Children Cooking Up Confidence

17 Reasons to Cook With Your Children

I am a HUGE proponent of children cooking. It is super positive on many levels, especially valuable if you have a child who struggles to eat.

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My boys have been cooking with me from early on, as it is something that I am passionate about. But it has not always been an easy, organic and fluffy process!
The upsides now though, are worth all the drama, the time and the energy. My boys are able to comfortably put a meal on the table, and have managed this from Year Three. This gives me a much needed break from meal preparation and has many upsides for them.

Why Cook With Children?

Cooking with children is important, both from an educational and life-skills point of view. It also supports better eating. I always invite hesitant eaters into the
kitchen and have had huge success enabling them to gently branch out. There are great reasons to introduce cooking at both home and school:

1. Cooking fosters independence. Mastering new skills is empowering for children. It also enables them to prepare more and more things without us. Packing lunches, making breakfasts and prepping dinner are all positives for both child and parent! Although not a magic bullet, children are more likely to eat something they have investment in. Cooking in an educational setting with peers often makes eating the fruits of their labour more likely.

2. The feeling of pride producing food for the family or classmates provides enormous satisfaction. That positive reinforcement around food is doubly important for a child who does not normally receive praise in the food sphere.

3. Cooking supports the maths. Counting, dividing, fractions, adding, subtracting, doubling, halving, weighing, timing and measuring. What is not to love? It also means
that children who are not naturally competent eaters can still excel.

4. Science is in cooking. Everything from dough rising to what happens when you heat or cool a mixture or food. For a less confident eater, spending time interacting with food in a no pressure environment is fabulous for building comfort.

5. Cooking promotes helping. Most children love to be involved and to help out. Nurturing this from a young age gives a lifelong comfort in the kitchen but also the opportunity to be around food and its smells and textures. Comfort around food is a key building block in the journey to competent eating.

6. Life skills are built in cooking. Being able to cook fosters an interest in food and this again, supports a child to eat more confidently.

7. Cooking creates appreciation. Nothing builds understanding of how much time and effort goes into something as walking a mile in those shoes. Our children learn what it takes to get a meal on the table. It also enables us to show appreciation of them when they do the same for us!

  1. Food hygiene is taught through cooking. Everything from hand washing to sterilising worktops, to the dangers of raw chicken are important life lessons and can all be learned through cooking in the kitchen.
  2. Cooking teaches about kitchen equipment, such as what it is and how we use it safely!
  3. Cooking helps to develop motor skills. Dexterity and fine motor skills, coordination, opening packets and containers, pouring – and a whole host of other ways cooking builds competence. Again, for a child who is not confident around eating, mastering skills in a food sphere can be super supportive.
  4. Literacy skills such as reading and following recipes are built through cooking. For older children, working sequentially through written instructions is great practice. For younger children following a series of verbal or pictorial instructions in order and precisely is good training for other areas of learning and life.
  5. Cooking gives opportunity to identify potential dangers. The kitchen can be dangerous. Understanding the oven is hot, knives cut, and graters can hurt are important safety lessons. Giving children the ability to operate safely in this environment is empowering.

13. Creativity is created through cooking! Cupcake decorating, arranging salads on a platter or plating food beautifully are all great ways to express our creative talents (or build them). We eat with our eyes first, so enabling that visual appeal is supportive of better eating.

14. Different tastes and textures are introduced through cooking. Feeling, smelling and tasting new textures and tastes is a great way to become more comfortable around new foods and leads, over time to more eating competence.

15. Cooking teaches how to understand time and exercise patience. Cooking does require patience and the ability to wait for things to be ready. It can be very character building when things go slightly awry, too!

16. Understanding foods in depth is developed with cooking. For example, knowing that a potato can be mashed, chips, jackets, wedges, boiled or dauphinoise; being able to use a lemon in a drink, a pie and a chicken dish; or knowing that eggs can be used to emulsify and linseeds to bind.

17. This also supports children who are more hesitant around food as they know precisely what goes into their meals. Cooking with children is often quite a challenge for adults but the upsides to persevering are myriad!

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Judith Yeabsley


Judith is an AOTA accrediated picky eating advisor and internationally nutriontional therapist. She works with hundreds of families every year resolving fussy eating and returning pleasure and joy to the meal table. She is also mummy to two boys and the author of Creating Confident Eaters and Winner, Winner I Eat Dinner. Her dream is that every child is able to approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear.

You may contact her at: Judith@theconfidenteater.com