Kids in the Kitchen
Including your kids in the kitchen to help plan and prepare meals and snacks passes on amazing and essential life skills. It can even help your little ones create healthy eating habits and positive relationships with food. Being in the kitchen with a parent or caregiver is fun for kids, as they get to learn about food by getting their hands dirty. When they are involved in the process of preparing food, kids become more likely to experiment with new tastes and textures. Being in the kitchen and being allowed to participate in preparing meals and snacks for themselves and their families gives kids a sense of pride, builds their confidence and reinforces literacy, math and science skills. Here are some tips and tricks for making time in the kitchen with your kids a success!
How can you get your kids involved in the kitchen?
At any age, kids can be involved in the meal planning process and grocery shopping. Teaching kids where food comes from by gardening and visiting farms and farmers markets is also part of teaching them about food and how to cook. Kids of all ages can lend a helping hand in the kitchen too. Toddlers can help by stirring and mixing ingredients, and school age children can measure and pour ingredients into a bowl, pan or pot, read a recipe and gather ingredients. While older kids and teenagers can help with most of the food prep including chopping ingredients, preparing full recipes and using the stove and oven to make a meal.
No one is an expert right out of the gate, so start slow. Have your kids give you ideas for the week’s meal plan and grocery list. Include your children in various kitchen tasks throughout the week, which could be as simple as setting and clearing the table, or placing crackers, cheese or veggies on a plate for snacks. Supervise older children and teens as they learn how to hold and use a knife and the stove or oven. You know your kids best, use your judgement to decide which tasks you are both comfortable and confident with taking on safely. Include younger kids in making breakfast and snacks, mixing ingredients for muffins, mashing bananas for banana bread, sprinkling cheese on a pizza, tearing lettuce for salad and squeezing lemons. Allow older kids to help with making their own lunch. Organize lunch and snack items in one area of the kitchen and fridge, give older kids the freedom to choose their lunch items from these sections. Once everyone is more comfortable in the kitchen, consider keeping the meal plan in a visible spot for everyone to see and older kids and teens can sign up to prepare at least one thing on the menu each week.
When children and teens are invited to be involved in the whole process, from including their favorite foods to the meal plan, shopping and preparing, you may see their eating habits change. Many children are more inclined to eat the foods that they prepare themselves. So cooking together not only passes on important life skills but also helps your child make healthy food choices and eat a greater variety of foods.