Posted by cel

Every caregiver is forced to master the art of multitasking. Cooking with kids is a great way to make an everyday activity fun. Still, involving your child in the kitchen can be a bit tricky as it can get pretty messy and of course, some kitchen jobs are not safe for a little one. Here are some tips for safe and fun ways to involve your child in the kitchen.

1) Only give your child tasks you are willing to let them do at their own age-appropriate level. For example, if you ask them to mix a bowl of ingredients together, accept that they may leave chunks and don’t criticize. Tell them what they are doing right and then suggest how they might do it even better.

2) If the work you have to do is not good for outsourcing to a kiddo, you can improvise some invented tasks so that your child feeds helpful and involved, even if the task is not directly relevant to the meal prep. For example, give them shredded cheese and tell them it needs to be divided into two bowls. One of my favorites was taking a can of mixed nuts and asking my son to sort them by type. He loved it!

3) Typical activities you can let your child do: pouring, mixing ingredients, cracking eggs, rolling dough with a rolling pin. Since cracking eggs can be tricky, you can have them crack the eggs into a separate bowl and then remove any broken shell from the eggs before adding to the rest of your recipe.

Cooking is a Teaching Opportunity!

Its easy to demonstrate math concepts like addition, subtraction and counting in the kitchen. You can also teach them about how their food is grown and where it comes from. You can teach them about nutrition and a healthy diet.

Kitchen Safety

1) Use back burners (as opposed to front burners) to keep the heat out of your child’s reach.

2) Keep dangerous objects like your knives and cheese graters away from the edge of counters.

Helpful items to have:

1) Aprons – easy wash, full coverage aprons can save your child’s outfit if that is a concern. Of course, when my son helps me in the kitchen, its usually at dinner and right before bedtime, so its not really an issue.

2) Protective floor mats – Save yourself some effort, by placing a floor mat under your child’s work area.

3) Metal, as opposed to glass bowls, so if there is a spill, there is no breakage.

5) A step stool.

4) A relaxed attitude.

Involving your child in the kitchen provides you both with quality time and builds the child’s self esteem. It also helps your child understand the work involved in what would otherwise be food that was simply placed before them to eat. Be sure to have your kiddo help with clean up. Lastly, brag to others in front of them about their helpfulness in the kitchen.