Cooking With Kids

Choose the Right Time

If you're going to have kids helping you in the kitchen, you don't want to be on a tight time schedule. Instead of involving them in a dinner you have to cook lightning-fast, enlist their help on a weekend afternoon when you don't feel crunched.

With younger kids, choose a time when they're well-rested and not easily frustrated. It's also a smart idea to have another adult in the kitchen to help you keep an eye on your junior chef.

Choose the Right Tasks

Plan ahead a little when deciding what you'll prepare together. For younger kids, consider starting with simple dishes with fewer than five ingredients. Then your child won't have to wait it out while you tackle a complicated step. A tossed salad or easy muffin recipe can be good starter projects. You also might set up a pizza-making assembly line where kids can choose their own mini-crusts, sauces, cheeses, and toppings. Older kids can take cooking to the next level and work with you on more challenging recipes.

When you've chosen a recipe, think about which steps your child can do independently. For instance, kids who can read can call out the ingredients from the recipe card while you put them out on the counter. A younger child can help you pour ingredients into a bowl. An older child might be able to measure out ingredients and add them unassisted.

Doing some prep work in advance, such as rinsing the berries for muffins, will make the process move more swiftly. If there's a lull in the action, you might consider giving your child a well-deserved break. Then you can call him or her back in when there's another kid-friendly task to do, or when it's time to taste what you made.

Stress Safety

Children need supervision when they're in the kitchen. Preschoolers must learn not to touch whirring electric beaters, hot pans, and stovetops.

Here are some safety tips:

• Give frequent reminders about what's OK to touch and which items can hurt them.
• Talk about which kitchen tasks are for grown-ups and which are for kids.
• Establish kitchen rules, such as washing hands and not touching stove knobs or knives.

Even older kids will need safety reminders, especially if they're working with appliances and knives, or at the stove.

Loosen Up

Kids cannot be counted on to be neat in the kitchen. Even adults have trouble with that. To make your experience together more enjoyable, allow for some extra mess and try to be patient. To prevent cooking disasters, be sure your child isn't measuring ingredients over the bowl — risking a big oops. Instead, you might measure them separately and put them in small bowls, like they do on TV cooking shows.

Even if everything doesn't go perfectly, try to keep the mood light. If the egg gets more smashed than cracked, offer some guidance and let your child try again. Little by little, kids will gain these skills — and feel great once they're mastered.

Last, but not least, be sure to compliment your assistant chefs on a job well done. Offer them first taste of whatever you cooked together — and ask what you should make together next time. Bon appetit!

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: July 2011