Does your child constantly bother you while you’re preparing food in the kitchen?
Are you tired of hearing your child complain about the food you make?

Here’s my suggestion: Involve your child in the cooking process!

I love cooking with children. I know, I know: Sometimes, kids make a mess in the kitchen. Everything takes longer to do, and what if the kids ruin the recipe?

Any or all of the above may be true, but the potential for fun and learning outweigh the risks! You may also discover that you love it, too!

Kids love being involved with preparing food. That’s part of why they’re so likely to get in the way in your kitchen. They’re interested in what you’re doing, while you may be ignoring them.

So rather than push them away, draw them in.

Cooking activities are appropriate for children ages two years and up. Obviously, the kind of involvement and learning is different for a two-year-old than a five-year-old, but both can be involved in the process, learn while cooking and having fun!

Let me show you some of the many ways children learn through cooking, and then I’ll give you some directions on how to teach your child while you’re cooking and still get supper ready.

1. Following Directions: Teach your child what a recipe is and that one must “follow the directions” in order for the recipe to work

2. Simple Arithmetic: Compare amounts. Are we putting in more flour or more baking powder? What is bigger: a half cup or a whole cup? Develop his sequencing skills. Ask him, “What do we do first...second...last?”

3. Sensory Awareness: Use ingredients with a variety of textures, smells, and tastes. Let him feel the difference between rice and beans. Let him taste the difference between sugar and salt. Have him smell the differences between various spices and the sweet smell of vanilla.

4. Vocabulary Enrichment: Enhance your child’s knowledge of ingredients and items found around your kitchen.

5. Concept Development: Improve your child’s understanding of concepts: Hard vs. soft, liquid vs. solid, hot vs. cold, raw vs. baked, etc.

6. Cause and Effect Relationships: Increase your child’s ability to answer questions like: “What happens if . . . (You use bananas instead of strawberries)?” Children can learn how adding, leaving out, or changing one ingredient can change the entire product.

7. Cooperation: Improve your child’s ability to work together with you and with other children. This includes waiting for his turn and having fun in a joint activity.

Here’s How To Do It

The most important goal of cooking with your child is to enjoy each other’s company!

By Esther Boylan Wolfson, MA - Director, Early Childhood Development Center - www.wholefamily.com