by Francis Harris

Created on: March 03, 2010

One of the greatest joys of child-rearing is passing on to your children a love for cooking. It is not surprising that teaching your child to cook goes best when you begin at an early age. Young children, who see you cook naturally want to join in with whatever you are doing, but older children may need some motivation - like cooking their favorite recipe, or choosing something that looks yummy and they really want to try. Always try to make sure it is a positive experience for them!

The first step is never to forget safety. Strict supervision is always necessary! Adults easily forget just how dangerous kitchens can be. Children can easily cut themselves, burn themselves, scald themselves, knock saucepans over, set things alight, touch hot surfaces, drop heavy items, even set fire to their clothes, place metal objects in micro-wave ovens, let sinks overflow and otherwise damage things, hurt themselves or someone else! You will need to keep an eye on what is happening - even with older children, even if it must be discretely done.

So what sort of things are suitable for children of different ages and abilities? Where do you start?

Children of just 18 months can arrange chopped food on a plate, stir and mix ingredients with a spoon, decorate the tops of delicacies with sprinkles, apply spreads to biscuits, break up bread and much more. Give them small quantities at a time so that it doesn't matter if they spoil something. An old time favourite is to let them spread icing sugar on a plain biscuit and dunk it in sprinkles; a more healthy option is to dunk fruit in youghart and top with chopped nuts.

Children of pre-school age are able to start measuring out quantities; and they will learn about weights and volumes as they do so! They don't have to follow messy baking recipes with flour and sugar, let them measure serves of pasta and rice in a cup before you cook them; measure the water before you pour it into the pan, and weight vegetables before they are chopped. They will love to stir jelly mixtures and pour into molds. Mixing abilities improve and they may be able to knock up a coleslaw salad stirring in the mayonnaise and yogurt to chopped food.

Primary school children can start following recipes of their own to make a sandwich, and cook some toast, prepare their museli with milk adding dried fruit, heat a plate of food in the microwave and even make you a cup of tea! But it will require supervision as you introduce the "dangerous" objects like knives to chop

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