Parents get tips on how to bond with and keep kids occupied during the summer through simple kitchen lessons.
Parents are sometimes at a loss as to what to do with their kids for the summer. Resources might be low, it is too hot outside, and sometimes activities offered in the area are boring or geared toward little kids. The 9 to 12 age range is a particularly difficult age to amuse, and no parent wants the children sitting around and watching television or playing video games all day. How about teaching the kids some housekeeping skills?
Home Economics is a thing of the past in many schools. No Child Left Behind has demanded that academics improve, not realizing that money spent teaching kids life skills has disappeared. As a result, many of today’s children barely know how to sweep or vacuum a floor or boil water. These are skills that kids need to learn to survive, and it is now incumbent upon the parents to teach their children how to complete these tasks. The schools are no longer supplying these services.
A parent does not have to be Emeril to give a child a few cooking lessons; teaching a few basics and some of the technical and safety aspects of the kitchen should be sufficient. For instance, instant rice is a very useful staple. The process of making rice involves measuring, timing, boiling water, and determining if something is too hot. Knowing how to cook rice provides a gateway to learning how to cook pastas. The next logical step in teaching a child to cook on the stove top may be to teach him or her how to use a saute pan to cook eggs. This in turn will set the stage for stir-frying vegetables. Of course, it is very important for the children to be advised of safety rules in the kitchen, such as wearing an oven mitt, to stand a safe distance away from the stove, and to use care when turning on and off the gas flame or electric coil.
Another useful appliance that will help children learn to find their ways around a kitchen is a microwave oven. This appliance helps kids learn how to follow directions. A parent can start off supervising or demonstrating to the child how to make popcorn, showing how to find the perfect balance between too many leftover kernels and burnt pieces. The safety tip here is that items are always hot when they are being removed from the microwave oven, and should be handled by an adult or with very extreme care.
Cooking with a child can be a fun and very rewarding experience. Teaching a child to cook will result in a lifelong valuable skill.
