7 Things You Should Never Let Your Kids Do in the Kitchen

In my young motherhood, I am learning very quickly how children are constant observers, learning more in one minute than I ever could. This means that they want to start being independent and they want to help with everything. And while that means sometimes letting your one-year old spill almond flour all over the counter while trying to make it in the bowl, we are big believers in getting your kids involved in the kitchen. There are, however, always cautions to exercise when working with kids in the kitchen. We think that our kids will learn to love real food by helping grow and prepare it themselves, but that doesn’t mean they have automatic free-reign in the kitchen. This post outlines some basic ways to keep your little loves safe with a list of things you should never let your kids do in the kitchen.

“You know you’re a parent when…

You glance sideways while doing dishes and say to your 2-year-old, “Stop banging on the dishwasher with knives…”

And THEN your brain clunks into gear and you realize: Gah! Knives!

Of course your next move is to calmly remove the knives from the tiny child’s hands and figure out a safer way to keep them away for good…right?

Our parenting might not always be perfect, and our cooking probably isn’t either. But that’s no reason to give up on either job.

In fact, it’s the perfect reason to combine the two.

You Should Never Let Your Child:

1. Get anywhere near a hot stove or oven without proper training: We tell our kids from a very early age, “Hot! Hot! Owwwwww!” every time we or they are anywhere near a stove. Allowing a child to help at the stove without first instilling a healthy fear of the potential danger is asking for trouble.
2. Cut an apple with a butter knife: If you try to teach your child how to cut hard things with dull knives, they’ll be both frustrated and unsafe. Butter knives don’t do apples. They do bananas. Far better to trust your kid with a real knife after teaching him how to use it properly than sabotage their learning by teaching them something that doesn’t work. Plus, butter knives could slip on an apple and end up hurting the user badly anyway since you have to use so much force to attempt to get through the apple.”