Kitchen Safety for Children
Kitchens can pose many dangers to you and your family, and particularly to children who wish to cook. With the prevalence of heat, electricity, water, salmonella, knives and many other sharp objects, it is important to carefully manage your children’s kitchen activities. Let’s look at this more in depth.
Limit Little Chef Activities
Your budding culinary artists may want to have hands on every kitchen utensil available, but their activities should be monitored for age appropriateness. Children may not be able to react to fires, cuts or other kitchen emergencies as quickly as is necessary. They also may not have the attention span or hand/eye coordination needed for using dangerous appliances or knifes, so until they are old enough, all kitchen activities should be monitored closely.
The actual point when a child is old enough to begin using knives, small appliances, and stoves depends on the child. Some children mature quicker than others and may be able to handle more responsibility at a younger age. Other children may need more time to learn kitchen safety. However, the following are some general ages for children to begin kitchen activities:
• Using the stove — In general, children can be introduced to stovetop cooking at about 12 years old. However, children will need to prove their comfort level, cooking skills and safety knowledge before they are allowed to cook without supervision.
• Using the oven — Children can also be introduced to the oven at about 12 years old with supervision. Knowledge, comfort and skill will also need to be proven.
• Cutting with butter knives — Children may be able to begin practicing kitchen knife safety with butter knives as early as eight years old. During this introductory period, it is important to stress the skill needed before the child may move on to using sharp knives, usually between 10 and 12 years old.
• Using sharp appliances — Children may be able to assist with using sharp appliances, like blenders, at eight years old. Full, unsupervised appliance use may be possible between 10 to 12 years old.
• Using a microwave — Microwaves may not present as many dangers, but hot plates and heated foods could harm a child who is not careful. Often, children can use a microwave unsupervised at about 10 years old.
• Mixing ingredients — Practice in mixing ingredients can begin as early as 6 to 8 years old, but unsupervised mixing may need to wait until 10 or 12 years old, when their attention spans can match the task at hand.
• Cooking with meats — Children should be given instruction on meat safety beginning as soon as they show interest in cooking. Simply leading by example to decrease the likelihood of salmonella poisoning — for example, by wiping down surfaces that raw meat touched — can encourage your children to take the necessary steps to cook safely. Once you are sure they understand the risks presented by undercooked meats and raw juices, usually at about 12 years old, you may allow them to cook meats unsupervised.
Of course, all of these examples of ideal ages do not fully encompass every child, and you can best determine when your child can safely cook without supervision. However, the age guidelines above can help you pinpoint a general time period in which your child can aim for the unsupervised kitchen experiences.
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