Teaching Kids to Take Care of Themselves: Eating and Preparing Food
Content Written/Updated on April 5, 2007
We all need to eat to survive. Children need to learn how to prepare their own food themselves. Cooking not only teaches them self-reliance but also teaches them about science, cultures, and art, and if they use a recipe they can get a lesson in reading as well.
Be sure your child is mentally and physically ready to do any activity that may be dangerous.
Teach your child to:
-
Use a spoon
We typically start teaching our children to use a spoon when they are an infant, but even older kids could use a lesson about the proper way to hold a spoon to avoid spills and slurps.
-
Use a fork
We typically start teaching our children to use forks when they are toddlers, but older kids could use a lesson about the proper way to hold a fork. I've even seen adults who hold their fork in their fist and stab their food as if they're trying to murder it. They could have develops more couth habits if somebody had shown them how to hold a fork when they were young.
-
Use a knife
Dull knives only!
Cutting food can be tricky, and motor skills to do this don't usually appear until the preschool years. Your child will have to master securing the food with a fork while he masters the movement and pressure of the knife.
-
Pour dry foods
Kids can start learning this in the sandbox. Be sure to give your children a wide variety of sandbox toys. Cups of rice can quickly become fun learning tools. Cooking is another activity that will help them develop this skill. Eventually your kids can learn to pour cereal for themselves, which will free up a few seconds in your morning. It takes a bit more fine motor skill to pour tiny amounts (such as a small amount of sugar, salt, or spice), but shakers with small holes to slow down the pour can do the trick, or you can teach your child to use their fingers to pinch up a tiny bit. Balancing a tiny bit of powder on a measuring spoon can be a tricky task at first, but they usually learn it quickly.
-
Pour wet foods
This skill often starts in the bathtub. It is important to give your children a variety of containers, so they can practice pouring water in various ways. Cups, bowls, pitchers, and watering cans are always favorites. Different sized containers allow them to learn that you just can't pour two cups of water into a four ounce cup. After bathtub time, move up to cooking class. Eventually your kids will be pouring milk into their dry cereal, and they'll even learn to pour their own juice.
-
Moving food from one container to another
This comes in handy for dishing out food from a serving platter or bowl and placing it onto a plate or into a bowl. It often requires a combination of dry and wet pouring skills since many foods have sauces that drip and chunks of solid food to scoop up. This is best practiced over a surface that you can easily clean, so don't wait until you celebrate Thanksgiving with your grandmothers antique table cloth to practice.
-
Mix and stir
This is a perfect skill to learn during cooking sessions with Mom or Dad. Eventually your child will learn to mix sugar into a lemonade, fruit into yogurt, and even cookie batter.
-
Use tongs
Tongs are very tricky for toddlers and preschoolers, but they can develop the skill with practice. Using tongs is an important skill for any kid who wants to visit the salad bar.
-
Use chopsticks
I've seen Asian toddlers using chopsticks, and their skill is much better than mine since they use them for every meal. If your child doesn't use chopsticks at every meal, you can start teaching them to use chopsticks that are attached, almost like tongs. (My Asian friends call them chopsticks with training wheels.) Kids typically enjoy learning to use chopsticks because they get to show off their new skill to their friends, and using chopsticks can make an ordinary meal exciting.
-
Open and close containers
This is a skill we adults take for granted. Children truly have to work to figure out how to take lids off and how to put them back on correctly. The best way to teach your kids this skill is to give them a bunch of empty food containers (washed) to play with. Letting them use these containers in the bathtub will help them learn how to close a container holding water without spilling the liquid inside the container.
-
Use a sharp knife
Intense supervision required! Eventually your children will be able to do this without your help, but for now, keep a close eye on them.
Teach them how to cut food without cutting themselves or somebody else. Show them the different styles of cutting as well: slicing, chopping, dicing, julienne, mincing, etc. Be sure to instruct them never to use a sharp knife unless an adult is helping them.
-
Use the microwave
Intense supervision required! Eventually your children will be able to do this without your help, but for now, keep a close eye on them.
Teach your children to only heat food in the microwave for one minute or less; more than that will risk serious burns. Teach them to test the temperature by first looking for signs of heat, like steam, and then feeling the air around the food. If it doesn't feel too warm, they can slightly touch the food with their finger and slowly probe deeper if it isn't too hot. If it's cold, they can put it in for another few seconds (max one minute).
This is the safest way to introduce children to cooking since they don't have to deal with any heat sources. As your children get older, they'll be able to use the microwave to cook oatmeal and hot chocolate by themselves.
-
Bake
Intense supervision required! Eventually your children will be able to do this without your help, but for now, keep a close eye on them.
Children need to understand how raw food turns into cooked food. They also need to learn how cooked food can turn into burnt food (and could even result in a fire) if left unattended.
It's better to learn baking than stove top cooking first because the food is less likely to splatter, spill, or cause grease fires, and children will quickly learn how hot ovens and stoves can get when they feel the rush of heat as the oven door opens.
-
Cook on the stove
Intense supervision required! Eventually your children will be able to do this without your help, but for now, keep a close eye on them. Teach your children to only cook on stoves if an adult is paying close attention. Otherwise, the stove is off limits until they're much older. Always make sure that you teach your child how to put out any fires with a fire extinguisher, and keep the fire extinguisher nearby.
Cooking on top of a stove is fun as long as you don't cook anything that splatters. Stove top cooking allows kids to see food cook right before their eyes (something you can do when baking or microwaving). It's also a perfect opportunity to teach your children how to taste food to ensure they've added enough sugar, salt, spice, herbs, etc.
-
Cook over a campfire or barbeque
Intense supervision required!
Don't assume that you have to sign your kids up for a youth program, like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, to teach them how to cook on a campfire. Children need to learn this valuable skill for emergency situations, and it's fun, but be sure to have strict rules that, unless it's an emergency situation, they can only start fires or cook over fire with an adult paying close attention.
...by Feed