Teaching children to cook

[DDavies]

For those of you with children, at what age did you start teaching them how to cook? I'm not referring to kitchen safety, I mean hands-on cooking.

I started teaching my kids the basics when they were approximately 8. I started with the easy dishes: pancakes, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, spaghetti (just the pasta and jar kind, no meat at that point), grilled cheese, mac and cheese -- the easy meals. The recipes became more involved as they grew. Luckily, I didn't have picky eaters, they were willing to try anything.

My youngest son recently told me I was obsessed with teaching them how to cook and he didn't think it was normal for a 10 year old to be responsible for cooking one night a week. He's 17 now and a decent enough cook. Put it this way, he won't starve or poison himself! I told him I didn't want to unleash my sons on some poor, unsuspecting woman who would have to do all the cooking !

 

[crimsonghost747]

I don't have one, but I do have smaller siblings. We started teaching them the basics when they were 7-ish.. nothing major but small snacks etc which they could make themselves after school. My brother never bothered to learn anything special, but my sister has started to bake a lot recently.

 

[Sweetkymom]

My son was started at the age of 5 because he always had an interest. My mother in law gave him his first hands on lesson. They made Mac n cheese and hotdogs. My daughter also started at age 5. Her first hands on was making sugar cookies.

My son is now 11 and my daughter is 7. They love to cook and ask everyday when can they cook again.

 

[DDavies]

I wish my son would bake banana bread! He's always asking me to make some. He was never interested in baking so maybe I should refuse to bake banana bread so he'll do it. My daughter, on the other hand, loves to bake.

That's great, Sweetkymom! It's also a great time for bonding and discussing how their day went.

 

[ally79]

My children are five and three and they are both working on hands on cooking with adult supervision of course. My husband is a chef so they already have a natural interest in cooking. It is a fabulous way for them to spend sometime with their dad too.

 

[Willie84]

My children were around five years old when I first started including them in cooking projects. I started them out with Christmas cookies. We also made Christmas ornaments out of dough! That was the first step for each child. Then, as they showed an interest (each child was different) I included them more and more.

 

[Shellyann36]

My four year old loves to join me in the kitchen. He washes his hands and helps prepare our garden salad every night. He washes the lettuce and tears it up for me. I also let him wash all of the other fruits or veggies that we are going to be using for our meals. He uses the blender at times and he loves to pour the ingredients into a bowl and stir them up.

I have not let him near the stove yet. Right now its small hands on stuff that is not dangerous.