Usually children especially teenagers detest having their meals at home because they end up eating the same kind of food from time to time. Now to change this kind of setting in your home, the parents should find a way to monitor the dishes cooked and served at home.
A menu tracker can help in keeping track of the dishes that you have already served and how many times have you served them in a month. In this way, the repetition of dishes can be easily seen.
Creating a menu tracker for your kitchen is very easy. It only requires a large paper like the A3 size, colored markers and Post-Its. On a large paper create gridlines of eight by five. That means eight columns and four rows. The gridlines and content should be similar to the monthly layout of a calendar. Then for every cell, write the meals served to it. Instruct your children to use the Post-Its to suggest new meals or complain about repeating meals, use two colors to differentiate the suggestions from the complaints. Then post the menu tracker on the door of the fridge so that everyone can easily read and use it. Just check the tracker every now and then to read the suggestions and complaints. To make the menu tracker more fun and effective for your children, you can provide a reward for every suggestion of a new meal so that they will be encouraged to use it.