How to encourage your older child to get cooking
I’m a huge believer in the fact that kids can be involved in the kitchen at any age, even the smallest hands can be helpers in the kitchen. Lately, however, I’ve been realizing that a lot of the time my children spend in the kitchen is to bake up something for fun, decorate a birthday cake or to help prepare a special snack. Often they have the responsibility of setting or clearing the table but not a lot of time is spent actually cooking in the kitchen as a way to help out with family meals, like actually learning to cook and gaining both confidence and responsibility. I’ve been thinking about this because my oldest is 9 years old and has an interest in cooking and baking and I feel that she is at an age where being more responsible for food preparation is important. In addition to that, we are on month 15 of Covid life, with everyone home and this Mama is tired, so some extra helping hands would be more than welcomed. My kids love having meals and snacks together, which I love, they have slightly different virtual school schedules and they will wait for one another to enjoy lunch or a snack together at the table. I love that they are sitting together to share a meal and I love the conversations they have! My older daughter is definitely capable of contributing to the food preparation for these meals and snacks as a way to learn how to feed herself and help out.
Here are a few ways you can encourage and help your older child to gain confidence and responsibility in the kitchen, all while helping them develop a pretty important life skill.
Assess your child’s ability and skills to do different tasks in the kitchen (i.e. can you trust them to use a knife? the stove?). What are their current skills and comfort level with food preparation?
Teach them basic food safety, like washing their hands before preparing foods, washing produce before cutting, preventing cross contamination, keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold,
Teach them how to hold and use a knife properly and safely,
Teach them how to safely and properly use kitchen appliances, like the oven, stove, waffle iron, immersion blender.
Teach them how to clean up after themselves
Once you are confident that they understand these important basics, you are good to go. Next …
Keep knives, utensils, bowls, lunch boxes and containers, cooking utensils and ingredients in easy to reach places
Include your child in choosing new recipes to prepare and planning meals, give your child specific tasks to complete on the plan to contribute to the family meals and post the meal plan with their jobs outlined for the week
Encourage your child to include at least 2 different food groups for a snack and 3 food groups for a meal (think fruit and yogurt for snack and whole grain pita, cheese and veggies for lunch) ,
Encourage your child to abide by the kitchen closed policy in between meals and snacks. This is particularly tricky with kids who are old enough to access and prepare food for themselves but doing so will help to limit snacking too close to meal time which can impact appetite and interest in trying new foods,
Have lunch and snack staples stored together in easy to find and obvious locations. This makes preparing lunches and snacks a little easier for your big kid and they can do it all for themselves, start to finish. This also allows you to maintain responsibility for what is served and where, all while your child is responsible for what they choose to eat from what is available and how much
Most importantly, tell your child how proud you are of their skills in the kitchen and how much you appreciate them helping out
Here are a few ideas for meals your big kids can prepare all on their own:
Pancakes
Grilled Cheese sandwich
Fruit salad
Homemade hummus with baked homemade tortilla chips
Muffins or baked oat cups
Yogurt, granola and fruit parfaits
Bruschetta
I am happy to get help from as many extra hands as possible, so I’ll definitely be putting these strategies to the test to encourage my oldest to be more involved in the kitchen, it helps me out and helps her practice some really important life skills, its a win - win!