Donal Skehan ’embraces the madness’ of fatherhood

Being a parent can mean embracing the chaos even if you're a celeb like Donal Skehan.

The father of two has opened up about allowing himself to not be perfect 100 per cent of the time and getting his son's involved in cooking. The 37-year-old home chef and television presenter, who is father to five-year-old Noah and three-year-old Oliver finds meal times easiest when he allows them to help out. "To try and cohesively pull together a meal, stress-free, in that environment can be difficult," he said speaking to RTÉ Entertainment. [caption id="attachment_435587" align="aligncenter" width="641"] Credit: Donal Skehan[/caption] "Sometimes the way around it is to involve them in it, as messy as it is, at least they're occupied with something. I do think you just have to embrace the madness sometimes." Donal also likes to give his boys a choice of foods to help avoid any dinner time fuss. "Often times I’ll put elements on the table and then serve them and that means they’re part of the conversation. If you can make them feel part of the process it does help with those arguments you have at the dinner table," he said. "Thankfully our two love eating out, I think that comes from living in Los Angeles because we would have eaten out a lot there. "Their party piece, I feel like we look like obnoxious parents, but they love mussels and they love clams, so they will eat those things." [caption id="attachment_435585" align="aligncenter" width="639"] Credit: Donal Skehan[/caption] The beloved TV cook made the move back from the states to his native Howth just as the pandemic hit. After bouncing between three rental homes, he's now happily settled down and loving the madness of turning their house into a home whilst writing his eleventh cook book.

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