Cooking With Kids Safety Tips

Showing children how to cook in the kitchen is an important lesson to their development. At some point children need to learn how to prepare food on their own. The tricky part to this lesson is establishing a starting point or age to begin teaching children how to cook. Children are receptive at a very early age of five or six to grasp the concepts of food preparation whether it is making a peanut butter sandwich with dull plastic or rubber utensils or helping mom or dad husk corn or toss a salad. Get the kids involved early to build their kitchen confidence.

Before kids get too deep into the cooking process, you need to establish safety guidelines for the young chefs. They need to know before any item is chopped, mixed, or baked, safety always comes first. Once they know all potential dangers of the kitchen and how to mitigate them, will they be free to learn the magic of cooking.

Cleanliness

Entrance into the kitchen work area all begins with a thorough hand washing of warm sudsy water for at least a minute. Kids need to be taught that there are plenty of bad little "germs" that are invisible to the naked eye, and should be washed away. Children that have cuts and scrapes should wear bandages and latex gloves. Children with long hair should have hair up or wear a hat. Teach them the importance of a clean kitchen free of dirt, hair, and germs.

Heat

Teach children the importance of stove use and the kinds of foods made using the appliance. Do not attempt to teach kids about stove or oven safety until you are considerable comfortable with the child's kitchen abilities and constant focus of the task at hand. Using heating appliances is very serious business and requires children's (and adults) direct attention. Lighting a stove and turning it off should be conducted by an adult until the child is old enough to gain your confidence which may be teen years for many. Also teach them the stove burners will remain dangerously hot even after they are turned off and the pots have been removed. Children should know that any items cooking on the stove should not be abandoned as this could result in fire. They should know to use hot pad or gloves when removing lids as to avoid steam burns.

Ovens are also to be used very cautiously. Kids should know that only Mom and Dad are to use these appliances until they are given permission to do so. Items removed from oven should always be done so with hot pads or gloves. Towels do not make an acceptable substitute. Also teach children about microwave safety and how metallic objects in the appliance should be avoided.

Raw Foods

The germs brought in on your hands from being in public places can be dangerous. The germs or bacteria found on raw meets and occasionally fruits and vegetables can be even more dangerous. Teach kids to wash all fruits and vegetables accordingly. Teach them the danger of cross contamination. All raw foods should not come in contact with cook food. All raw meets should stay refrigerated until ready to use. Once children handle such meat, they should immediately wash hands with hot water and soap. Any cutting boards, plates, or serving ware that has been in contact with raw meat should be disinfected in hot detergent water. Avoid teaching the kids the nasty habit of sampling cookie or cake batters that contain raw eggs.

Cutting

This phase of cooking all depends on the parent's comfort level. Do not assume a child can imitate your abilities just because they have watched you prep food for years. If you are going to teach them to cut food up, perhaps allow them to use simple cutting utensils as gadget choppers or vegetable peelers. Appease the child wanting to cut or prep by allowing them to help out with a bread stuffing or any dish that involves tearing up a food whether it be bread or lettuce. They just want to help and constantly denying them involvement will squash their interest in cooking.

Fire Safety

Kids should wear short sleeves or have their sleeves rolled up to avoid catching on fire when working near stove tops. Should the grill or stove top require manual lighting, do this step yourself especially since you may be working with natural gas or propane. Children should be taught to keep all utensils, stove tops, and counters free of grease which is a potential fire hazard. They should know that a grease fire will not be doused by water but be smothered by rags. Alert them to fire extinguisher use and location. If the fire is out of control, they should always remember 9-1-1.

Spills

Accidents of the slip and fall nature happen way too often in messy kitchens. Teach children the importance of immediately cleaning up any kind of spill. Keep some extra rags and/or a mop on standby to react to any kind of spills. Teach children to keep counters clean of any spills as well. Excess water or liquid on a counter can pose an electric shock danger if using countertop appliances such as a hand mixer. Stay on top of the spills.

It is important to remember cooking with kids safety tips to ensure a healthy kitchen atmosphere for your family. Try not to scare children of kitchen dangers or even lose patience with their grasping some of these basic concepts. The last thing you want to do is push their interest away from creating fun foods in the kitchen.