5 Safety Tips When Teaching Your Kids How To Cook

Learning to cook is an important yet dangerous skill that kids will need for the rest of their lives, so it is important to watch and guide them away from anything that may harm them. Cooking is a terrific family activity, but the equipment and tools of the kitchen can force kids to get fairly close to injury at times.

Having fun while teaching is one of the best moments between parents and their children could have. But, safety is an important factor to ensure your kids’ learning and growth. In order to do this, parents should keep in mind key safety tips when teaching kids how to cook.

Instruct them Well

Instructions of Do’s and Don’ts when operating in the kitchen is a necessity. This helps in training the kids in knowing what they should and shouldn’t do inside the kitchen, such as horseplaying or running around. You may start by making the rules with them and posting it where it can be easily seen by the kids. In doing so, this prevents future dangerous occurrences.

Moreover, as the kids get comfortable around the kitchen and get excited about their learning, they might start to get bold in operating the kitchen which might put them in jeopardy. Thus, instructing them to ask for an adult’s supervision before cooking is a must.

Hygiene

One of the most important factors to be taught is hygiene. Teaching them to clean hands first before touching any ingredient or appliances should be the first step. In doing so, they may be trained to do this routine in every cooking activity as they grow. This would also create an opportunity to educate them about its importance to germ contamination.

When doing this, take the chance to introduce them to the word “CLAYGO” or Clean as You Go, which is every kitchen’s golden rule about hygiene. It raises a consistent attitude towards cleaning which may pose an immediate risk to health, hygiene, or safety. By educating them on the importance of hygiene, you are securing your kids’ health and their behavior around the kitchen.slow-cooker-vegetables

Food Safety

Technically speaking, “food safety refers to handling, preparing, and storing food in a way to best reduce the risk of individuals becoming sick from foodborne illnesses” according to the Australian Institute of Food Safety. There are many principles about food safety, but here’s an example of a basic way of implementing this practice.

Tell your kids to wash all fruits and vegetables before eating, for possible harmful microorganisms could be lurking on the rind. Also, teach your kids about having different color-coded cutting boards which respectively is assigned to raw meats and vegetables to avoid cross-contamination ̶ tell them in a way that they would understand so that it would remain in their memory.

Equipment Handling

There are lots of harmful types of equipment in the kitchen that makes it a need to take precautionary actions to prevent dangerous risks. Take knife handling as an example, due to its sharp blades, one must teach their kids well and watch over them when handling such a dangerous tool. You could start them with plastic knives or kid-friendly starter knife and teach them proper handling.

In addition, having equipment that would lessen the handling of different cookware when teaching your kids might ease the operation and risky situations when teaching them how to cook. There are lots of innovative appliances and cookwares nowadays that might help you with it such as a high-quality instant pot which is a multi-cooker that would be much safer than a hot pot.”

Fire Safety

This is a must in every home. Many people neglect the equipment of fire safety, such as having fire extinguishers or smoke detectors. These fire safety equipment lessen the chance of risks of having your home devoured by fire. It is important to implement and educate your kids about fire safety.

In doing this, test your kitchen smoke detector in front of your kids and let them know what the noise sounds like and what it means. Also, remind them about the dangers of stovetops and appliances so that they would be careful in handling such things. By educating them about the importance of fire safety is to safeguard their security and safeness as individuals.

Takeaway

Training a child of cooking while young is a skill that every child should have the opportunity to learn, for it is one of their foundations while growing up and will need for the rest of their lives. It’s important to educate them in regards to the proper safety precautions in cooking in the kitchen so as to ensure that they will not be harmed in the process of learning.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *