The kitchen, like martial arts or girl scouts, offers many opportunities to teach kids different techniques and disciplines. These techniques help to develop a child’s mind and both self and spatial awareness. Teaching kids different techniques in the kitchen builds more than just one aspect of their being, but instead everything from the inside out. Let’s take a look at a couple of techniques and how they help to develop the child.

Knife Skills

Wielding a knife requires a set of skills all on its own, but being in complete control of the blade has a feeling like none other. Teaching a child at an early age, how to respect a sharp edge, gives them the understanding of how power and authority work. Demonstrating how a simple flick of the wrist can completely demolish a potato or watermelon is both amazing and awe-inspiring to a child.

But understanding how to control that power and manipulate it for a good cause is a lesson that is not taught too often in life. Many times people go around abusing power with reckless abandon and, unlike the once-popular comic books; the good guys don’t always win. These techniques teach self-control and how to use the power for good.

Cooking Styles

Teaching different cooking styles is equivalent to giving a child a box of 100 crayons. With this many different colors and combinations to use, creativity begins to flourish. The same goes with different cooking styles. Learning the simple differences between wet heat, dry heat and combination heat, the child can begin to play with what works best in each situation.

By providing a number of different ways to explore the actual cooking process, children begin to work through the creative process. You can almost see it as they try to decide what needs to be added first when sautéing vegetables or if a turkey should be boiled or baked in order to get that signature crispy skin. Letting a kid explore is one of the greatest ways to build their minds.

Clean Up

While the two ideas above deal with being in the present and working with what you have, cleaning up teaches an important aspect of looking ahead. By looking forward and planning ahead, many of the accidents and other mishaps can be prevented. By keeping your mind on what you are doing and will have to do, the child will learn to think about what needs to happen. For instance, if you are not cleaning as you go, you will eventually run out of counter space to prepare food.

Cleanliness also aids with organization skills, making it important to know where everything is located at all times and easy to get to. By keeping your area clean, you will not accidentally scald the milk because you were digging around for the cornstarch.

By learning the power of properly wielding a knife, the creativity of food preparation and the foresight of cleanliness, children will gather many life-lessons from techniques they learn in the kitchen. So get up, grab a cutting board and a whisk and start explaining what you are trying to accomplish every time you make dinner for your family.

Sometimes it is difficult to get kids interested in the workings of a kitchen. While we have already discussed why it is important, let’s take a look at how we can excite them enough to get started.

Let Them Experiment

Kids love to try new things and the kitchen is a great place to do it. It is easy to clean up if there is a mess and with the proper instruction on safety, the kitchen can be a great place to get creative. Of course, some experiments fail, but no matter what happens, we, as adults, have the open door to discuss what happened and why it happened.

Kids get excited when they get to play around and experimenting in the kitchen is just that. The once elusive domain is now within reach and not only that, they get to have fun and play around. If you want to get kids fired up, give them the ability to play in the one area they were previously banned from entering.

Let Them Ask Questions

Questions are a great tool to spark a kid’s interest. Kids ask questions because they want to know and understand how things work and why they do what they do. It is important to field all of the questions you can when teaching a child to cook. It is also fun for the adult, even if they don’t know the answer, to sit down with a child, find the answer and talk about what they found out.

Questions lead to more questions and bonds become tighter. Making room in the kitchen to stop and have a discussion will keep a child interested and will help them develop critical thinking skills for later in life. Learning how to ask the right question is also an important part of growing up. For instance, there is a big difference in the answer to “Where does milk come from” and “How do we get our milk.”

Another great way to keep the interest flowing is to ask a question back. For instance, in the “Where does milk come from” question above, ask them where they think it comes from. This is a great tool to unpack and straighten out any wrong information they might have received in the past.

Let Them Have Room to Do It on Their Own

Ok, this step will probably make some adults extremely nervous. Yes, you read correctly, let them have room to do it on their own. Let the child try their hand at certain tasks and then ask you for help if needed. This is a great way to spark interest because they get to put their hands on things sooner.

Kids love to try new things, especially when there are not a bunch of rules and regulations that come before they get to play. Let your kids discover that there has to be an easier way to stir the cake mix than with a fork and that pouring the flour slowly will keep it from puffing up their noses.

It is easy to get kids interested in cooking when they have some room to experiment, ask questions and try their hand at something new. The best way to keep a child interested is to get in the kitchen with them and learn to relax a little and have fun. So get up, grab your kids and get into the kitchen to kick-start the fun.