People have to deal with a lot when they are parents. Other than taking care of your life, you have to take care of other human beings and their lives too when you are a parent. You have to make sure you are doing the right things and saying the right things to nurture them positively. Parents always look for ways to keep their kids busy when they are occupied with other work around the house like cleaning or cooking. Intensive cleaning is not something your kids can help you with as they might be allergic to dust or mold. But you can definitely involve them when you are cooking. Cooking doesn’t have to be a defined job reserved for one individual. Everyone in the family can help out and make it a fun family affair. But when children are young, making the whole experience fun to keep them involved can be challenging for the parents. But it is not a difficult job as kids love to be treated as adults and be entrusted with various tasks. There are a few things that you can do as a parent to involve your children in the process of cooking while making it a fun activity for them.
1. Start Young
It is important that you catch your children young and get them involved in this chore as then that will become a part of their lives from early on. You can start with the small odd jobs like asking your child to open the refrigerator door, take something out of the refrigerator, help you to wash the greens or take out peas from pods for you. These are very small and completely safe things that children can do from a young age. You can constantly talk to them or sing with them while you are working with them to keep it fun. Things that you dread doing would get a fun spin when you can get your family involved.
2. Messy Jobs Can Be Fun
Kids love to do messy things. Getting their hands dirty is something that they consider fun. So, why not let them do just that in the kitchen? Get your children to break eggs for you and see the excitement that they feel while doing something that grownups consider mundane. Ask them to mix ingredients of a batter or blend the smoothie under your supervision. They would love the messy bits of the job that adults run away from.
3. Creativity Can Keep Them Involved
Children have short attention spans. So, they would get bored if you make them do the same things over and over again. So, get creative in the kitchen and introduce them to different aspects of the kitchen to have a continuous command over their attention. You can get them involved more intimately by asking them to help you to customize their foods. Cutting cookies in various fun shapes is a great way of keeping them occupied. You can also ask them what they want in their sandwiches or toppings.
4. Plan Ahead
It can be a fun thing that you can share with your children. You can plan ahead about the weekend recipes. This will keep them excited and make them look forward to your bonding session. You can also ask them to come up with interesting twists that they would like to try out in the kitchen. Cooking can be a great way for you to bond with your child. And learning to cook is a life skill that would be helpful to them later.
5. Buy Groceries Together
When you get them involved in the process of cooking, they would automatically get excited about buying groceries as they would know what they need to buy for their fun culinary projects. Children can be of great help in the shopping department as well.
Cooking can be a fun affair for both you and your children if you can do it together. Remember a family that cooks together stays together.
