If you want your kids to open up, learn new skills and build confidence, Lorraine Reymond, owner of Young Chef’s Academy in Lawrenceville, said it may be as easy as letting little ones help out in the kitchen.
"It gives them a chance not only to cook in the kitchen together, but to sit down and have a meal together and, you know, just talk about their day," Reymond said.
Reymond said preschool-aged kids also can learn useful motor skills from cooking.
"Our 3- to 5-year-olds here, they are learning to measure, they’re stirring. Everything with them revolves around their senses," she said. "Smelling new things, tasting new things, using their fine motor skills that are eventually going to get them to hold a pencil correctly when they go to school."
Older kids can also benefit from learning how to follow a recipe correctly, she added, and then use creativity to make it their own.
"Once we get more familiar with a recipe and we know what kinds of foods go together and what tastes can go together, then we can start making our own recipes," Reymond said. "As kids get older, we can tie that to, you know, once we’ve made good decisions and earned that trust, then we can start to make our radius larger, and our parents will give us more freedom."
Jill O’Connor, author of "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey Treats for Kids," said you should get organized before inviting kids to help in the kitchen.
"I think having a clean counter top is important," she said. "Do something called a ‘misenplace.’ It’s a French term meaning ‘everything in place,’ and that just means getting all of your ingredients out at the same time. Maybe measure everything out ahead of time before you start your dish, to be organized, and I think that helps make everything run more smoothly."
Then, consider your individual child’s abilities and their age before giving them a task.
"I think stirring, for toddlers, is a good one. They could probably measure outbrown sugar," O’Connor said. "Kindergartners can do a lot. I think they can help with all the measuring and all the stirring."
Anna Fisher of Cleveland, a homeschooled kindergartner, recently helped make Peanut Butter-Pretzel Bonbons along with her brothers John Isaac Fisher, 10, and Isaiah Fisher, 8.
Anna said her favorite part of the process was "everything," but she really liked "putting the (bonbon) in the sprinkles."
O’Connor said kindergartners also can help scoop out cookie dough once it is prepared, but you should leave any task involving heat — like taking the cookies out of the oven — to the grown-ups.
"As long as the ingredients are all there, and they have somebody to help them, I think they can do just about anything," O’Connor said.
"Even holding a hand mixer, and maybe mixing up batter with a hand mixer, they can even do that."
O’Connor said, in general, kids can make a recipe from start to finish at age 11 or 12. But "you definitely need to judge by the child and their interest level and responsibility."
Isaiah said after helping make bonbons he wanted to cook more because "it’s fun and you get a little bit messy."
"(I liked) dipping it in the chocolate and licking the spoon," he said.
His brother John Isaac also liked getting messy.
"I liked dipping them in the chocolate, because you get all messy," he said.
Once kids begin experimenting in the kitchen, O’Connor said it can lead to healthier eating later in life.
"I think, even with something that’s a dessert or a sweet, at least what you’re doing is you know everything that’s going into your dish," O’Connor said.
By knowing the source of their food — where you got the butter, what kind of sugar or flour you’re using — kids can learn to eat healthier rather than taking chances with the mystery ingredients in store-bought foods.
"You know what’s going into your food, and I think that can only be healthier than something that’s, you know, out of a box," she said,
O’Connor added that allowing kids to make their own food also "spoils" kids, but in a good way — so they won’t be satisfied with pre-made foods.
"Something that’s homemade always tastes better," she said. "You want them to learn to have that palate, that they won’t be satisfied with something that’s out of a box. That will, I think, infiltrate the rest of their palate for the other foods that they’ll enjoy eating as well."
But kids can’t learn to cook if parents won’t let them try things on their own, so bringing kids into the kitchen also takes a little patience.
"With my younger daughter, I would think, oh, you know, she can’t hold a spoon or measure the vanilla without spilling it," O’Connor said. "But you know, she could, and I had to step back and let them do it on their own without micromanaging them."
The payoff, she said, is a kid with new-found confidence.
"There’s a lot of pride in cooking, making something that people automatically enjoy eating. I think there’s a lot of pleasure in that," O’Connor added.
"I think kids, they want to bring pleasure to other people and they take pride in what they’ve made, and they’ve made something fun that other members of their family can enjoy. And I think that’s important to them."