School may be on the horizon, but we’ve
still got some sunny summer days left to fill. If camps and vacations
are over and you find yourself ready for some low-key family fun, head
to the kitchen! Long summer afternoons and evenings are the perfect
time for you and your kids to experiment with cooking. No homework pressure,
flexible bedtimes, plentiful produce…what better time to crack the
cookbooks? (Plus, your kids can brush up on the reading and direction-following
they’ll be doing back in school.)
I will admit that cooking with my kids
is a recent phenomenon. Until now, dinner prep time was my island of
relative quiet and focus…the thought of managing my kids and their
inevitable mess kept cooking relatively solo. But now that they’re
older (10 and 7) and more independent, it’s a pleasure to cook together.
My son recently made himself a lunch of pad thai — a Thai noodle dish
topped with scrambled eggs, bean sprouts, and green onions — all by
himself. (And my fantasy of sitting back while my kids took over meal
duty was born.)
Which is not to say that little kids
shouldn’t cook! On the contrary! Preschoolers and kindergartners are
natural experimenters and are drawn to the real-life work going on in
the kitchen. If you’re ok with some flying flour, getting them cooking,
or at least involved in meal prep, is one of the best was to encourage
independence and healthy eating.
The easiest place to start is with simple
meals your kids already love. Choose a day when you’re all feeling relaxed
– cooking with kids requires a balance of vigilance and laid-back humor,
so you’ll need your reserves of patience intact. I find that it generally
works better to start with special cooking projects rather than simply
involving them in regular family meal preparation, at least in the beginning.
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