When raising children, parents have several goals in mind. First, you want to make sure that your children are safe and happy. But you also want to make sure that they grow up to be happy, productive adults who are self-suffient enough to take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, people don’t suddenly develop the ability to be a responsible adult as soon as they hit eighteen or twenty-one. This is something you have to teach your children as they get older, by teaching them important life skills and lessons. One of these life skills is how to cook.
Bonding as a Family
One of the best ways that you can develop strong relationships with your children is to do things with them. True, most children turn to their peers or electronic devices for much of their entertainment, especially as they get older. However, it’s vital that you still spend time with your children.
Cooking together is a great way to do this. Your child might see this as a chore, so it’s important that you approach teaching them to cook in the right way. Simply put, make it fun. Depending on the age of your children, you can try out different recipes. Make delicious treats like these banana fritters (recipe here) to further encourage your children. If they see cooking as a way to make something they’ll love, then they’ll be more interested in learning more recipes.
When you’re cooking with your kids, you can strengthen your relationship with them. If you sit them down and make them talk about school or their concerns, they might feel as though they’re being lectured and may get defensive or shut down. But if you talk to them naturally while doing something else, they might open up. The more you do with your children, the more approachable you will be. This means that they’re more willing to talk to you about things that concern them.
Healthy Eating Habits
It is possible to get through life without really learning how to cook. However, adults who can’t cook often rely on restaurant meals, take out, fast food, and ready meals instead. These are fine in moderation, but when they make up the bulk of your diet, it’s easy to fall into unhealthy eating habits. Not only this, but this is an expensive diet, especially if you try to eat quality restaurant food.
The reason that junk food, fast food, restaurant food, and ready meals taste good is because they are packed full of salt, sugar, and fat. In extreme cases, the amount of sugar in some food can be addictive, which leads to weight gain and poor nutrition.
If you teach your children to cook, then you give them another option. Cooking food is often cheaper than relying on restaurant meals, and it’s almost always healthier. When you cook as a family, you are able to control exactly what goes into your food. This is handy if anyone has any allergies, but it also helps you to regulate the amount of unhealthy fat, salt, and sugar that you put into your cooking.
Healthy eating doesn’t have to mean bland or boring food. If you teach your children how to cook, you also teach them how to use spices and cooking techniques to make delicious food, without relying on restaurants. Even “unhealthy” food like burgers or pizzas are perfectly fine when made at home, because you can stick to fresh ingredients and dial back on the fat and salt that would ordinarily go into them.
Starting Young
Ideally, you should start your children on their cooking journey fairly young. Start out by inviting them to help you in the kitchen, and be sure to encourage them with delicious baking treats. Young children won’t be able to help much, but you can get them involved and make it fun for them.
As your children get older, you can start to teach them how to cook safely and give them more responsibility in the kitchen. This teaches them a measure of responsibility, especially when they get old enough to tackle a meal on their own.
Assigning chores to your children isn’t just a way to make your life a bit easier, but it also teaches them valuable life skills and how to take on responsibility. Different families use different methods, but it’s always best to encourage kids to help out around the house. Cooking is one great option for them.
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