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Cooking with Kids Changes Everything

By Vanessa Retter, Mom and Founder/CEO of Rookie Chef July 8, 2016
The way I view cooking, food prep and meal planning has, very recently, completely changed. If your kids aren’t helping you, you’re working too hard! Imagine sharing the meal planning with your kids. They choose recipes that get us out of the "same ole same ole" rut we fall into. Then, they are engaged! They help with shopping lists, budgets and prep if you want them to. It’s such an incredible learning experience. Make a kid feel like an adult and they will do nearly anything. 

It’s Monday night and time to make dinner. Instead of making dinner alone in the kitchen, the kids are in there helping. There are really neat tools available that bring the counter top down to the child and accessories that make food prep fun and easy for kids. Make it easier for them and this is a recipe for magic. Suddenly you are in the kitchen with the kids, spending more time together, learning the details about their day and their friend drama. I learn more about their lives, now that they are helping me make dinner, because it is natural to talk about your day when cooking. Gone are the days that I ask, "How was your day" and I hear "good" or "ok" I get all the details without even having to ask. They’ve become interested in my day, too. Our lives outside the house have become more intertwined. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Magic seems like the only appropriate word … maybe miracle would be a good word too because nothing has ever fostered such relationship growth (at home) as cooking together. 

Dinner prep is now shared between multiple people, goes much faster and voila, dinner is done. But that’s not the end. The child is proud. Their confidence grows. They want to do it all over again the next morning. They want to tell you all about what they did and how they did it. A new type of bond begins to form that wasn’t there before. Quality Bonding Time (QBT) goes WAY up and we all know we don’t get enough QBT with our busy schedules. Any extra time with them is a gift! 

I’ve never seen anything bring the family together, daily, like cooking does. We all know the kitchen is a gathering place and engaging kids in cooking is becoming much more popular. Pride is easily seen in sporting events or academics, but at home …. get 'em cooking and you’ll see 'em flourish. These are life skills that used to be taught in school. In an age dominated by technology, we need balance. We need the pendulum to swing back to the side of getting your hands dirty, making something and learning necessary life skills. Give a child a piece of paper and paint and they will be proud of their creation. Give a child a pudding packet and a pie crust and they will gloat about their dessert for as long as it lasts and then some. Take pictures, feature dishes and display them like artwork. Your child will grow three inches in pride alone. The family unit will be stronger, not to mention all the good food to be had.

Vanessa Retter is a wife, mother and Founder of Rookie Chef. Rookie Chef bridges the gap between pretend play kitchens and real kitchens by bringing the counter top down to the child and providing accessories that make food prep fun and safer for kids. She plans to use the first 10% of proceeds to build self-sustaining, closed loop communities to house the homeless.