At what age should kids be allowed to use real knives or the stove?
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Anonymous
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My 4-year-old is a budding chef who cooks dinner with me almost every night. I mostly give her safe, kid-friendly jobs like rinsing beans, mixing spices, mashing avocado, etc. She also uses the peeler and a not-sharp butter knife to cut softer vegetables like mushrooms. However, she loves cooking and lately she's been wanting more "real" jobs like stirring or flipping things cooking on a hot stove or using my chef's knives. I'm not a professional, but I've taken some knife skills classes and taught her how to hold her fingers safely when cutting with a butter knife, and she generally listens to me and respects to tools in the kitchen. However, she's also 4, my chef's knives are very sharp, and our stove is a professional grade gas stove that puts out tons of heat.
Would love any advice on what is a reasonable age to let her start to take on more of these riskier cooking jobs, and if anyone has experience introducing kids to higher-level cooking tasks safely. |
Anonymous
Definitely not 4! |
Anonymous
| It depends on how mature and calm and impulsive the kid is. It's not physical age. |
Anonymous
| She’s definitely old enough for a set of kid knives! |
Anonymous
| 8-10. I am starting to teach my 10 year old how to cook. 4 too young. They can help but not with the stove or sharp knives. |
Anonymous
| I let my very conscientious 8 yo use the stove when I am standing right there. I still make him use kid knives. Curious chef makes good ones. |
Anonymous
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I think it is based on the individual child. My 5.5 year old uses sharp knives and mixes things on the stove with close supervision. Take her lead and watch her very closely. Maybe at first, she is helping you cut then as she gets a little older she can do herself.
Don't baby her. Trust your judgment and hers. If she doesn't want to do something, don't push. |
Anonymous
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DD has been doing real cooking since she was in first grade, so around 6 or 7 years old. She went to a Montessori where cooking was part of the curriculum, and they were taught how to use implements correctly, which we reinforced at home.
I wouldn't hand out real knives to 4 year olds. She can probably stir, mash, dump things into the pot, add liquids, that sort of thing, without any issues. The other thing you can do, is get her started with baking. She can learn to make a variety of things, and it is almost entirely safe. That's how DD started, and she is perfectly capable of taking a recipe and doing everything herself, except putting things in the oven, and taking it out. |
Anonymous
| Even though she may mature enough to handle some tasks, it'd just be simply dangerous for a 4 year old to handle the stove and using sharp knives because of how short they are relative to the normal kitchen counters. While you may know the proper chopping/slicing/mincing techniques, a lot of our force from our center of gravity and a 4 year old is too short to do that on a normal working surface; this also goes to handling a pan on stovetop. |
Anonymous
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At age 4 I started teaching my son with a kid's knife - he had the Opinel Le Petit knife, which is slightly smaller than an adult chef's knife and has a finger guard for safety. At first I shadowed him while he was using it, then eventually started working next to him and watching. At age 7 he graduated to a regular knife.
We also have a high-powered gas range. I waited a little longer for that. I think he was around 6 when I started teaching some stovetop things. He wasn't allowed to touch the knobs for a while - I'd start the stove, adjust the flame, and put the pan on to preheat. We started with steaming, or gentle sauteing - nothing that would splatter hot grease. Pancakes were an early win, although a bit messy until he got the hang of flipping  .
He was also an early master of the rice cooker. And we got him a kid-sized set of oven mitts, so he could make muffins start to finish, around age 5 or 6. We still require an adult in the kitchen at all times, though! |
Anonymous
| OP here - Thanks for the recommendations! For folks recommending that have used "kids knives" or Curious Chef knives, what are they really capable of cutting? A tomato? A zucchini? A chicken breast? I'm going to look into getting her some of these but would want to manage her expectations and also focus on choosing recipes that have some ingredient in them she can cut. |
Anonymous
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In Denmark, they have forest kindergarten, where the kids run around and use knives to whittle things.
You all need to calm down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkiij9dJfcw |
Anonymous
| Go to about 4:30 for the footage of the kids using knives. |
Anonymous
| We got our 7 year old his own knife, it is kid sized but sharp. We also got one of those gloves that can protect his hand so he is more comfortable using the knife while learning safe knife skills. And he is starting to help with the electric skillet and occasionally the stove |
Anonymous
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4 year old used a child friendly kitchen knife with the Opinel finger guard.
By around 5.5, I could trust them with a regular sharp knife (small) depending on the job. Also with things like a julienne peeler. But I'm always supervising, and for example if cutting things that require force I will do a first cut so the object lies on a flat plane and won't rock/roll around. |