If you want your kids to be adventurous foodies and eat more nutritiously than you need to get your kids helping you in the kitchen!
Make it even more fun for kids by pulling up a step stool and providing them with their own apron, mitts, and cooking utensils. This way your kids will feel and look like little Chefs! Don’t forget to get a few cookbooks just for kids.
Check Out More Kids Recipes Here:
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Relationship Between Food and Your Child
Your child will learn what goes into the dinner by cooking a meal along side you. As I’ve said, he’ll have more exposure to the food he eats one ingredient at a time. Kid’s who cook regularly will have a better relationship with food and are able better able to gauge what types of foods are healthy to eat and what foods are not (2).
Children who cook with their parents regularly are more likely to have healthier eating habits when they are adults; now since one-third of kids are overweight and two-thirds of adults are overweight, cooking is the perfect place to start at creating these positives outcomes (2).
You are teaching your kids a life-skill that will help them create better meals for themselves as young adults and with their future families.
Cooking with Kids? Why?
You’re not only going to enhance your child’s cognitive development and fine motor skills, but you are also going to make lasting memories for the both of you. Your kids are less likely to cherish the time it took to warm up a pre-made frozen lasagna as they will of the two of you making the lasagna layer by layer. Shared experie
nces bonds a family and what better way to share an experience than in the kitchen cooking together?
Kids are more likely to share their day with you while you are cooking together. It lowers their guard and allows you to find out more about their day and feelings. Plus, it’s another great reason to get kids away from technology.
And one of the most important reasons to teach kids to cook is you are teaching them a life skill they will use every single day of their life. It’s sad when 20 and 30-year-olds can’t cook! I was one of them myself. I always felt embarrassed that I didn’t know what I was doing in the kitchen.
Helping Kids Experience Foods
When you and your child start cooking, your kid will have more time with the foods he or she normally wouldn’t eat at the dinner table. He will get more exposure to those Brussels Sprouts. While cutting up a pepper or tomato, your child is touching the food, engaging with it and smelling it. All of these exposure points with foods helps children get more comfortable with eating a larger variety of foods. Yes, cooking with kids helps to reduce picky eating!
