Cooking one thing together

The activity

Cook one dish together each week, side by side, and give her a real job. If she wants to talk, she can do it while she chops.

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

• The first step. Choose one dish and a time you can keep. A supper you were making anyway works better than a special project; she 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 she helps at the hob, an adult stays beside her and handles the hot pan. From eleven, the hob is hers once she has done it beside you a few times, with an adult in the kitchen.

When to get help. If she tells you that someone is hurting her, that she is hurting herself, or that she does not want to be alive, turn off the hob, stay with her, thank her for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If her eating narrows over several weeks, she is 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.

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.