While we were still in country with the kids, we used a portable version of the schedule board with them, and even though it was somewhat helpful for that period of time, we soon realized that it wasn't going to be something we would use once we landed on our home turf. It was too restricting for us, and (contrary to most adoption "best practices") we wanted to teach our kids flexibility rather than teaching them to stick to a schedule (something they were already used to doing from their time in the children's home, and flexibility was a foreign concept).
The menu board, on the other hand, was a hit from day one. In those early days, I needed it to help me keep my sanity. After 16 years of flying by the seat of our pants and going with whatever dinner sounded good for two people, my brain was on overload, and the last thing I needed to do was try to figure out what we were feeding our new tribe of seven. Since it felt like I was walking around in a constant fog, I would not only write down the menu for the meal, but everything I needed to remember to put out with it (so if we were having chili, I also included all the sides - chips, Greek yogurt, cheese, fruit), which also meant that Peter didn't need to see inside my brain to be able to help, he could just look at the board. Win-win.
As the kids began to learn English (and later on, as the younger ones have learned how to read), the board gave me another sanity saver - I didn't have to answer the same question ("What's for dinner?") five times. I may still have been saying, "Look at the board!" five times (or more), but it was easier than listing off the menu plan over and over, and it also avoided the inevitable, "But I don't like that!" comments that usually came when I would tell them verbally what the plan was. If it's on the board, it seems to be less of an argument. They know I've been to the grocery, they know that's what I planned for, and there is no point in trying to debate it.
But since we also believed that they needed to have some say in what we ate, we've used the menu board in different ways over the last 21 months that we've been home. Very early on, we assigned a day for each child to pray for the meals (5 kid, 5 weekdays, with Dad and Mom getting the weekends). We went through a period where everyone was whining over our daily meals, so, for a stretch of time, we had the kids choose the menu. If it was your day to pray, you picked what we were eating for dinner. When other kids didn't like it, all I had to do was point a finger at a sibling and say, "Don't take it up with me, they chose the menu." It was liberating for me, and helped teach the kids that their choices mattered and they should take others into consideration when making them.
These days I'm back to making all the meal selections, but at the bottom of the menu board, we have a section titled: Requests. In this space, anyone in the family can write down foods that they would like to eat. They quickly learned that things like ice cream and candy didn't make the cut, but other items, like chili and aji de gallina (a fantastic Peruvian dish that Peter makes), did. The menu board is second nature now. As soon as a meal is over I erase what was in that space, thinking ahead to the same day next week and writing down (in a different color dry erase marker) what we'll be having a week from then. It keeps the board moving forward, and gives stability to the kids (and to me, as I plan for grocery shopping) to be able to stop by the board and see what's for dinner next Tuesday. Whether you are planning to adopt kids who feel better if they know what's on tap for the next meal, or you just need a visual to aid in making a grocery list, I cannot recommend (some variation of) the menu board highly enough.
As a side note: we've had several of our kid's friends over to eat with us or spend the night, and we've heard back from more than one parent that their child came home talking about our menu board and the fact that we all eat together as a family. Every. Night. Sure, our kids ask for tablets (they aren't getting them), and they want more time on the computer (our oldest has to read a book for an hour - or more - to earn an extra 30 minutes), but what they have slowly been learning is that it's the little things, the simple things, the things they take for granted (knowing what's for dinner, eating together) that their friends go home talking about. It's been healthy - for them, for their friends, and for us.
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