Cooking one thing together

The activity

Cook one dish together each week, side by side, and give your child a real job. If they want to talk, they can do it while they chop.

What it is for. A child who will not sit down to talk will often stand next to you and chop. Cooking gives them a real job, and they can talk without anyone looking straight at them.

• The first step. Choose one dish and a time you can keep. A supper you were making anyway works better than a special project; your child can pick it from two or three you suggest.

Safety. Raw flour and raw cake mixture should not be eaten, even from the bowl. Keep hot pans out of reach of the youngest, and check for allergies when a friend cooks too. Under eleven, if your child helps at the hob, an adult stays beside them and handles the hot pan. From eleven, the hob is your child’s once they have done it beside you a few times, with an adult in the kitchen.

When to get help. If your child tells you something serious while you are cooking, turn off the hob and stay with them. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well. If your child’s eating narrows over several weeks, they are losing weight, or food talk turns to “clean” and “bad”, ask your GP for an early appointment and say plainly what you have seen.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Jobs in the kitchen, by age.

It goes with

• When They Stop Talking to You. For parents whose teenager hardly talks to them any more.
• Eating and Control. For parents whose family mealtimes have become about much more than food.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Parenting strategy. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Difficult conversations. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.