Growing Hamburgers

So a few weeks back we had hamburgers for dinner, our 4 year old son looking intently at the sesame seeds on the bun, he looked up and asked, "Dad, if we plant these seeds will they grow hamburgers?"  Cute kid, huh.  Well we had a good discussion about where the hamburger bun came from and what it's made of and where the seeds on top came from.

We are trying to teach our kids about the food they eat, where it comes from, what went into making it.  We want them to understand the importance of eating good healthy food.  We want  them to know that someone somewhere grew or raised their food, that it doesn't just come from a box at the store.  We are trying to instill in them the love of good and healthful food.

Cute questions like this opens up a dialog with the kids, our son had thought about it and was interested in the answer.  He listened and learned from our discussion.  Had I just started to ramble on about the origins of his food that night he might of listened.  He show interest and really wanted to understand, we helped him to understand.  It would have been easy too just laugh at the comment, though Shaun-ta' and I did share a smile.  We then chatted with him about it.

We have given our kids their own area of the garden to plant last year, they could plant what ever they wanted to, it's fun for them but they are learning in the process.  Just as we learn from gardening they are learning earlier in life.  We can hep them lay out their garden, what works and help them process what is happening throughout the season.  They take ownership and want to learn.  This year they are much more involved in planting the garden, our oldest has helped Shaun-ta' plant a lot of it, especially as we are planting for our fall garden.

Kids want to learn, they want to spend time with their parents.  We are their hero's, they look up to us and want to be like us.  It is up to us to be people they can look up to, and learn from.  It is also vital that we teach them proper principles so that when they are on their own they will make correct choices.