6 Benefits Of Cooking With Your Children

If you’ve ever cooked with kids, you already know it can be messy, fun, and stressful at the same time.

Your kids are covered in food—their faces, their clothes, their hair, they’re even covered in food when they’re not cooking! But, the benefits of cooking with kids far outweigh the messes they inevitably make.

Cooking with children is a fun way to be involved with their lives and get them interested in food and cooking. 

The many benefits of cooking with children are simply undeniable. Not only does it improve their eating skills and self-confidence, but it also provides an opportunity for parents to become more engaged in their children’s meals.

It is a way to create a shared experience that can be remembered and create love and memories that will last a lifetime.

Cooking together can also be a great way to connect with your child and build a stronger bond. 

Here are some of the benefits of cooking with children.

Teaches Life Skills

We all know that cooking is a great life skill to have, as it can help you save money, eat more healthily, and even get a head start in the kitchen if you decide to become a chef later in life.

Cooking can be a fun and educational activity, a way for you and your kids to spend time together and teach each other valuable life skills.

The next time you’re hosting a special family meal set aside the video games and hand your kids their aprons. This will help them develop skills vital for adulthood: they’ll learn how to read recipes, follow directions, and pay attention to detail.

If you want to take it one step further, you can search for recipes online to find things like kid friendly Instant Pot recipes and have your kids write down the ingredients and steps. You can then create a budget and go all together to the supermarket.

Have your children pick out the ingredients and understand what they are spending the money on.

You can advise them on better value and hopefully instill a sense that you don’t always need the most expensive things. 

Once you’re back at home, you can have them measure out the ingredients and go through each process step by step.

All of this is extremely valuable at teaching them patience and value for money.

Increases Awareness About Nutrition

As a parent, you know how crucial it is to teach your children about food and nutrition. You want them to eat healthily and enjoy a variety of foods so they can grow up to be strong and healthy.

One way to do this is by having your children help you in the kitchen. They will learn about fresh ingredients and be exposed to a diversity of flavors. They will see you as someone who cooks, and they will want to cook when they grow up. They will learn that cooking is easy and fun.

Cooking with children helps them develop a taste for healthy foods. Those who’ve been involved in the preparation process are usually much more interested in trying new dishes.

By letting them taste as they go along the process, they will appreciate the food and not just think it comes from a box to be zapped in the microwave.

This also has an add-in benefit in which it can actively help reduce the possibility of obesity as they get older.

This may sound counterintuitive as getting them to enjoy food may sound like they will have a propensity to gain weight; it is often unhealthy foods with low nutritional content that causes weight gain.

By teaching your children to enjoy vegetables and high-quality ingredients, you will be creating a solid foundation for them to grow up healthy.

Instill Cleanliness

We all know that children are messy beasts; it sort of comes with the territory. Don’t think that they will change overnight. Instead, think of it as a long game.

By cooking together with your children, you will help them understand that things need to be clean and tidy, and little by little, you will start to see a change.

You should let your kids stay up as they go along and only involve themselves as needed, such as washing up knives or sharp objects. For everything else, let your kids do the work.

If you make it fun and part of the process, they will not even think that it’s work! They must understand that cooking utensils must be clean before use and that the space you will be working on is free of dirt and obstructions.

It is also wise to clean as you go along by washing up things once you are finished with them.

Try not to make the error of running around after your kids and let them do the work when possible. You should explain the reasons for keeping things clean in a way they can understand.

For example, you could tell them that they are changing chopping boards for meat and vegetables so that they don’t get sick or that they should keep their hands clean so that they don’t get other people sick.

Bonding Opportunity

Cooking is much more than making food with the right ingredients, and it is also an excellent way to bond with your children. 

While it is essential to teach our children the basics of cooking, you need to be sure that they are cooking healthy recipes. 

You can start by teaching them about cooking basics, such as how to properly use utensils and how to use a stove without burning themselves.

On top of those benefits, cooking together can also result in higher emotional well-being levels for both parents and children. When you spend time together with your children, you can discuss serious things like childhood and current situations.

You can also talk about the future, such as school, jobs, and opportunities. This allows young children to gain a sense of maturity by listening to their parents and seeing them take responsible, positive action.

Boosts Creativity

At a young age, children tend to imitate what they see adults doing. That’s why kids’ meals often contain such simple ingredients as potatoes, eggs, and cheese.

While these ingredients are often all you need to create a delicious meal, they are also a valuable teaching tool for young children.

They can see how other people prepare their meals and learn from how their parents prepare them.

Kids who prepare food with their parents are extra likely to be creative. So, how can cooking with children be fun?

First of all, be sure to let them be messy, which is crucial to their creativity. Yes, I know this goes against the previous point of teaching cleanliness. What I mean is not being overly strict when making mistakes or spilling some ingredients. Make sure that they understand that they must clean up after themselves.

Also, make sure to set time aside to experiment with different foods. Let them choose what they want to cook, they may surprise you. 

Saves Money

By cooking with your children, you will find that you actually start to save some money. If you are the type of parent that orders take out or eats out a lot with your children, you will definitely see your wallet fuller with money than before.

It doesn’t cost much to buy all of the ingredients needed to cook a meal. All you really need to invest in is some time and maybe a trip to the grocery store once per week.

Once you have some necessary skills down and have spent some time cooking at home, you will find that you spend less time shopping in the grocery store and more time cooking delicious meals for your family.

As a result of teaching your child budgeting, you may even find that you relearn some valuable skills yourself!

Summary

Cooking can also provide you with quality time with your kids. Kids can be very demanding sometimes, and it can be hard to find quality time around other children or adults.

However, cooking can be an excellent way to spend quality time together. You can also learn more about the foods that you and your kids like to eat and then create meals around these particular foods.