Florence Rabattet, Chef and Founder of En Cuisine – Cooking School provides tips on encouraging children to cook.

I believe children can learn to make sensible, healthy choices if they’re taught about food from a young age, ideally by cooking with their parents. There are many obstacles that prevent parents cooking with their children, which I see time and again at my cooking school. Here are some things to consider to make cooking with your children work for all of you:

Focus on them

We’ve all seen the pictures of small children with their amazing cookery creations on social media. But the point of cooking with your child is not to have it all looking perfect for Instagram. This is about spending time with your favourite small person and giving them the benefit of your knowledge so they can learn valuable skills – so put the phone away!

Take them with you in the kitchen

Many parents are put off cooking with their kids because they cannot face the ‘inevitable’ mess. But let’s look at it another way. If you are cooking dinner and they are playing in the next room, I bet the room will be covered in all the toys they can pull out of the toy box in that time; cars and trains, dolls and action figures, and – every parent’s worst nightmare – Lego all over the floor!

When you look at it that way, don’t you think that putting away vegetable peelers and knives and cleaning up unused ingredients sounds like a better option?

Don’t expect perfection

Many parents expect too much from their kids too soon. While it may be frustrating that the food is not chopped the way you would do it or that their hand slips and you end up with too much of one ingredient in a mixture, a little bit of patience can pay great dividends. Explain how big or small you need the veggies to be chopped, add more flour when too much milk has made the sauce too runny – or laugh, tip it away and start again from scratch.

Encourage them to smell before tasting

The whole experience of cooking and eating starts with smell. If a person – particularly a child - doesn’t like the smell they will say no. But if a child likes the smell they will be more willing to eat what they have made (even if they might otherwise be put off by something such as the colour or texture).

It takes a while before a child likes a type of food
I’ve read a lot of studies on this, but my experience is what has really taught me. It took my son five years before he started eating avocado!

If a child is not keen to try a particular food, try presenting it in different forms. Courgette are a great example. You can try so many options; fried, grated courgette, in tomato sauce, courgette puree, even chocolate and courgette cake.

Give them a good knife

I know many parents will not be happy with the idea of giving their small child a sharp knife. Indeed, many parents encourage children to cut with blunt kitchen knives. However, accidents actually happen when knives are not sharp enough. The reason for this is exactly the same as it is for chefs - when we don’t have good knives we apply too much force to the knife when using it and that is when we get cut – children and adults alike.

Don’t make your fears theirs

Having your babies in the vicinity of so many dangers is scary! But the worst thing you can do is let your fears rub off on them.

Let’s take blenders. They’re noisy and that can scare some children but don’t avoid using them, send the kids out while you do it or make them cover their ears. Simply explain that it will be a bit noisy and why and let them know it will only last for a short time.

Hobs and ovens and the risk of burns is another frightening element but don’t put them off going anywhere near them for fear of a burn, explain how to know if your particular hob is hot and, with ovens, teach them to open the oven from the side so they don’t get steam in their face, and ensure they know how to use oven gloves and protect their arms.

You, like many of the parents of my students, will probably be thinking that it’s easy for me to give all this advice because I am a chef but, trust me, my entry into this was cooking with my own child from a young age and, having invested the time in cooking with and teaching my son, spending time in the kitchen with him these days is a pleasure rather than a chore. I’m sure it can be the same for you.