AIBU to ask if you bake with your children

[Leavingsosoon]

And if so, why?

I've recently joined Facebook. I was on it ages ago, came off and now on again as am trying to meet people and so on.

My friends have nearly all got photos of baking with their children up there.

Explain why this is part of childhood! I don't understand ...

Aw why wouldn't you bake with your children? Off the top of my head I can think of:
-mathematical skills
-motor skills
-enjoying an activity that's constructive and productive
-making something together you can eat together
-home baked is so much nicer and healthier than mass produced, processed crap
-creative skills, imagination and freedom to create and express away from information being fed to your children

Honestly do you even need to ask

I've done it, but God it's messy. The result is I have 3 dcs who can cook and bake and better still, can do it on their own now.
Except for the Christmas cake which we will do next weekend and everyone will have a stir and make a wish.

I don't have that much of a sweet tooth actually. Before I had dd o used to make batches of muffins and cookies just because I liked doing it. Most would get frozen and a batch would go to work with me and another with DH. It isn't for the eating really.

Now, give me a lasagne or a pie and that is a different matter.

At the end of the day I like cooking anything and small children are impressed by wee cakes. She also enjoys whipping up scrambled eggs and the like.

It isn't relaxing but I like her talking about ingredients and knowing where food comes from

Baking and cooking are excellent fun and life skills. I'd be doing my kids an injustice if they had no cooking ability.

Jeff yes, I do need to ask! It's messy and it's boring. Two GOOD reasons to avoid!

Just started baking with my 20 month old. She is still a bit young but will stand on her chair and do the stirring and she likes putting the cases in the tin. She definitely understands that what we put in the oven comes out and we can eat it! She hears the timer go off and shouted CAKE and runs around the room...which is also my reaction to a cake being ready

Yes - more input they have, the better they eat. They can see what goes in etc - think it is good grounding for home / from scratch foods

I haven't read the full thread but if this is a genuine question, yes I do.

Because she enjoys it.
It's one of the few activities with a product at the end of it - achievement all round.
All sorts of co-ordination skills etc. developing.
She loves giving her dad a biscuit she's made and I think it's a positive thing I should be encouraging.
It's good for us to do something together - lots of team work.
It's a life skill that will serve her well.
I like to think of her doing the same with her DD and being able to think back to how we did things. It makes life richer.

Yes, it's a genuine question. I wondered if people enjoyed it and it seems that they do, but because the enjoy baking themselves and so doing with with their children extends that pleasure. I on the other hand hate baking.

No it doesn't always have to be mums. In this household it has been dad quite frequently.

Leaving my DH hates baking but does it with DD as she loves it.

Have you ever tried it?

What's your idea of fun op

Just seen that you genuinely don't have a clue how to do this :)

1. Pick a really easy recipe - the sort where you throw everything in the same bowl and mix it together.
2. Get the ingredients/equipment out beforehand. You might like to measure out butter, sugar and flour - but you might also find your child is so preoccupied with one item that you have plenty of time to do this later.
3. Wash hands and stand her/him on a chair at the kitchen counter.
4. First, do sieving the flour together. Tap the sieve and watch it disappear. Lots of praise.
5. Get them to add the squashy slab of butter with their fingers. More praise.
6. Get them to pour the sugar into the bowl.
7. To crack an egg together, stand behind them and have them hold the knife in their right hand. Hold your right hand over theirs and hold the egg in your left hand. Cut into the egg shell with the knife.
8. Measure out a teaspoon full of vanilla essence with the same technique.
9. Blend with a mixer. If they're old enough, have them put cupcakes cases into a muffin tin.

10. Divide the mixture up yourself. Too messy otherwise even for me 11. Add some readymade icing when the cakes have cooled and have them sprinkle silver balls/hundreds and thousands over the top.

No, I can't imagine finding baking particularly fun. It's housework. It beats ironing. As a parenting task, it beats playing with her toys.

foxes

...hears the timer go off and shouted CAKE and runs around the room...which is also my reaction to a cake being ready

me too!

My mum baked and cooked with me. I bake and cook with my DCs. Its great fun.

Dd and DH baked some rye bread last weekend and she decorated the top with sunflower seeds. I put it on FB because I was very proud of her accomplishment. She was totally focused for about 45min while she decorated the top. The following day I showed her the comments and read through them so she knows just how proud her family and friends are of her. Dd is 4 and we live 3000 miles away from family. However if we lived 100 miles away I would be using FB to share my DCs accomplishments.

Why use a knife to crack an egg? (Not meant rudely, just never known this?)

My ideas of fun are more outdoorsy I suppose. Walks in the country, horse riding, animals, skiing, used to enjoy ice skating, music, reading, singing (badly) swimming in the sea or the lake or the river (don't like swimming pools) history.

I bake loads with my 4yo and 2yo because they love it but as they get older it's a great way to teach sequencing, planning, measurement, chemistry, etc. However, my main reason is that I have no intention of raising men who don't know their way around a kitchen.

Because we both enjoy it. I have never put a photo of it on Facebook though.

I bake loads with mine. I think it's an important life skill to pass on. We cook together, too.

I bake most weeks with my DD (7). She absolutely loves it and is pretty good now. We make cakes, biscuits, bread - all sorts. My DS (10) also often helps me make dinner.

I loathed baking with my DC when they were little, though. I'm way too anal. It was all too messy and annoying , but we still did it, albeit less regularly than we do now.

I have great memories of my mum and gran baking with me, so wanted to give them those memories, too.

As well as all the educational benefits mentioned by previous posters, I find that it gives kids a lot of pride and good self esteem if they've made something which looks good and tastes great and they see other people enjoying eating it.
(If you teach them about being safe in the kitchen and about good hygiene of course!)

I don't have children of my own, but I regularly bake with the kids I look after and also get them involved with cooking in general. When my nieces and nephews come to stay, baking is the first thing they ask to do.

I hate cooking but I LOVE baking the kids.

The sheer joy on their faces over something as tiny as cracking an egg, it's just a fun experience.

We do a lot of maths with it now because my 7yo is a maths refuser but when they were younger it was just the fun of shaking the sieve, holding the mixer, decorating cakes at the end.

Your post really confuses me - it's like saying why do people like going on bike rides/kicking piles of leaves/splashing in muddy puddles/going to the park with their kids? Because the kid find it immensely enjoyable.

Haha baking with the kids.