Last weekend, a good friend was telling me about how she is encouraging her teenage kids to cook dinner regularly. She’s been working on developing these skills in her kids over many years. And it’s important to start early, because in an age where more and more families eat processed foods regularly, teaching the basics of cooking can be a challenge.

Cooking is an important life skill. Kids aren’t going to stay at home forever and when they fly the nest, being able to cook for themselves will mean they can feed themselves and (hopefully) make good nutritional choices. Perhaps we are coming to a stage where takeaway is becoming cheaper, and they could survive on takeout for the rest of their lives. But choosing to indulge in takeaway food, and needing to survive on other people’s cooking are vastly different things.

My two boys regularly help me in the kitchen and have done so until they were two or three. At the moment, I’m using inclusive cooking to help my year 4 son with his maths. He has been struggling with fractions. I had thought about getting a tutor or expensive textbooks. “Just get him cooking,” was the advice his teacher gave and it has been working well so far. “Can you half this pizza dough?” I ask him. “And what happens if you divide it in four? What about one quarter? Three quarters? What is that as a percentage?”

I most definitely do not have a perfect family life. My 7 and nearly 10-year-old sons like cooking with me, but I’m not planning to parade them as the next Michelin star chefs. It’s often a struggle to get them off their computer games and while they like helping me in the kitchen, they have a short attention span.

In terms of time and energy, it’s often more effective if I cook myself without having little helpers in the kitchen. But even if little hands do not make perfect cupcakes, biscuits or burritos, the point is that we are doing an activity together as a family. They are spending time with me, learning an important life skill, having something tangible to show (and eat) at the end, plus learning things like chemistry, mathematics and how to read and follow instructions. They also occasionally get to learn about what happens when things go wrong, as not all baking goes to plan. Oh, and they also learn about doing the dishes.

I’ve found that there are certain things that my boys like to help cook more than others. Generally, it is things that involve a hands-on role for them. They especially like it when they can get their hands dirty and make a bit of mess.  As much as possible (which can be hard with hot, sharp and dangerous objects), I let them be involved in measuring, stirring, mixing, and even cutting. Yes, I let my kids use a knife, and they love cutting vegetables.  They also love to dress up a bit – they each have an apron, and my eldest even has a chef’s hat with his name on it that a friend made him for his birthday one year.

Unicorn cupcakes

There are some foods they like to cook more than others. I’ve consulted them in their list of favourites:

This week, I’ve done some cupcake baking and my eldest son has helped me mix in the colours for the icing. I tried to make Unicorn Cupcakes. I haven’t quite #nailedit. While I got some great advice mine didn’t quite look like what I had hoped they will. But we had fun making them and we had even more fun eating them (in moderation).

When I cook with my kids, I give up imperfect. If they crack and egg and there is a bit of shell that goes in (or a bit of mess), it’s all good. If they forget to wear aprons and get lamington chocolate dipping sauce on their clothes, it’s not the end of the world. And if cupcakes turn out to be pretty but not shop bought pretty perfect, that’s okay too. It’s all part of learning, and it’s all part of family life.

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