Empowering Your Kids Is The Biggest Gift
Food is a fun experiment. 
Allowing children to experience a wide variety of food and to tune in to listen to their body is the best way to empower children to make friends with food.
Our local cafe started selling these Freak Shakes. Our son, Rilien (13yo) asked if he could have one a week or so ago. My response was not today but maybe next weekend.
Sure enough, Ril kept me to my word. On the weekend he asked me "how about that Freak Shake today mum?". It's funny how they can always remember these sorts of things, but not that it's their job to unpack the dishwasher every day. 
Needless to say he got to experiment with a freak shake. Here’s what unfolded.
so much excitement as we went to the cafe. He snapped the first photo.
I watched as he worked out how to devour the drink. He picked off an Oreo, dipped it in the cream and ate it. He offered me the second one. I said thank you but you have it, I’m enjoying my chai. So he dipped the Oreo in the cream, and gobbled it down.
next he slurped some of the ‘shake’ commenting about how sweet it was.
next he picked off the biscuit pieces and crumbs from the outside, telling me they were glued on with condensed milk.had another slurp of the shake, then asked me if I wanted the rest of it. "No thanks mate. I’m still enjoying my chai"
Here’s the outcome of this food experiment. He will went on to share this with me:
🙌🏻 I don’t think I’d get it again. It’s too expensive. I think a milk shake would have been better but then again, every time I have something super sweet, I need something savoury afterwards. Are you sure you don’t want the rest of this? (it was still half full).
No thanks mate, but you don’t have to drink it all either.
Was it an expensive experiment? Money wise, yes. It was $13. Life skill wise, it was invaluable.
If I had tried to restrict him from having it, as a 13yo with his own money from work, he would have tried it anyway. But he would have felt like he was sneaking behind my back. I don’t ever want him to feel he needs to sneak food.
He knows the way our family eats everyday at home. But he also needs to know how to navigate the food culture he’s growing up in.
Parenting in today’s food culture is tricky, but empowering kids to navigate it sets them up for life. It's the biggest gift you can give them.