MOPS 10/9/19 Meeting Recap –Mom Tips

Looking at Internet Safety & Easy Meal Prep Ideas

Speakers: Julie Green & Kerry Harris

Blog Writer: Joanna Metheny

Wow it feels like it’s been forever since we’ve had a MOPS meeting! It was so nice to be able to come back after the long break and reconnect with all you mommas!

This week our lovely speakers were two of our own. Julie Green spoke on Internet Safety and how to protect our children online, while Kerry Harris gave us a delicious demo on how to make quick family meals. 

Julie kicked things off giving us a bit of background on her family. With four kids, and a personal passion for gaming, their family spends a lot of time online. She kept things relatable by sharing a couple of personal stories of things that happened in their family that let us all know that they are learning as they go, just like all of the rest of us. The interactive nature of online gaming, as well as seemingly innocuous sites like youtube can all be potentially very risky for our kids, where they can be exposed to anything from age-inappropriate content to cyberbullying, and even predators. However, Julie assured us that we have a toolbox of measures we can put in place to help protect our children from any hidden dangers lurking online. 

Julie said one of our main jobs when it comes to cyber safety is constant communication. We need to constantly be asking our kids things like: What are you watching? What is that show about? She suggested we sit down and watch shows with them, and to not rely just on our ears, as she has run into age-inappropriate content with a very kid-friendly soundtrack. In their family, personal devices like tablets and phones are checked daily. They check browser histories, text messages, everything, in order to make sure the kids are making good choices.

She packed so many great tips into her talk, some key ones were: set screen time and content limits, which may differ from child to child, NO chat rooms (can be zero truth behind who you are talking to), never upload or download images, never share any personal information, and set up parental controls to block certain content on devices. All in all, while the whole concept of my kids and internet safety kind of terrifies me, moving forward I felt much better enabled to protect them after Julie’s talk. 

After some discussion time, we then got to hear Kerry talk about how to prepare some quick healthy family meals. With 8 kids of her own, and currently 20 grandchildren, Kerry has had a LOT of experience whipping up meals for her family. While she loves to cook, she also understands how challenging it can be to get food on the table every night. 

Kerry said the number one thing we can do to help during the dinner hour, is to be prepared. For some of us, that might mean having a meal plan, or a repertoire of super quick and easy recipes. She emphasized the importance of having staples in the house, and regularly stocking things (like pasta, jarred pesto, frozen veggies, precooked frozen meat) that enable her to whip out dinner in a pinch. She also suggested something I have heard time and time again, and yet continue to ignore myself: don’t stress about it if your kid refuses to eat something, and DON’T force them to eat anything. Your kids will grow up just fine even if they go through a phase of only wanting to eat three things for a year. Just keep putting healthy, varied foods in front of them, and eventually they will come around. 

After some basics, Kerry did a demo for us where she made some super fast Chunky Chicken Soup in her Instant Pot blender, and shared a few more time saving tips with us before handing out samples. She’ll do things like use a food processor to make quick work of chopping things like onions and celery, or cook up a few chickens, and then portion out the meat and pop it in the freezer. This makes future dinners a breeze when she can just grab a handful of protein or veggies from the freezer and not have to hassle with the prep work. 

I always love coming to MOPS because it always reassures me that we all share the same struggles. I leave feeling a little more empowered each time, and this week was no different. Thanks to Kerry and Julie, we each have a few more tools in our belt to help with getting dinner on the table and keeping our kids safe online. Thanks ladies!