Cooking with Kids

Cooking with kids can be one of the most terrific activities that can happen
in a home. Sure, there’s going to be mess and there’s always a little
bit of risk when putting kids in the kitchen, but cooking with kids
teaches a variety of lessons that will apply to all areas of life and education.
Plus, cooking with kids helps to establish a bond between you that will last
a lifetime.

Here are just some of the things that kids can learn when you cook
with them:

• Motor skills. When you’re cooking with kids, you’re
  moving plates around and pouring items. When they help, they improve their
  motor skills.
• Math. Cooking involves measurements and times which are
  important foundations in math. Cooking with kids gets them used to using math
  in a daily environment which makes them more comfortable with it and therefore
  more proficient at it.
• Taking care of themselves. Children who learn how to cook
  are less likely to be adolescents that eat out all of the time. They know
  how to take care of themselves in the kitchen so they will.
• Attention and focus. Nobody wants to eat burned cookies
  and your kids will rapidly learn to focus on the task at hand if they’re
  in charge of making sure the cookies don’t burn!

Here are some ideas for cooking with kids that help you to
teach them these skills without causing too much of a mess or safety risk in
the kitchen:

• Stick to recipes that are simple. Cooking with kids isn’t
  the same as cooking a romantic four-course meal for your spouse. You should
  stick to one or two items that have only a few ingredients each so that the
  kids can be involved with all parts of cooking.
• Let children find a favorite dish and let them make it once a week.
  Yes, you might get sick of it but stability is good for kids and if you know
  that you’re always cooking spaghetti together on Tuesdays, you enhance
  that.
• Start early if you want the cooking to be done at a certain time.
  It’s not healthy to cook under stress and it’s not a good habit
  for kids to get into so make sure you have plenty of time to make the meals.
• Read recipe books with your kids and have them pick out some of
  the dishes. If they’re involved in the planning, the shopping
  and the cooking, they’ll develop good food habits, learn great lessons
  and enjoy their meals.
• Have fun. You will look back on cooking with kids as hours
  that were spent together. These will be fond memories so enjoy them while
  you can.

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