Preparing food together with your kid or having them give you a helping hand when you’re in need might sound like an impossible dream if your child can’t stand entering the kitchen while the oven’s on and cooking. However, this doesn’t mean that you should simply step back and let them remain strangers to the cooking space. Having kids involved in cooking processes lays the foundation for their growth and can provide incredible advantages when it comes to their healthy development. 

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Develops fine motor skills

Focusing on the development of the fine motor skills of a child is one of the most essential tasks as a parent or caregiver because this process further establishes how well and healthily they’ll use their small muscles in conjunction with the brain and whole nervous system. Fine motor skills enable the child to coordinate their movements in areas like fingers, hands, lips, eyes, and tongue, helping them conduct daily tasks like dressing up or writing.

These aspects are even more critical today, when every task is streamlined and simplified via tech advances and all sorts of developments, regardless of the area you’re looking into. If they would’ve needed extended care to manipulate an electric scissor decades ago, today, they’re merely using the physical pen. Similarly, where they’d use their muscles to the maximum to pull or open barely functional doors, they’re now just touching the surface, and the whole tech development behind the structure is doing the job for them. They don’t have to struggle to pull doors by their handles because they can just tap onto some handleless, easily slidable replacement kitchen doors and grab the desired items or products even if their hands are occupied.

But how can you help nurture these capabilities more effectively and safely? 

Of course, motor skills aren’t just about pulling or lifting things. You can engage your child in finer tasks involving more delicacy, such as mixing batter, rolling dough, or garnishing meals. You can even alter tasks depending on their capabilities and age to further nurture their developing skills, with having them slowly pour liquids into balls and seeing the chemical reaction between the ingredients serving as an intriguing and educational starting point to capture them. The skills nurtured will benefit them all life long, so make sure to dedicate plenty of time to activities that build and improve their capacity to master delicate tasks.

Refines life skills

Life skills aren’t limited to chopping, cooking, mixing, baking, cutting, and so on. These must-haves are all about critically analyzing situations, adjusting, adapting, and coming up with solutions to unforeseen, unpredictable situations that don’t go as planned. As with real life, the outcome doesn’t always come as expected, despite the numerous and meticulous calculations you may have made before starting a task or project. You likely know that the milk can boil and blow up in the blink of an eye, regardless of all the dedicated attention. This is just an example of a situation where you need to be quick on the uptake and put your vigilance at work to find the best solution to an unpredicted mess.

Cooking skills don’t serve just in the kitchen but throughout a person’s life, from cooking basic breakfasts to feeding a whole band of people. Learning to cook when in the developmental stages will help your kid grow up with the skills to adapt to various ingredients, turn scraps into food, throw together meals, or cook delicious dishes from scratch. They can build priceless life skills just by standing next to you and analyzing the things you do, even if they’re not in charge of doing something incredible like beating up eggs.

Promotes healthy eating habits

A small child’s or toddler’s life is all about trying and learning, discovering how elements in their surroundings work, and the power of control they have (or lack) over them. This journey refers to meals, too. Children who are picky eaters may show signs of independence and self-assertiveness. Still, it can become frustrating when they compromise on nutrition by choosing unhealthier (but tastier) food options. Involving children in the meal preparation process can significantly impact how they perceive and think about the food they’re digesting, encouraging them to explore the culinary adventurers within them.

There’s no such thing as a child disliking certain types of food they’ve never tried. The whole reluctance comes from their discouragement or lack of curiosity about trying new and unexplored options.

Encourages them to consume vegetables

The struggle of seeing kids avoid veggies at all costs is accurate, and it couldn’t be further from the truth in today’s era when parents have overfilled schedules that they need to stick to. Getting your ambitious kid to try or consume veggies can be nerve-wracking and frustrating, but you know that your determination will pay off in the end.

You’re encouraged to let your child experiment with veggies, wash them, peel them off, see how you cook them, and hear you talk about their nutrients and health benefits in a captivating way. For instance, you can tell them how eating spinach, red onions, broccoli, ginger, kale, garlic, and other foods will help them fight the common flu quicker and easier. This can be an effortless way to enhance their veggie consumption while enjoying some quality bonding time together. What other example of a win-win situation could sound better?

Involving your kid in the kitchen brings more advantages than you can imagine

Other unparalleled benefits you can achieve from involving your kid in the kitchen include enhancing reading skills, helping them gain a sense of independence, fostering positive interactions, and so on. Even if it may seem risky, dreary, and complicated at first, you will enjoy doing kitchen-related activities together. You will reap the benefits of your efforts down the road. Let your bundle of love unleash their creativity (supervised) and see how they grow up to be self-sufficient, independent, adventurous, and confident little chefs.