How do you feel about your preschooler using a knife or the stove?
These are off-limits to most kids that age, but one mom on TikTok has taught her toddlers to cook and now they’re making meals and snacks for themselves. The mom of two, who goes by Laura Love online, posts videos of her three-year-old son Carter and 17-month-old son Jonah showing off their culinary skills and it’s pretty impressive to see them in action.
Love has gotten a lot of comments from curious parents asking how she got the kiddos started and she says it’s taken “a lot of patience.” She explains that the kids are always supervised in the kitchen and she began by modeling what to do, using toddler size cutlery and cooking equipment and having everything pre-portioned in easy containers for little hands to hold. Love says when her kids were about 14-months old they could follow simple commands, like pouring and scooping, she started cooking with them and their skills have expanded from there.
These days, her three-year-old is so advanced, he can even use the stove and whip up a meal, all under mom’s watchful eye, of course. In one video he cleans, peels, chops and boils potatoes, then mashes them and even adds milk and butter to get a creamy consistency. He also chops and fries peppers, onions and sausages, then serves himself a plate of it. Love points out that it’s important to try not to fix what the kids are doing, since it might give them the idea their job isn’t good enough, which she says “would defeat the purpose of trying to give him confidence and independence.”