Cooking is an important life skill that you need to be a successful adult and contribute to your family or social group. Parents can sometimes be reluctant to get kids started in the kitchen because of the number of dangerous things there, the time preparing to cook takes, and the messes and mistakes children often make when they’re just learning. However, if you have some free time, spending it teaching your children to cook is worth all the effort for the essential skills it will impart. Here are some of the benefits of teaching your child to cook.

Reinforcing Education

Cooking requires the use of many skills taught in schools. For example, measuring ingredients reinforces mathematical skills, and combining them can sometimes function as a practical science experiment, like when adding oil to water. If you want to go the extra mile, you can incorporate the history of the recipe you’re using or explain where the ingredients are from, encouraging your child to think about the interconnectedness of the world around them and how knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.

Teaching Important Social Skills

Cooking can also help teach children essential skills like being organized and persevering through failure. Many children aren’t immediately successful with their cooking projects because they lack experience, but creating something that isn’t perfect will help them learn to move past their mistakes and keep going. You can show them it’s okay by telling them of your own cooking misfortunes and working through what went wrong together. Cooking with your kids will also help them learn vital communication and teamwork strategies that will help them as adults.

Teaching Them About Nutrition

Adults who don’t know how to cook frequently resort to buying take-out, which is both less healthy and more expensive. Teaching your kids how to create nutritious meals will encourage them to live a healthier lifestyle as adults; if they know how to pick and prepare healthy ingredients, they are more likely to choose recipes and foods that are better for them.

An essential part of being a parent is preparing children for adulthood by reinforcing skills learned in school and teaching those things which are important but not offered by the curriculum. Cooking with your kids is a fun way to impart lessons and provide your children with an invaluable skill that will serve them well in the future.