AIBU to let my nearly 13 year old cook family meals?

[Madhouse02]

DD nearly 13 is a genuinely a great cook. I should add incase you claim I’m gloating that she is not your high flying academic child and although is well behaved at school and works hard she academically struggles in some areas and she is also not a talented dancer / gymnast or anything like that. She struggled much of her younger years and has some additional needs.
a few years ago she took up baking and then cooking and she really enjoys it and is a far better cook than me 😂
she can be your usual sluggish slow to move teenager and getting her to do chores was often like asking her to sell her soul.
she now takes control of all dinners in the house and cooked breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
there is currently 5 kids in the house although usually 4.
she does the online food shop as she knows what she needs ingredient wise etc
apart from her own bedroom and taking her own clothes down to laundry she does no other chores.
she does help out with the animals.
she gets 100.00 allowance a month.
she is free to do what she pleases on weekends and holidays - goes out with friends / family trips and she 100 percent does not miss out on anything she is extremely lucky in some ways.
she has improved with her cooking and tries new receipts for us and although I did supervise for a long time now she is pretty much on her own.
last Sunday my brother and sister in law was over for dinner which daughter prepared and they were shocked that I had her cooking everyone dinner after daughter explained she is in charge of food 😂 I suppose it didn’t sound great when she said it like that. After we explained they still couldn’t get there head around that I never cook for the kids and it’s my daughter but I see it has a positive thing for her.
she is getting better and mastering the skill. She is not in the kitchen 24/7 and has very little other expectations.
she never ever looks after her siblings and only if she wishes to for extra money would she be told she has to.
is this not acceptable for a nearly 13 year old ?

let her crack on

As long as she’s enjoying it great. My daughter used to like cooking though not every day though has stopped now with getting to GCSE’s and not having time.

Nelson went to sea at 12. By 21 he was captain of his own ship

This was my cousin, 5-6 days a week. She's a chef now.

Her father, on the other hand, can barely boil water.

£100 a month pocket money....at 13 years old. Wow is this the going rate now?

She cooks 7 days a week! I'd give her double for that.

I don't think it's unreasonable as one of 3 sons my mum had she would have us taking it in turns cooking, cleaning washing etc on a weekend,my mum would tell us straight that marriage or living with someone was an equal partnership and something you share equally.

You are not being unreasonable for wanting to teach your children essential life skills.

My 12 year old cooks dinner for all 5 of us 3-4 times a week. It didn’t occur to me that it was a problem! Good life skill. I am just trying to train her to clean as she goes so it’s not such a mess for the washing up team.

to answer some questions -
she is the eldest by a fair margin the 1DC below her does the washing up / helps either the animals and often daughter will reach him baking / cooking if she is making something fun.
he to has to make sure his room tidy and bring his laundry down.
the youngest two are 1 and 4.

I did similar as a kid and loved it. I didn't see it as a chore and it didn't stop me doing school work or loads of hobbies. This was also unusual amongst my peer group. I became a good cook but more importantly got really good at multi-tasking and salvaging any culinary disasters because we needed a meal on the table. I genuinely believe it stood me in good stead.

It's the kids who are always expected to look after younger siblings that I feel sorry for (I know that's not OP's situation).

Its a great shame that this question even needs to be asked. What we have done is give children more and more emotional responsbility and less and less physical and practical responsbility

This is to their and our detriment. Kids are becoming more and more anxious because of the emotional demands and expectations on them, less skilled and able in terms of learning about practicalities. Kids need to be active and need to keep physically occupied rather than spending time naval gazing and ruminating.

Why would a 4 year old care where his dinner is coming from? As long as children are being fed and loved I don’t see what difference it makes. Some rich family’s have nanny’s or private chefs doing the cooking, it’s not being forced on her

I'd probably let her do online shopping for ingredients she needs but I'd add to shop and if cook at least 3 days a week. Even though your DD loves to cook every evening meal and cooked breakfast on weekends is a bit much as she won't have much free time in the week.

My son is the same. He is 14 now but has been cooking a lot of the family meals for at least the last year. He likes to do it as he likes everything cooked his way 😂. I do still cook sometimes but he is an amazing cook and he loves it so why not! Is it a fantastic life skill. He doesn't do the food shop though, he'd spend a fortune if he was in charge of that! I think your daughter sounds great!

For those posters who think the OPs daughter is doing 'too much', how much time do your kids spend online/tv/gaming etc?

Do you think its more or less time than OPs daughter spends cooking and planning dishes?

I would just regularly check in and see that she's happy to do it, doesn't want a night off etc. and if she is crack on.

I genuinely don’t think the people commenting have even made this connection. It might shut some of them up!

Brilliant.

I know what it's like to have a child who struggles academically. It can knock their confidence and leave them feeling useless.

If you have found something they can excel at and put their stamp on, then go with it.

She is not only learning about the actual cooking, but also about thinking ahead and planning. If you wanted to you could put a budget on some weeks and get her to plan meals within that budget.

As long as she is happy doing this amount of cooking, is producing healthy family meals and can say "I don't want to" without any comeback, then I think it's ok.

I think it's fine, if she enjoys it and wants to do it you may as well benefit! The novelty night wear off soon! 😂

I've not cooked a meal for my teens for a couple of years now, they cook for themselves. It's a good skill to have and I'd definitely be encouraging it. You don't need to justify on here about what else she does/doesn't do and what her siblings do/don't do. If it works for you all then it's all good :)

As long as it’s something she wants to do and not something she has to - good stuff.

I used to do that and I loved it!! I still love cooking/baking and my 5 year old son now he is cooking for us once a week dinner and bakes a cake or something (under supervision of course due to age). He knows ratios and everything and he loves it as much as I did!

It's fine as long as she wants to do it, if she is not so keen it is not fair because feeding a family is a very big responsibility.

This sounds like a fantastic gift and one I would be keen to help explore. Not everyone is destined to be academic but everyone needs to eat. As she's already doing her own shopping maybe encourage her to do further research and shop around for the best deal. Procurement and proper utilisation of resources is a skill in itself. Being a personal chef can be very well paid.

She sounds brilliant! As long as she's enjoying it and only does it when she wants to I see no problem with it. I think kids should be taught to cook otherwise they have no idea when they become adults. I bet there's loads of 16 year olds that couldn't even put a pizza in the oven for themselves yet plan to move away for uni. It's a great life skill!

I know !