5 Benefits of cooking with your kids

Image Courtesy: August de Richelieu

Cooking has always been a family bonding activity. Happy family pictures all over the internet are shown bonding over a meal on the table or whipping up food in the kitchen. So what are the advantages of cooking with your child?

Kids are less picky
When children form a part of the meal creation, they tend to want to try out their creation more eagerly. And even when not so favorable, they eat more due to the excitement of eating what they created. And since they don’t always want to cook with the same ingredients or cook the same dishes, it’s a great way of introducing new and different types of food to them.

Kids learn to be organized
When you make a new recipe, you have to follow the instructions and also make sure that you have all the ingredients. So when kids learn to do this, they are learning to be organized and to follow a process or method to get an expected result.

Kids eat healthy
Since cooking is usually done with fresh ingredients, the end result is usually healthier than it’s boxed counterparts. Kids then develop a taste for healthy food rather than something that has preservatives. So, they grow up to be adults with a fine taste rather than someone eating a pre-cooked meal.

Kids improve their number and reading skills
When you cook, you need to follow precise measurements and to do that kids need to read (or at least the older ones). When kids measure out ingredients it helps them get comfortable and understand numbers. Skills of counting, measuring, adding up are all improved with cooking something. Words that describe different stages of the recipe help kids to express precisely what they are doing – like mixing, pouring, adding, blending and more. So, children improve their ability to describe things.

Kids create happy memories
While cooking with the family, there’s a whole lot of bonding and talking and sharing of info which creates great memories b the end of the dish. Furthermore, the food is then enjoyed by the family together happily to reinforce this happy memory. And happy and reinforced kids make for confident and grounded adults.