Can your children cook?

[AlwaysCountYourPennies]

I think basic cooking ability is an important life skill. I grew up in a home where my grandmother and mother cooked and passed on their knowledge.
From a young age I remember helping to peel veg, measure ingredients, mash and stir.... as I got older I was able to make a lot of basic meals myself and enjoyed trying new recipes.
When I left home (1985) I soon realised than many of my peers hadn't been taught the skills I had and some of them really struggled with cooking for themselves and spent much more than me on eating out or buying ready meals.
My 17 year old has grown up helping me cook and can confidentiality cook a basic meal.... I taught her as my mother taught me by getting her involved in the kitchen. My brother is a chef so cooking is a family thing!
My 15 year old has sever learning difficulties and autism but he likes to help stir and measure too, he used to eat a very restricted diet but by getting him to help cook things he has been more willing to try new foods.
If you cook who taught you and who is teaching your children?

YABU..... its not an important life skill
YANBU... It is an important life skill

Whilst I think it’s a life skill, and I will teach my child, I’m not sure it’s essential to have learnt as a child.

Growing up our household was microwave food, oven beige etc… I never really cooked, neither did parents. Left home at 18 years and taught myself. I would say I’m a fairly confident cook now who can make most basics and some extras. It’s not Michelin star, but we make most meals from scratch, our own bread and cakes etc..

My 4 year old helps sometimes as in stirring, chopping etc. My 9 year old can follow a recipe and make the full meal himself.

I learnt the basics from my Mum but have such lovely memories of cooking with my Gran. She used to let us pick the recipes, take us to go and get anything we hadn’t got usually sweets as well and then we’d spend a very happy time cooking with her during the holidays.
My 12 year old is very competent and can cook quite a variety of meals - she’s also done some cooking courses during the holidays and is really into it. It is now one of her go to holiday activities to choose recipes and then make everyone dinner. She adds variations to all her food tech recipes because they’ll be too bland otherwise! (She takes fresh herbs etc. to add!) Cleaning up after herself isn’t as good - that skill needs work, and I’m training up the 6 year old who is gradually getting into it more!

Absolutely, being able to cook is so important. My DD cooks one night a week, she's gotten so good at rooting through the fridge and cupboards and coming up with recipes from what we have in, which I think is an even more important skill. I know people who can cook, but waste so much food because they can't plan. Buy a whole pack of tomatoes when they only need one, for instance, and then can't fathom what to do with the rest of them so they just go off in the bottom of the fridge. Teaching my DD how to plan and shop for a week's worth of food with minimal waste has been just as important as teaching her to cook it all.

It's definitely a life skill. But having a safe kitchen with a hob etc is a privilege not everyone has.

Ours learned at home from when they were old enough to stand on a chair and weild a spoon. They also went to the kind of cubs and scouts where they cooked over an open fire. We both cook, they took it for granted real men can cook from scratch on a fire (and in a kitchen) and by the time they left home, they could all cook an entire dinner.

They were also were taught at (state, free) nursery; they were taken out in small grouos to buy vegetables then came back and learnt to wash them, peel them, chop them up and make soup. Which they ate. The also made cake ( a one-pan recipe which my 3 yr old loved so much he asked the nursery staff for a copy of the recipe, brought it home, and proudly showed us how to make it. He was still making saucepancake decades later at university. On his first vacation home he boasted to his brothers " I've discovered that being a great cook makes me a total BABE MAGNET" (hasn't lived it down yet)

One of them rang me at home (from university ) to say "Mum, I'm cooking a full Christmas Dinner for 20, remind me how to make brandy butter.". I told him and added (knowing the size of his student kitchen and stove ) asked how on earth he was managing. He replied airily " No problems, I'm using three stoves in three different kitchens and I've got all the flatmates and girls as runners".

    Cooking IS a life skill; because good nutrition and food hygeine  is the key to lifelong health:   an easy path to  paid employment anywhere:  living cheaply and well on a small budget; a  wonderful social skill to make and  share food  with family and friends.

Mine are both adults now but when they were small cooking was something we always did together. They are both decent cooks and DS is probably a better cook than DD, he is certainly a more adventurous one.

This describes my two exactly!

My 12-year-old daughter is a much better cook than me 😂 My mum taught her (and ish she had taught me) and my daughter has been in various cooking clubs and competitions over the years and she has an active interest in food/recipes. If it wasn't such a low-paid and difficult career, I would have thought being a chef is for her.

wish*

DS 14 had some cooking lessons at school which went quite well. Everything was edible. But at home, he will make:

an omelette,
homemade soup with whatever is in the fridge,
baked beans on toast
frozen pizza, premade sausage rolls etc
pasta and a home made sauce
a decent stir fry,
a chicken curry with coconut & tomatoes (his set piece at the moment)

Next I'll teach him chilli and rice, and sausage & mash. I'm determined he won't die of malnutrition at college. 😊

I had a baby belling for four years in my bedsit. Two electric rings and a tiny oven. I got quite good. Dinner party for six takes planning but it can be done.

😊

Absolutely a life skill.
My aunt taught me, and by 10 I was preparing the entire Sunday roast for 8-10 people (she did the cooking)
By 13 I was regularly cooking the family meal for DM, DF and my siblings.

I love cooking.

I'm teaching my two.

Dd13 has little interest, but is happy enough to go along with it and cooks her and her sisters lunch at weekends.

Dd10 is a keen baker, and can do it all unsupervised (apart from getting it out the oven).

Both are good at attempting to clean up.

As a pp said a key skill is meal planning and understanding what can be substituted....so we teach them that.

I'm collating all their favourite meals, into a recipe book for them. And when they each leave home, they'll get the book, a full compliment of herbs and spices and the random tools you have in a kitchen but never actually see anyone buy, utensils etc.

It’s so important! I was vegetarian for a long time so I learnt to make a lot of meals myself, not veggie anymore but I love cooking.

DP’s mother was neglectful in so many ways (now NC) and this neglect extended to not feeding him anything of nutritional value, nor teaching him how to cook. He loves cooking now, he has a fairly limited repertoire and still needs to use recipes but we started off with Hello Fresh and worked from there! Our children will 100% be learning to cook amongst other important life skills from a young age.

My son (19) has largely cooked for himself since he was 13. He is really in to sport and fitness and put himself on quite a strict regime counting macros etc. All healthy but a bit bland to me. He has cooked for the family too - he makes an amazing paella.
My daughter (17) doesn't cook much but occasionally will see something on YouTube and makes it (sweet potato stuffed breads with pepper dip was one dish she made recently), and can make a few pasta sauces by guessing what's in them (like the challenges on Masterchef). So I know neither will go hungry!
It is a valuable life skill, and I learned to cook sone dishes in school - Home Economics it was called, and we cooked gif six weeks, sewed for six weeks, woodworking for six and do on.
I think schools should make sure that kids can: swim, sew, cook a few basics, First Aid, and budget. Some of these can be tackled in primary, first aid and budgeting in secondary (though they could continue on teaching cooking etc all through). These would be more sensible options than insisting on continuing math to 18, for example.

I cook confidently as do both my parents. I grew up seeing 'proper' cooking going on most nights. BUT I have absolutely no recollection of doing any cooking myself as a child/teen, except for making cupcakes and licking the bowl. But maybe I learned by osmosis. I certainly knew people at uni who hadn't got a clue.

I feel like I'm failing my kids (aged 12,14,16) by not making them help with cooking. My 12 year old loves baking and can do quite a bit without supervision now (not compared to the kids on Bake Off though!). But none of them can be bothered to cook meals and it's more effort to get them to do it than do it myself.

The 16 year old ocassionally sees something on TicToc she wants to try but the vast majority of the time if I didn't feed her she'd live on toast and cereal. The 14 year old makes a competent healthy lunch including vegetables eg wrap with salad or similar but is pretty useless with actual cooking.

This lunchtime I made them all come and make their own food (cheese on toast, bacon and similar) and even that took quite a lot of instruction from me. I'm going to try to make them cook more though ....

From about 10 everyone cooked a new thing once a week during the holidays. They looked up ingredients etc before we went shopping. 4 kids. Lots of holidays in France. Eldest DD was very resistant to learning in her teen years, but now budgets and cooks for herself at uni so something stuck.

Yes from age 12/13. Both decent cooks in their 20s. Not baking...I never baked for them

@Caspianberg Whilst I think it’s a life skill, and I will teach my child, I’m not sure it’s essential to have learnt as a child..

It just makes the step up to adulthood so much easier and more confident for teens who were shown (and practised) how to cook, use a WM, clean a home; budget, shop , wash up, swim, ride a bike, drive a car, change a wheel, read a map, work a computer, dig a hole, grow stuff, sew, hold a baby/pet, talk and argue face to face round a table/ take responsibility/a challenge; a teasing/an apology. Read a timetable to catch a bus/train.. cut wood, make a fire, use basic tools, take care of health basics.

ALL of that can be learnt painlessly and relatively safely from live example in and around the home. Watch and copy/if it doesn't work try again.

No rush, you've got a couple of decades.

Just don't count on a teenager acquiring good- enough lifeskills from strangers on a small screen.

@2bazookas - ye so agree. My 2 year old already watches and sees us making pizza dough, or growing own fruit, or making a pie.

My point is, I never had that. And although it would probably been slightly easier, it didn’t stop me rapidly learning how to cook, garden, decorate, open bank account etc.. just because my parents don’t do any of that

All my children can cook, DS2 is the main cook in his house because his wife can't, she gets bored and let's stuff burn . DD can cook but she's more of a baker with a couple of staple meals, like a to die for carbonara. She hates cooking with a vengeance but her DH often ropes her in to be sous chef

Yes they can both cook. I've always cooked from scratch at home so they've been brought up seeing me do that, but I can't honestly say they did much cooking at home, would just help out occasionally.

When they went away to uni, they were used to eating home cooked meals so didn't want to live on junk, so they started using recipes online/cookbooks/my recipes from home and are both pretty competent.

I could cook very little when I left home. I'm don't think DH had cooked at all. We learned - it's not rocket science. He really enjoys cooking and baking, and makes a good job of it - all self-taught.

DD 12 cooks very well. Makes all her own packed hot lunches and breakfasts, all her breakfasts and a few dinners. She also importantly has a palate. Loves spicy food which is great for me.

I've told her that if you cook you don't clean up and this has been a great motivator as her theory is she will cook in any shared house and someone else will wash up.

Oldest has been able to cook well from when he was about 14, youngest is ok at basic things but hates it. We only cook for ourselves once or twice each week so they don’t do it often.