How to Teach Your Children Responsibility in the Kitchen

By Editor1SYS | July 15, 2020 0 Comments

When you have children, making tasty, healthy meals that all the family enjoys can be a tricky task. Involving your kids with the preparation may encourage them to try new things and develop their confidence. Cooking with children provides them with practical experience and allows them to develop many vital skills, such as measuring, reading, and following directions. Getting kids involved with cooking will help them work on eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills, and early concepts of science and maths.  Also tailor the recipes to their age group, safety awareness and dexterity – for example older kids will find this Reese’s Hot Cocoa Bomb recipe loads of fun but not ideal for younger ones.

However, there are a number of hazards in the kitchen, so you need to teach your children how to cook responsibly, and here’s how. 

Remind Them to Ask an Adult’s Permission

Getting a child to ask for an adult’s permission before they cook may seem obvious, but once your child develops confidence and independence and feels comfortable in the kitchen, they may forget to ask over time. Some children like to surprise their parents and impress them with dishes, but as sweet as this sounds, to ensure they are safe, you need to encourage them to ask you or your partner first. 

Get Them Practicing

There are a number of sharp and dangerous kitchen tools that you need to teach your children how to use when they start cooking. Allowing them to practice safely with safer alternatives like child-friendly plastic knives is a great place to start. Then, over time, you can start to introduce them to sharper objects. Teaching kids the right way to use hazardous tools is safer than avoiding them altogether. 

Teach Basic Hygiene

Sharp kitchen tools aren’t the only risk to your child when they start cooking. Teaching them about invisible threats, such as hot objects and germs, is extremely important. To start them off, you need to teach them how to clean the kitchen equipment, the surfaces, and most importantly, their hands. You also need to make them aware of dangerous food and how to handle hot objects and items. 

Encourage Regular Cooking 

Encouraging children to cook on a regular basis will keep the health and safety rules and tips you teach them fresh in their minds and will allow them to develop and work on their kitchen skills. To get started, you should consider subscribing to compasscooks.com. This is a monthly cooking club subscription that takes kids around the world and teaches them to cook real food for the whole family. 

Make Them Listen

The main rule that children need to always follow when cooking in the kitchen is to listen. Cooking with your kids is brilliant for building listening skills and teaching them how to follow instructions. You need to make sure they are aware of the importance of listening before they enter the kitchen and carry out any actions. This will reduce the risk of them harming themselves by getting lost in the fun. 

As you can see, cooking is an extremely valuable talent to get your children working on and will help to develop other skills that they will be able to take with them through to other life experiences.