Teaching Your Children To Help in The Kitchen at an Early Age

By Tl Kleban

Learning how to cook is more than just eating and satisfying your primal urges. It is actually a great and yet underrated way of educating your child. Cooking allows all of the developmental domains such as cognitive, physical, mental, social and emotional to be influenced and you get to eat it when you're finished with all of this learning. Teaching through cooking is not only perfect for children, but it is also great way to spend quality time with them too.

Through cooking, your children respond to learning because they take active participation in the entire process. This is because it's a hands-on learning experience. When you let your kids help with preparing a meal, they become agreeable, inquisitive, and creative. Not only that but they also take pride and ownership in what they made. Here is how you can get your children more involved in learning how to cook in the kitchen.

• It's never too early to start. Children as young as toddlers and preschoolers can do much more than you might think they could in the kitchen. Giving them a little bit of responsibility with mommy and daddy jobs will boost their self esteem too.

• Teach them all of the basics about kitchen utensils ' knives, spatulas, cup and spoon measures and how to use each. Don't let them use some of the more complicated utensils and electronic gadgets but have them watch you instead at first. When you feel more comfortable with them using something tricky before giving your kids full control.

• Walk them around the kitchen and explain where everything goes and is stored. Emphasize the fact that if they use a utensil that it should be returned to its proper place once they are done with it.

• Now that they know all of the in's and out's of you kitchen, you can start having them help you out. Start by handing individual duties for them to take care such as stirring a pot, beating an egg, or making sure the correct amount of flour is added to a mixing bowl.

• If they are bugging you for more of a bigger job, then get some small and simple recipes for them to try out, under your supervision of course. There are even a few children's cookbooks for sale online or at a local bookstore. It's ok to have them pick out what they want to cook. Give them a selection of approved recipes that they would likely enjoy cooking and eating.

• Never lose your cool if there are any spills and mistakes. Show a little bit of patience with them. They are kids after all and kids are messy.

• Talk to them about all of the different foods, letting them taste different spices, dressings and sauces as well as describing flavors, textures and chemical properties of food. This will give them an understanding that cooking is not only a science of chemicals but also an art of blending flavors.

• Let them run wild and show their creativity by experimenting a little bit. Once you feel that they can cook small recipes, try substituting different ingredients or suggesting other styles of cooking.

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