Cooking with children is a rewarding project. My son Daniel became interested in cooking as a preschooler. He would often climb up into a bar stool to help me stir whatever I was making. He was interested in the ingredients, and what they were going to become. At age four, his most requested cooking project was sugar cookies. He loved the whole process of stirring the ingredients together, rolling the dough, cutting out with shaped cutters, sprinkling with colored sugars, and then baking the cookies.
Daniel is grown up now, and he yet has a love for cooking. He can whip up an entire meal, and he seems to enjoy the process. Sometimes I wonder if he would have this same love for cooking had his experience been different as a child. Perhaps if I had been "too busy" to bake cookies with him, would he have lost interest in the kitchen? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that children love to help out in the kitchen, and they are often learning while they are helping. Maybe they're even developing life-long interests and habits.
Of course, where children are concerned, I strongly recommend common sense and age-appropriate activities. I wouldn't turn a four-year-old loose with my chopping knife, or allow a youngster near a possible burn hazard. But, there are many things in the kitchen that children can do to help prepare the family meals and to learn what cooking is all about.
When my grandchildren visit, they often help prepare food. Sometimes they want to make something start to finish, and sometimes they only want to help with part of a recipe. I hope they continue to be interested in cooking and grow up with some knowledge of how to put a meal together. You'll often see my grandchildren pictured on the blog helping out in the kitchen.
When a recipe lends itself particularly well to children, I'll post it under Kid-Friendly Recipes. But you know your child best, depending upon age, disposition, and ability, some children may need more or less supervision than others.
©Sugar, Spice and Spilled Milk
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