Helping out in the kitchen can be a rich learning experience for kids. There are opportunities to develop coordination, science, math, and life skills; and an older child who can cook dinner now and then is invaluable both for you and for them.

On the other hand, the kitchen is one of the most dangerous rooms in the house, fraught with tools and appliance that simply are not kid-friendly. Knives immediately come to mind. Aside from the “given” of expected monitoring, here are a few things that I have found helpful to both knife-proof my kids and kid-proof my knives.

Talk About Knife Safety Regularly

No matter the age of your child, we should never assume that they know something. Explaining the purpose of knives and other blades (such as food processors, etc) regularly will help your child to develop the basic understanding that – in spite of how shiny and appealing they are – knives are not toys. Beyond that, they also need to know what knives are for so that they are less prone to experimentation.

Explain As You Go

Whenever your aspiring chef is in the kitchen with you, they are watching your every move. As you instinctively keep yourself and your child safe in the kitchen, he still needs to know what you are doing and why. If you are holding your fingers away from the blade, tell him that. If you slip up and avoid injury, talk about it- “Woops! Mommy just made a mistake and almost got hurt! That’s why we should be very careful with knives. Phew!” Watching you and simultaneously hearing the whys of all those dos and don’ts will solidify them as more than just more safety rules in your child’s mind- it will just be normal kitchen habits.

Let Them Practice With Safe Knives

Practice makes better, but when it comes to sharp knives, you don’t want little fingers honing their skills by trial and error. Instead of being Mommy-No, try getting some plastic or kid-friendly butter knives and soft objects to cut. Play-doh is a great place to start, but softer foods like bananas can work for young culinary artists, too. As they prove their abilities, they can move up to more solid items and, one day, “real” knives.

Keep Knives and Blades Out of Reach

Ultimately, no amount of safety training can replace direct supervision, and unless you have a leash on your kids, chances are they will be in the kitchen without you. For safety’s sake, always keep sharp objects out of their reach and only get them down when you are ready to work together. Additionally, be sure to place knives blade-down in the dishwasher, and never put a knife or sharp object in a sink full of water.

Happy cooking! Next up, kid safety around kitchen heat and flames.

Photo Credit to GimmeFood