How Our Kids Helped Plan a Week of Dinners and It Wasn't a Disaster

Last month, our kids helped plan a week of dinners, and the result surprised me. Instead of me standing at the fridge after a long day and announcing what we were eating, the children chose the meals, helped write the shopping list and cooked alongside me. There were a few changes to the plan and one spectacular puddle of spilled grated cheese, but we still managed seven family dinners without eating takeaway every second night.

The idea came after another conversation about why I always decide. My 13-year-old wanted sushi night, my 10-year-old was craving homemade burgers, and my seven-year-old requested “anything with chicken and cheese.” I normally would have negotiated until only my preferred option remained. This time, I gave each child one dinner and invited them to build the rest of the menu with a few rules.

Letting the kids take charge

We started with a short brainstorming session at the kitchen table. I gave everyone three jobs: choosing a main meal, suggesting a side dish and naming one vegetable we should buy. To keep the ideas manageable, I limited the main-meal options to things we could make at home within about an hour.

The children were more imaginative than expected. Suggestions included taco bowls, chicken wraps, mini pizzas and a “noodle night” where we could use leftover vegetables. Their ideas also reflected what they saw at school and online, so I had to check which trends were realistic before agreeing.

We wrote the final choices on small pieces of paper and placed them in a jar. Each child drew one dinner to own, although they could swap if someone had a better idea. Giving them genuine control helped. They weren’t simply telling me what to cook; they had to plan the ingredients, consider the other meals and think about what already sat in the pantry.

Turning ideas into a workable menu

On Sunday afternoon, we turned the selected meals into a proper weekly dinner plan. I added rules that made the schedule practical: we would use what we had first, one dinner had to be a leftovers night, and nobody expected us to prepare two complicated recipes on the same evening.

The resulting menu included chicken wraps, vegetable stir-fry, homemade pizza, taco bowls, shepherd’s pie and a cheeseburger night. I also added a flexible stir-fry option because it could absorb whatever vegetables were cheapest at the market. I found plenty of inspiration while browsing family meal ideas, although the children helped narrow the choices.

Afterwards, everyone helped turn the menu into a grocery list. We grouped ingredients under meat, vegetables, dairy, bakery, pantry and freezer, which made our supermarket run much faster. The list stayed on the fridge with a note about freezers, so nobody had to rely on memory.

Shopping like an Australian household

Our shopping routine felt very ordinary in the best way. Like many families in Sydney and Melbourne, we plan around the school run, work commitments and the need to get everyone home before dinner time. We usually divide the shopping between our local Woolworths or Coles, an Aldi for pantry basics and a nearby greengrocer when the fresh produce looks better.

Prices are in Australian dollars, and supermarket prices generally include the 10% GST. I used a rough budget based on what we normally spend, then asked the children to compare the specials before we filled the basket. They were especially interested in finding a good price for chicken mince and bananas.

The children also learned that the cheapest item is not always the best choice. We looked for seasonal vegetables and bought loose mushrooms because they were cheaper by weight, but we skipped a “special” pasta shape that nobody wanted to eat. Metric measurements helped too: our usual pasta recipe uses 500 g, while the stir-fry needed 300 g of vegetables.

I made the children check ingredient labels with me. Under Food Standards Australia New Zealand labelling rules, packaged foods must provide ingredient and allergen information. That prompted several questions about peanuts, sesame and gluten, and it became a useful reminder that a meal everyone can safely eat comes before trying something new.

Cooking the dinners together

Each child had one evening when they took the lead, while another handled a small job such as washing vegetables, measuring ingredients or setting the table. I stayed nearby but let them make the straightforward decisions. The 13-year-old seasoned the stir-fry, the 10-year-old pressed the burger patties and the youngest stirred the cheese sauce for the pizza.

The incentive for the youngest cook came from a Corral giveaway I spotted on Country Girl City Life. It reminded him that the person cooking would also have to deal with the washing-up, which sharply improved his enthusiasm for measuring ingredients.

Preparation happened in sensible batches. On Sunday, we chopped enough vegetables for two meals, cooked a batch of rice and portioned the remaining grated cheese into a sealed container. During the week, dinner still took work, but we avoided starting everything from scratch. Our busiest evening produced the biggest mess, though most of it landed on the floor rather than the pizza.

Keeping the plan realistic

The system worked because it allowed flexibility without becoming chaotic. A missing ingredient rarely caused a complete change because each child knew which parts of the meal they were responsible for. We also kept pasta, rice, canned tomatoes and frozen peas on the pantry shelf as useful backups.

What made the plan easier

Giving each child ownership of one dinner
Shopping from a written ingredient list
Preparing two vegetables during the weekly cooking session
Allowing the children to adjust the order

What needed adjusting

Adding a named backup meal for the busiest night
Checking pantry supplies before buying fresh ingredients
Keeping one child’s dinner simple
Washing the chopping board before it became unusable

Our morning routine also helped because the children knew they would be responsible for dinner preparation that evening. Knowing what was happening after school made the week feel shared instead of unpredictable.

Here is the scorecard:

Planned night	What we ended up cooking	How it went
Monday	Chicken wraps	Quick and everyone could help
Tuesday	Vegetable stir-fry	The children adjusted it with extra corn
Wednesday	Mini pizzas	The messiest but still delicious
Thursday	Leftovers night	Saved time and used the remaining vegetables
Friday	Cheeseburgers	Popular, but the buns needed buying separately
Saturday	Taco bowls	Easy to prepare and customisable
Sunday	Shepherd’s pie	The most work, so I handled the pastry

Put the plan into action this week

The real win wasn’t that every dinner was perfect. It was that the children became involved in feeding our family. They learned about prices, ingredients, preparation and compromise, while I gained a collection of willing cooks who no longer treated dinner as my private problem.

This week, gather everyone at the table, give each child one dinner to own and set the simple rules before the planning session starts. Write down the menu, make the shopping list and let the whole family begin dinner planning together.