Tips for a Happy Kitchen Experience with your children.

We have put together a few tips and ideas to help make your cooking and baking experience with your children enjoyable and safe for everyone.

1. Work to keep your kitchen a safe zone. Childproof your kitchen and keep younger children away from the hot stove and sharp knives. Teach your kids safety right from the start.
2. Before starting any cooking project, make sure that you have a nice empty, clean workspace.
   
   Tip: if you have a large plastic tablecloth that can cover the work surface use it – makes cleaning up so much easier – there will definitely be spills of flour, sugar, milk and sticky stuff. After clearing away all bowls, utensils and cooking things, simply fold up the sides of the tablecloth and dump the contents into the bin or rinse off in the sink.
3. If little ones are going to have to perch on a chair make sure it wont slide around. Put a rubber mat under the feet of the chair. Don’t have one handy? Use the ones from your car!
4. Sometimes the best place for a toddler is on another plastic tablecloth on your clean floor! It makes it much easier for them to do the mixing or kneading when they can get above the bowl. Just remember to ban the cat and dog from the kitchen.
5. The kitchen is an ideal place to teach good hygiene habits. Supervise (and explain why) they should always wash hands with soap and warm water before cooking or preparing food. Keep hands away from the face, hair and pets. Tie your toddler’s long hair back so it won't get in the way! Show them how to clean counter tops, close ingredients properly and store them back in their right places. Explain why they should only use clean sponges and dishtowels.
6. Enforce simple rules of (1) wear an apron, (2) wash hands and (3) not a crumb to be wasted.
7. Handle all the hot stuff yourself, making sure that, when moving pans from the stove or oven to a counter, your toddler is well away from you. Turn handles of pots and pans towards middle of the stove to avoid accidental bumps. Always use potholders or oven mitts when handling something hot and make sure the potholders are not wet.
8. Don’t ever let your toddler sit on a counter top, within 3 feet from any plug outlet! Always stand between them and any plug outlet. Even very young children will want to put the flour in the mixing bowl or break an egg and watch it mix. Turn the food mixer off first and then let them do it. Teach them to never touch the mixer when it is on.
9. Choose simple and quick recipes for young kids. Kids love to get their hands in the dough. Biscuit recipes are great for this because they can be formed by little hands. Tinies will enjoy cubing cheese with a blunt butter knife, tearing up lettuce for salads or spreading jam, peanut butter or cottage cheese on biscuits or slices of apple; or even putting toothpicks into morsels of food for snacks.
10. Always have a few boxed cake, muffin and biscuit mixes in your pantry cupboard. With a mix, there is less that can go wrong. Since it takes less time to bake, a mix may be more suitable for a child's attention span or may fit an available block of time better. See our suggested list of “essential” ingredients in your pantry cupboard.
11. Make the whole experience feel good. Ignore the “bloopers” like egg shells in the sugar. Praise them often even if the creation isn't perfect. When a mess happens – as it definitely will, take it in your stride and don't scold. Explain that you will clean it up together.
12. Don’t be in a hurry. Never cook with kids if you are rushed for time. Calculate at least double the time that you would take to create the masterpiece.
13. First set out all the recipe ingredients in one place on the counter and as you use them, put them away immediately or move them out of the way entirely to another area. Put out all the utensils that you will need so that your are not distracted rooting around trying to find a measuring spoon during the process – you can’t imagine what can happen when your back is turned.
14. The kitchen is an excellent classroom. Depending on the age of your offspring, you can help them identify recipe ingredients and, when they get a bit older, teach them how to follow written instructions. They can even do a bit of math and calculate the fractions found in most recipes.
15. Give them a mini-science lesson. Explain how yeast works or baking soda. Show them the difference between granulated sugar, brown sugar, and icing sugar. Show them how your scale and measuring cups and spoons should be used.
16. Teach them food safety principles. Make them aware of dangerous germs or bacteria and how they grow. Older children can be taught to keep hot foods hot (over 140 degrees) and cold foods cold (under 40 degrees). Teach them what food should be stored in the refrigerator and what can be safely stored in a cupboard.
17. Teach them to clean up as they work and especially afterwards. Let them know that the job is not done until the kitchen is clean.

Use this kitchen time as a wonderful opportunity to pass many life skills and even a little wisdom.

Remember, it is important to let the children carry out the cooking themselves, even if they make a mess of it - and patience is required to show them, little by little, the basics.

Always, always try to make it fun and praise them often – After all, it’s the time spent together with your toddlers – not how perfect your “result” is that matters in the long run.

... and most important of all, don’t forget to lick the bowls together!