Elissa Strassman

Oct 13, 20222 min

Kids in the Kitchen: Age appropriate kitchen and cooking tasks for kids

Updated: Oct 14, 2022

Involving kids in the kitchen to help prepare meals and cook, can offer your child, or loved one, the opportunity to learn valuable life skills that will last a lifetime, and can also be a great way to strengthen your relationship with your child or loved one too.

Benefits to cooking with kids:

Cooking with kids can help:

  • Develop healthy eating behaviors

  • Encourage the trying of new foods

  • Make healthy food choices

  • Reduce picky food eating behaviors

  • Develop positive relationships with food

In addition, cooking with kids can help develop:

  • Math, science and literacy skills

  • Fine and gross motor skills

  • Kitchen and food safety skills

  • Understanding of your own family food culture and food traditions and others too

Cooking with kids can also help build:

  • Self esteem and confidence

  • Connection between you and your child or loved one.

What are age appropriate kitchen or cooking tasks for kids?

The following table includes proposed age appropriate cooking tasks for kids.

Please make note, all kids develop at their own pace, so it will be important to use your best judgment for helping to decide when your child is ready to move to more advanced and independent stages.

Proposed Age Appropriate Cooking Tasks*:

*Source: Moira Dean, Chloe O'Kane, Johann Issartel, Amanda McCloat, Elaine Mooney, David Gaul, Julia A. Wolfson, Fiona Lavelle, Guidelines for designing age-appropriate cooking interventions for children: The development of evidence-based cooking skill recommendations for children, using a multidisciplinary approach, Appetite, Volume 161, 2021,105125, ISSN 0195-6663, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105125.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666321000337)

Looking for more ways kids can help out with meals? Try seeking their help with the following:

  • Decision making in planning of meals/components of meals or snacks

  • Help in creating a grocery list

  • Help to select and collect items from the grocery list at the store or market and help in unloading groceries too

  • Help in setting, clearing and cleaning the countertops or table, pouring drinks, folding napkins, throwing items in the trash, putting condiments and leftovers away, washing dishes, or loading and unloading the dishwasher

  • Packing lunches and snacks

  • Following a recipe to create a meal or snack.

For some additional ideas with family meals and promoting child health and nutrition, please visit here:

What are your favorite ways to involve kids in the kitchen? As always I invite you to comment and share!

Resources:

Morris, Bradley & Zentall, Shannon & Murray, Grace & Owens, Whitney. (2021). Enhancing Informal Stem Learning Through Family Engagement in Cooking. Proceedings of the Singapore National Academy of Science. 15. 119-133. 10.1142/S2591722621400111. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353184301_Enhancing_Informal_Stem_Learning_Through_Family_Engagement_in_Cooking

Moira Dean, Chloe O'Kane, Johann Issartel, Amanda McCloat, Elaine Mooney, David Gaul, Julia A. Wolfson, Fiona Lavelle, Guidelines for designing age-appropriate cooking interventions for children: The development of evidence-based cooking skill recommendations for children, using a multidisciplinary approach, Appetite, Volume 161, 2021,105125, ISSN 0195-6663, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105125.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666321000337)

Melissa D. Olfert, Rebecca L. Hagedorn, Miriam P. Leary, Kaitlyn Eck, Karla P. Shelnutt, Carol Byrd-Bredbenner,Parent and School-Age Children's Food Preparation Cognitions and Behaviors Guide Recommendations for Future Interventions, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Volume 51, Issue 6, 2019, Pages 684-692,ISSN 1499-4046, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2019.01.022. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404619300776)

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