doing, I have to do all this stuff. No other child that I know has to do these things? Or are they on board? I mean, of course, you know, you, you've build it up from probably a young age, but do they feel like hard done by, or are they okay?

Katie Kimball: They, it's absolutely both, like

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: I definitely hear that. Like, none of my friends have to do this, or I can't believe I have to do this a hundred

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: But in the, in the good moments, you know, I've heard, so my third child, John, I remember when he, he's currently a freshman in high school, so ninth grade when he was in elementary school.

I remember him saying with great pride, like, I bet none of my friends know how to use a chef's knife. He was seven when he learned how to use a chef's knife. Like that's

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: a, what a great boost to his self-esteem. same with my daughter when she was in fifth grade. She's a very reserved person, and so it surprised me that she went out as a class officer.

She wanted to like be the treasurer for her class and had to do a

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: and get people to vote for her. I'm like, this is not her personality, but in her speech, she was like, you know, I take care of my little brothers and I make, you know, these stacks for my family. And just the pride she had. those skills was evident and it, it

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: her social life she had these skills at home, which is amazing.

Like, that's so motivating for parents. Like when we can fill their confidence bucket and their self-esteem bucket at home, it, it applies to academics, sports, and social lives. Yeah.

them better people all around. So now

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: a 17 and a 20-year-old. And they are starting to look around and realize that their head and shoulders above their peers in

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: good ways.

You know, my, my daughter will talk about her friends and how much money they spend and how little they have in their bank account, and she's like, I can't even, I can't bear to watch, you know,

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: she's, her heart is running for her friends. And so I know she's grateful for the financial savviness, you know, that we've given her.

My 20-year-old didn't go to university. He decided to start his own business. This is incredible. Like he is. So he's able to kind of look back and count his blessings. He actually thanked us last week for giving him a bedtime in high school. Speaking of discipline and telling kids things they didn't wanna do, he said, I look back and I think I was able to focus better in school and on the things that I was really successful at because you made me go to bed and most of my friends were

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: YouTube from nine to midnight.

I was

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: whoever hears their kids say that, it's like a

Ingrid: I know, I know, I know. I'm, I'm still ama, I mean, my daughter goes to bed every night at 10 o'clock and then I, and because she needs that sleep, you know, she's got a busy day. She's got a lot, she's in her last year of high school. She's got a lot going on. She's having driving lessons now.

She's also wants to do sports. There's so much going on and she's tired and she actually herself goes up at quarter to 10 and says. I'm off to bed because she knows that alarm goes at a quarter to seven, and even in the weekend, she's not gonna then suddenly stay up till three o'clock because it's just not in her routine.

So she really understands how important sleep is to be able to cope during the day.

Katie Kimball: That's a life skill. Too

Ingrid: yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I go to bed chronically too late because I'm an evening person, but, I know, I know, but I think it's so important that you kind of, slowly but surely over time, you can't go, in my opinion, I, I, I, I have a feeling you're gonna agree with me overnight.

Go, right, right. We've got now six months until college or university, and we are going to cram it all in. It's a process, isn't it? And from a young age here, my kids have been involved with. You know, mowing the grass or washing the car or grab all the shoes because they need to be polished or help mommy dust, blah, blah, blah.

Or Hoover it, or, and especially during lockdown, when we, we always had a cleaning lady that helped us during lockdown that wasn't possible. I just, I love cleaning. I just run out of time to do everything. So I thought, right, I'm back on the cleaning. And I said, you guys need to help. And it was teams, kitchen team, and a bathroom team.

We gave them those skills to learn how to clean a bathroom and how to hoover the floors and not forget the skirting boards. And when look up every once in a while, you know, when you see, dust bunnies in the corners, it's all these small things over time. Lots of people ask me, how is it possible that Ann is so organized?

Now, of course she's probably organized because she's got that skill, like me from within, but. We've always included the kids with tidying up their room and then doing it themselves and showing all of these skills. So I, I think that's exactly what's happened with you as well. So let's talk about chores then.

Do you feel there's like a, an age appropriate chore for children? Some things are better thought earlier, and then you build on that? Do you have lists or how, how would that work in your house?

Katie Kimball: I do think so. I do think so. And I feel like, I feel like I've been talking up metaphorically a lot for your audience. I wanna give like a really specific. Step-by-step example so

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: the, whatever the child's age, whatever the chore is, you decide fits that kid, which I can't address, but we wanna make sure that we are like basically covered it gradually releasing that responsibility.

It's far better or easier to break or to build a good habit over time than it is to break a bad habit. Right.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: have those skills of organization and thinking about money and working in the kitchen from a very young age, it just becomes their normal. It's knit into your family culture. So that is, that's huge.

If you've got a 17-year-old, it's not too late. It's just a little harder for you. But it's still important to tackle.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: when I try to transmit a skill to my child, I'm going to first show them. What to do the younger the child, the more you know, the more slowly you go, maybe the more words you use, the more little chunks you break it down into. huge proponent of baby steps, so what you just said is, you know, don't dump it all. Even, we're going to do five chores that you've never learned all today. You know, so one at a time. Very, very good. And, and I think remembering that the child does not need to be perfect. Right away letting go of some of that perfection.

So when I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: probably the most recent chore that I taught was for my youngest, he actually asked to learn to clean the toilet. I know sounds very sci-fi, like what universe am I living in? Because I had never taught any. He is the youngest of four, so he always gets all like the easy jobs and he's still the baby of the family even though he is almost 11. but I'd never taught anyone to clean the toilet. I don't know why that was like my own block. Like, oh, this is gross, like mom's just gonna do it. And he was like, I need something that's just mine. Teach how to clean the toilet. so I did, you know, it took five to 10 more minutes the first time. But then here's the secret is the next couple weeks when your kids are practicing that chore and, and getting, they're not perfecting it, but they're getting better, right?

They're progressing.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: stay close. And so he might take, I take five minutes to clean the toilet. He's gonna take 25 to 30, I, I would just like. Die if I had to stand there and watch him the whole time, like that's my version of hell for sure. like, I don't like standing around, so what am I gonna do?

Well, I'm gonna clean the mirror and sink and the counter. You know, I'm gonna do like the rest of the bathroom. And so that's better for him because you're, you're co-working, you're like sharing the same space. He's an

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: loves people around. And so that's a really good way to keep the kids motivated that we're both together while we're working.

Doesn't have,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: the same thing. And then I can like. Peek over every 30 to 60 seconds and say, what do you see? You know, do you, do you see any, yellow is a good phrase for the toilet in particular when you have boys. So I'm, I'm redirecting him. I'm helping him a little bit, complimenting him, right? And so that's sort of this like phase two. Phase one would be the demonstration. Phase two, you wanna guide them along. And then of course, phase three, you get to have them do it themselves. How amazing

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: And so phase one takes longer. Phase two takes a little more patience. But parents, we gotta like. strongly. Phase three, where they actually save us time. Now your original question was what can kids do at each age? You can kind of look at what they're learning in school. So preschool kids are doing lots of fine motor things, and so we might want to have them pair and matching and stuff like that.

So we wanna have them pair up socks and maybe they can't fold the socks yet, but they can match 'em up, which is half the battle. And maybe they're folding like we have cloth napkins or. Washcloths or hand towels, things that are small and easy to fold in the laundry. Absolutely. Down to age 18 months, they can be moving laundry from washer

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: dryer.

So do you need a list? Maybe? It's kind of nice. We do have some lists that kids cook real food, but even more so you just look at what are my kids' physical abilities, you

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: are their mental abilities and what's like the next thing they could do. So a 3-year-old can line up shoes in the mudroom.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: That's very easy. They might not be able to push the vacuum 'cause they're not strong enough,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: could they tandem that work with the 7-year-old who then can push the vacuum and the shoes are all out of the way? It's so, it's really like, I hate giving lists because every family's a little different.

Every child's a little, a little

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: you can easily, right now, every parent can go, oh, I can think of each of my kids

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: think of one thing in the house that would be right in that zone of proximal development where it's not too easy, but it's not too hard or too much pressure on them.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And would you expect, household chores to be done as part of the family chores or do you at some point connect like pocket money to that?

Katie Kimball: We we're just still working on that like 20 years into parenting. We're still shifting. Yeah. Yeah,

think that all kids should have to do some things as

Ingrid: yeah.

Katie Kimball: family. That should

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: and then, so right now, if my kids meet their responsibilities, great, you know, they, they pass, they get to go play on Sundays.

That's what we do by Sunday. You have to have your required chores done before you recreate. So that's kind of

Ingrid: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: if my kids do additional chores, then they do get paid a little extra pocket money.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: just kind of working on that. I don't, I don't think there's a perfect right or wrong.

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: Other than that, that we, we, we wanna make sure we don't pay them for everything because

Ingrid: a great.

Katie Kimball: is something we don't wanna create.

Ingrid: Yeah. And what would an additional chore be for you?

Katie Kimball: For us, it's anything that someone else didn't do. So we have this list of chores and they all have to reach 20 points in a week.

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: when they hit those 20 points, you know, they've vet their requirements. And then if they continue on and do more, or we might put up what we call gigs, so like clean the hamster cage or sweep the front porch, or things that are just sort of popping up out of nowhere.

Ingrid: yeah.

Katie Kimball: fixed a wiggly handle on our slider. Five points for him, you know?

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: at his 20, it goes in his 20. If he's over his 20, it goes to pocket money.

Ingrid: Nice. Oh my gosh. I love that. That's amazing. And I completely agree with you. I mean, I also expect my daughter's now, my son is now at uni, so he's not here anymore. But my daughter, you know, she has to do recycling on a Sunday evening. She has to, hoover the kitchen floor and, and mop the kitchen floor every day.

She, every day or every other day, she needs to do the recycling. She can. You know, strip her bed and make her bed. Those things are all like included. But if I say, gosh, one of the cars really could do with a hand wash and I don't want to bring it to the normal, car cleaning people, and it's a nice day, I will give her like an extra bit of money because she's been helping me clean the car, which is like a separate chore.

So

Katie Kimball: Right.

Ingrid: completely on one wavelength, Katie. I have many more, more questions, especially about cooking and shopping and all of those things. So let's go for a quick break and after break we're gonna talk about those

hi everyone. Welcome back. I hope you are enjoying our conversation that I'm having with Katie Kimball from Kids Cook Real Food. We talked about life skills before the break and chores and all of the other good stuff. Now, because Katie is a, a, a woman of many, many talents, I would love to dive into, The cooking and the meal planning, and of course a little bit how you can save money with groceries as well, because you are a firm believer that kids should be able to cook, right?

Katie Kimball: Oh my goodness. Yes, it's, it's the one thing that we do three to five times a day,

Ingrid: I know.

Katie Kimball: They need to be fed, and so we talk about cleaning a toilet or dusting a coffee table that's like weekly,

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: every day the family should all be helping feed the family.

Ingrid: yeah, yeah. And I. What's involved in getting them to cook, you know, because you can't just suddenly go, right, here's the ingredients, cook a meal. Right? So where do you start? If you're thinking to yourself, yes, Katie, I don't want to think about food anymore. I have done 10,000 meals already for this family, and please, and somebody help me here.

But where do you start?

Katie Kimball: You start small,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: really small. I remember preparing for my TEDx talk and I had neighbors come over and listen so they, they could help me get better. And neighbor said, oh my gosh. I've always thought in my heart like, I wish I could get my kids involved in the kitchen, but it always felt huge.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: list, teach kid to cook. Like that's like huge youngest. and she's like, you just told me I can start by teaching him to measure a teaspoon of salt. She's like, I can do that today. Like I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: that today. And so that for our own poor, tired brains, we've gotta break things down into little chunks.

So it's not even like, let's bake muffins with the kids. How many steps are there in baking muffins you need to measure? Well. You need to measure liquids, crack eggs, stir to a uniform mixture. You learn how to use the oven, right? Like there's about seven basic skills in muffins. And so if you think, oh, I wish my kids could just make a batch of muffins every week for the family, wouldn't that be great for school snacks?

You know,

Ingrid: Hmm.

Katie Kimball: with the muffins. Start with how do you measure a flat teas? And then, I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: that's like, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6-year-old.

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: but, and so with bigger kids, maybe it's a couple skills at once, but they need to know

Ingrid: yeah,

Katie Kimball: an egg. That's a three minute teaching task. So if you can keep

Ingrid: yeah.

Katie Kimball: like the next time you're cracking eggs, you're like, Hey kid, come here. We're gonna, we're gonna learn how to crack an egg. You know, I wanna teach

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: without so much mess or whatever. 'cause kids have a lot of blocks with eggs. They're slimy, especially tactile kids. They're like really grossed out. so the way, but the way we teach it, like you keep your hands very clean and so parents love our classes because of that. If you can break things down into tiny steps, it feels

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: for you. It feels more doable for the kids. And so that's where you start. You start with the most, most, most basics. really is step one. Like how do you, how do you get your kid to do it? And I think part of motivation is appreciation.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: if you can have a child help if, if your 3-year-old or your 13-year-old has measured a teaspoon of oregano for that meal that you just made that night, you need to thank them for how good it tastes at the table. you're

Ingrid: Right.

Katie Kimball: and kids with full cups come back. kids who are treated in a stressful environment don't come back, which is why you might not wanna teach new skills right before dinner.

'cause that's a stressful environment. So I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: parents teach new skills like after snack or after a weekend breakfast or lunch, like they're fed, they're happy, they're already in the kitchen. Opportunities there. and you're not stressed with time pressure because then if it's a stressful experience, they don't want to come back. So how do we

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: them? We motivate them by appreciation, and we motivate them by external. External appreciation as well. Meaning if you can get your kid to get involved in any way in like a party or a potluck when the grandparents are coming over, those other adults in your life will heap authentic praise onto the children.

As soon as you say, oh, like guess he made the guacamole. You know, my 10-year-old sat together by himself. the other adults are just like automatically, they don't have to be trained. They automatically do

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: and then the kid's like, well, I'm hot stuff. Well, that was

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: We

Ingrid: yeah,

Katie Kimball: and then we want more.

Ingrid: yeah.

Katie Kimball: get the kid, get the kids motivated by

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: tiny, tiny bit of, of, that you

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: and

Ingrid: yeah,

Katie Kimball: of those tiny, tiny steps.

Ingrid: yeah. So measuring spoon, cracking eggs, stirring the, with the, you know, the spaghetti that's boiling, that kind of thing, because you've got a really big thing of. Cooking from scratch. Right? That's really, really important. I mean, kids cook real foods. I think that's really the basis of why you started this, right?

Katie Kimball: Yeah, I want, we talked a little bit about ownership with the chores, and I want kids to take ownership of their health

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: and so I'm a huge proponent of talking to kids about how does food make you feel. We don't wanna say, you know, that there's good foods and bad foods, but. There are certain kinds of fuel for certain kinds of activities, right?

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: a theater kid, what kind of fuel do you need to memorize all those lines, and what kind of hydration do you need so that your voice is ready to sing that solo. You know what I'm saying? And when we can start to get kids' brains connecting the fuel, whether it's hydration or food or sleep, which is another form of fuel their output, they'll start to take ownership.

And that's how we launch kids who are successful. You know, where we're not just telling them what to do, we're showing them how their body works and how food can serve their body.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: To make, I mean, I've got, my daughter is going to college next year. She's in her last year of school. And she, people would be looking at colleges like, what are they going to teach me?

What is the academic track record? What kind of job am I gonna get? She's like, what is the food in the cafeteria? Can I fit a refrigerator in my dorm room so that I can come home on weekends and meal prep? Like she is like really serious about

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: well. that's not something that we imposed on her.

It's just part of our family culture.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. I must admit I was very proud when my son went off to uni and actually called me and said, mom, I've just been to the grocery store. I've done a five days worth of shopping. I've thought about what I'm going to eat, which leftovers I'm gonna have, so I'm not gonna waste. Any money because I think suddenly he's, he's never been like a big spender, but I think he suddenly realized, wow, when he actually really went from himself to the shops for the first time, he realized how expensive everything is.

And we are in this house. We never just throw food away. We really think about all of those things. But I think it really hit home and I was like, my work is done. I'm like, he's, he's, yeah. He's like, yeah, he's on his way. So. Of course then I think it can be super helpful to involve kids with meal planning as well, right?

Because you've got the cooking on the one hand that you want to teach them those knife skills as well, right? And and being able to chop vegetables and to measure and to. Not be afraid of a hot oven and you know, being able to drain rice or pasta and all of those things if you're cooking from scratch and not just put something in the microwave.

And of course, you know, sometimes life gets busy and something has to be put in the microwave. But overall, we love cooking from scratch as well. We do it a lot here at at home. And I think when you model that kind of behavior. The kids kind of pick it up along the way, right? When they see you put, the, tomatoes in and then herbs and mince and you kind of, you build, you know, and your veggies and when you, when they see you do it.

I think that's, that's already so important. But I think involving them and asking them, what would you like to eat this week? Can be crucial as well. Can it?

Katie Kimball: Well, and I, it, my goal is always to get my kids cooking a meal completely independently. So

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: four kids have one meal a week, which by the way, only leaves me with four if you wanna talk about a dream situation. and then the youngest one is the sous chef for his next oldest brother. But. Yeah, I think when we wanna involve kids in meal planning before they can help a lot, before they can make a full meal, I would rather recommend to parents to give them a small selection of meals rather than to say, what do you want to eat?

That's a little

Ingrid: You, right?

Katie Kimball: on kids. Their, their

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: aren't quite, that are ready for that.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: us to give them boundaries and choice within those boundaries. So you might say, you know, I'm going to cook pork this week, would you like. This dish, this dish or this dish with pork on Tuesday or whatever. and, and you can kind of take those votes, but there's nothing, there's nothing that can teach meal planning better than just having to do it. Yourself having to

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: and think, oh, do I need to tss some meat from the freezer? I can still picture my oldest, this is probably five years ago.

He was trying to make meatballs and they had not planned very well in advance, so the meat was still partially frozen and his fingers were like getting frostbitten. He's like, this is so I said, well, there's a lesson there, you know.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: and so the, you know, the more you like. Fail a little bit and the, and

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: learn from failure, that's how we learn.

And so the kids are much better now at thinking not perfect, but they're much better at thinking

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: how do

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: do we need? Oh, I tried to make something and mom didn't have an ingredient. I've gotta tell her before grocery day because mom's not gonna run to the store for one ingredient.

That's not my jam, you know?

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's absolutely amazing and so true, that it's so important that kids can cook and can plan ahead. It's, it's all those skills together, isn't it? It's thinking about what you put in your body. What do you need to organize in it? Advance to make this happen. It's the, it's the preparation.

It's the cleaning up afterwards. It's, it's all of these skills coming into getting a meal on the table, isn't it?

Katie Kimball: Yeah, it's intense. I mean, we think about how much schools are teaching our kids and it's, it really is a lot of facts and, but, but they need to know how to think

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: And so the list you just gave is a perfect list of executive functioning skills.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: we, we need to grow into adults. You know, our teenagers are growing adults, they're growing their adult brain, and they can only do that by practicing.

And so as

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: as school can teach our kids, I think the, the Academy of real life does much, much more to build our

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: when we

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: you know, if

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: go to their rooms or play on a screen and we do everything for them, it's really a disservice.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So how can, because I, I, I know I, I love talking about also, how we can cut, cut costs on groceries and things like that. So how does the meal planning fall into that? Because I'm, I'm, I'm quite frugal with things like this. So when you kind of mentioned in, when we were emailing back and forth, like, I could also talk about grocery shopping and how to save money.

I was like. We're gonna talk about that. I wanna know more.

Katie Kimball: I think there's some cognizant thought that can be put into what do make homemade. So I've got a couple, couple items that I recommend people make from scratch where you can save not just 50 cents or a dollar, but like tens of dollars and a thousand dollars in a year. So cooking dry beans. Is incredibly a great skill to learn because the dry beans are gonna cost less than the can.

And of course, beans, legumes are already a very inexpensive

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: you can, if you can get some meals that your family enjoys that use beans and you cook them from dry, that's a huge savings. making homemade chicken broth is one of my favorites because it literally costs less than a dollar to make

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: like three gallons of broth, where if you bought like the cheap stuff at the store, you're still saving an American dollars about $15. But for the quality that you can make at home, you're literally saving about $50 a batch. And it

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: don't know, half an hour.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: hundred dollars an hour job? Yes, please.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: For, for America. I don't know what that would translate to like in the UK or the Netherlands, but, that's a very good pay, very good pay

Ingrid: Yeah,

Katie Kimball: And

Ingrid: yeah,

Katie Kimball: think about things like that. Like if I make it from scratch versus having someone at the store do it for me, how much am I gonna save? How

Ingrid: yeah.

Katie Kimball: it gonna make? And so I think you can apply those dollars. I make homemade yogurt. I know that I save between 500 and a thousand every year.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: Making homemade yogurt and it takes 15 minutes a week. So that's a massive quote, paycheck for, for me being in the kitchen. So I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: think about things like that. And then the second way to save money is not to throw stuff away, and you're probably very talented at that. but when it comes to meal planning, I love doing connected meal planning where I'm gonna take something that I'm using in one meal. I'm gonna make sure, first of all, that I use up the rest of whatever that package is in another meal. But also, I like to give myself little, a little kiss, a little gift of time, meaning if I can double a part of one meal. So maybe you're browning ground beef, or you're making like homemade pork sausage, double that and use it.

Two days later, your meal

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: of the way finished, and so it's like,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: Wednesday, Katie is getting this little gift from Monday, Katie, you know, and so, and that definitely, like, anytime you can save time and money at the same time, that's a huge win. and I think

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: my, my third tip on say that I've just been leaning into a lot this summer is to ask questions at the farmer's market. If you, if you have any time where you're like actually interacting with the farmer who grew the food, you can ask, you know, would you sell a larger. A larger batch in bulk where you can save money. Or the other day I asked if they had, seconds on peppers. Do you have those overseas where they're like just imperfect?

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball: Yeah, so the farmers will sell like less than perfect produce at a hugely reduced rate. So I, I should have spent $1 per pepper, like I should have gotten eight peppers for my $8 and I got 32 peppers. For $8,

Ingrid: Wow.

Katie Kimball: those up. Yeah. So those are in the freezer, you know, for chilies and

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: all winter long.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Oh, I love that. I think that's so smart. And indeed, you know, when you're making a, a, a lovely, pasta bolognese, don't make a small pot. Make a huge pot so you can save the other half for a meal. Either put it in the freezer or, you know, four days, three, four days later, you can still have that and you can then start to save some time as well.

So the meal planning is so much more than just, I had to. Buy exactly what's on my list. It's, it's just being smarter as well with your time and not going to the shops the whole time, which is incredibly time consuming as well. So, completely agree. Oh my gosh. I, I actually could ask you far more, many more questions, Katie, but we have run out of time.

Can you please tell us more because. Can you tell us more about your kids, kids Cook Real Food program, because you do a lot. I mean, you've been in the Wall Street Journal, you, you're a TEDx speaker. You, you, you know, all of this stuff. So what do people, where can people go and where can they find out more about you?

Katie Kimball: For sure. Well, it's just my joy to help make parenting a little easier

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball: be a joy to parent, but sometimes it's a drag and we

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: We need our people to help us with that. I do have a free gift for your audience. They can go to kids cook real food.com/ Declutter Hub.

Pod, POD for podcast, and I'll give you that whole chores system that I was just talking about with like the points and the, the, deadlines on the weekend. And then once you're, in my world, if you've got younger kids, kids cook real food teaches over 30 basic skills that kids need to really take ownership and dig their feet in.

And the kitchen, we're just developing teens cook real food, which I'm really excited about. That'll be over a hundred videos. Woo. but really just extending to like, this is like everything a young adult would need. To

Ingrid: Yeah.

Katie Kimball: in their first apartment, and I'm so thrilled about that. and then we have our life skills camp and our life skills classes that teach everything from finances to entrepreneurship to emotional regulation, to the those household chores. so once you're in my world, you have a partner your parenting team to bring more joy to parenting.

Ingrid: I love it. So we'll put all of the links, in the show notes obviously, because we would love for you to grab that, that freebie from KT with all the chores and the points. I think it's fantastic. Listeners, I've been like glued to this podcast, listening to Katie. Giving us so much good stuff. I hope you enjoyed it too.

And has this podcast made you think, because that's what we always really, hope, that happens and you think to yourself, gosh. Yeah, my kids actually could do it a bit more life skills. Where can I involve them? You know? You know, I always say, this is not a hotel. Kids need to help and kids need to contribute.

So has this podcast made you think, gosh, yeah. They, I, I need to help them get them on board with cooking, or I'm going to show them how to clean a lu or Wow. Yeah, maybe doing a bit of extra pocket money for like a hard chore is not a bad shout, but they need to do the basics first and they need to help with the recycling.

All these things help because we want to create independent kids who can, you know, go out there when they're, when they're adults and, and do all of stuff yourself, because there's a lot, as you know, there's a lot involved in running a house. And thank you, Katie, for all of your fantastic advice and tips.

I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Katie Kimball: Oh, I'm so glad. It felt helpful. Thank you, Ingrid.

Ingrid: Thank you so much, and listeners, we'll see you next week. Thanks for being here.