Kids in the Kitchen Build Connection, Confidence, and Creativity

Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole. Today, I’m very excited to have Katie Kimball as my guest. Katie and I met earlier this year. The funny thing about that is, we met through a group in San Diego. We actually live and work five minutes from each other. We have the same ZIP code. We didn’t know each other prior. Very small world.

I’ve gotten to know Katie in the work that she is doing with families around, getting families back into the kitchen and teaching kids how to cook, which I am such a big proponent of from a health and wellness and just physical and mental health standpoint. I’m really, really excited to have her here with us today and talk about the kitchen as a source of connection, confidence and creativity for kids. Katie is a blogger, a former teacher, and a mom of four kids. She and I have that in common too, who founded the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. It’s an amazing online course to teach kids how to cook.

She started her online life at her blog, Kitchen Stewardship, where she helps families stay healthy without going crazy. Katie’s original goal with the cooking classes for kids was to help parents get a little help in the kitchen, build life skills and hopefully even get kids to eat some vegetables.

Love it. During her work and research, she realized that teaching kids to cook is the best way to show kids they matter and can make a difference in the world. She believes that if every child in America was taught to cook. We would smash statistics on childhood obesity, depression, behavior disorders and more. I could not agree more. Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie Kimball:
Thank you so much, Dr. Nicole. It’s an honor to be here.

Nicole Beurkens:
I would love to start out by having you tell us the story of how you came to be doing what you’re doing because it’s awesome. Your mission is great. How did you come into this?

Katie Kimball:
Sure thing. With anything, we’ve just stumble over one thing after another. I didn’t always eat healthy myself, that my own healthy journey began when I was pregnant with my first child and realize that every bite counts so much more, right? It counts double.

When I’m trying to feed him, the ratio of bite to body is so much bigger than when you’re feeding an adult. It was heavy on my mind to learn to feed him really, really well, which meant that I was spending a lot more time at the cutting board than I was used to. I was hearing from other moms in my circle the tension that they were feeling. It’s hard to eat healthy and not spend too much money or eat healthy and not spend too much time in the kitchen.

As I was learning little hacks and tips and tricks for finding the center of all of the things that are pulling on us, I thought my heart is of a teacher. I was just always teaching people in my head at the cutting board. I thought, maybe I can actually help other moms make this easier, make this healthy living journey a little easier.

I could grease the shoot for them. We could get more people eating healthier because I was seeing benefits, feeling benefits in my own family and my own life. That’s where I ended up blogging at Kitchen Stewardship and helping families stay healthy without going crazy.

As I got to know busy moms from all around the world, what I heard over and over was how difficult it was, still, because they were never taught to cook. I realized our generation was really skipped in that. Either our moms cook convenience foods or they cook from scratch but they just didn’t tend to teach us.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
We as a generation are uncomfortable in the kitchen. I thought, “Gosh, in 20 years, our kids are going to grow up and say, ‘I want to be healthy, but it’s so hard because I was never taught to cook.'” As a teacher, I want to step into that gap and really make it easy for parents to get in the kitchen and to enjoy themselves to have a good time. I do the hard work and they can connect with their kids and make those family memories.

Nicole Beurkens:
I love it. I think that that’s so important. What you said around the issues when parents don’t cook, then that’s not a skillset that gets transferred to kids. I was very lucky, my mom cooked at home. We ate at home almost every meal my entire growing up. I was part of 4-H where I took cooking classes and learned to cook and then taught other people to cook.

I grew up learning to cook, but what has just shocked me in my professional life, especially in the last decade or so working a lot more with teens and young adults, they don’t know how to cook. I’m not talking about maybe can’t cook a meal. I’m talking about have never boiled water or have never done basic things. It’s been shocking to me.

Where that becomes so important is, when as a professional, I’m talking with them about the importance of eating a healthier diet and not eating as many processed foods. Whether it’s because they have anxiety or obesity or autism or whatever it might be that we’re wanting to really clean up their diet and help give their brain and body the nutrients they need. They need to be able to grocery shop. They need to be able to know what whole foods are.

They need to be able to have some skills in the kitchen. That’s such a huge gap, I think, for so many people as they grow into adulthood. That’s what I love about what you’re doing is teaching kids from the time they’re younger so that as they get towards adulthood, they have the skills to do this.

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. Because without the skills in the kitchen at all, if you’re trying to be healthier, it’s already hard to go from cooking to cooking a ton more vegetables or cutting out a food group. That’s hard enough …

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
… but to go from not even cooking. It’s just too many steps to ask anyone, really. It’s so important to start them off young. Hopefully, yeah, ideally, we do smash a lot of those statistics that are killing our children because they’ll be eating more vegetables right away and starting those good habits and really retaining their health.

Nicole Beurkens:
Well, it’s so true because so much of what the research shows us now about just why we’re having epidemic levels of obesity, of diabetes, of depression, all of these types of physical and mental health issue so much a bit is connected to the food we’re eating. Getting people back into the kitchen really helps them be able to support healthier lifestyle in that way, but also, what I love about what you talk about, it’s not just about the food that we’re making, it’s about the process of that and how just awesome getting kids in the kitchen is for helping their development in so many ways.

I think that most parents would agree that things like relational connectedness, spending time with their kids, building confidence, creativity, those are really important things. I’d love for you to talk a bit about how do you see those things being built in the kitchen.

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. Absolutely. It was such a nice, amazing surprise for me because again, I’m super practical. I start it off when I teach kids to cook for life skills, independence, the obvious stuff. Also, for parents to save 10 or 20 minutes a day because they’re not having to do everything themselves in the kitchen. That all happens, that’s reality, but I began to hear more and more stories from members that were just so touching about connecting with their kids.

One comes to mind, a mom named Sarah whose daughter is nine. She has ADHD. She used to get a little more distracted than other kids. She had sent Sarah to a community cooking class in person. Sarah … not Sarah. Sarah is the mom. The daughter came home with cuts on her fingers. Sarah is like “This is not going to work,” but was able to use our courses, keep her safe in the kitchen. They had a beautiful family moment making a favorite recipe for chicken noodle soup.

A lot of moms talk to me about that. Another mom, Lorrie, she realized in her family they were eating out too much. She was like “Okay, we are going to do 30-day challenge. No eating out.” Her girls completely lost it. “We’re not okay with mom’s new plan,” but on day one, she got them in the kitchen. They had already done some of our course. They had some skills. They were able to help. They actually made sushi. These aren’t girls with narrow palates.

Nicole Beurkens:
Wow.

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. We’re not talking narrow palates. They just had this habit of going out, but then they were both involved in having different jobs. She said, every time one girl did a job, the other girl wanted that job, of course like classic kid. By the end of the meal the family felt so cohesive that the girls were like “Okay, we can do this 30-day challenge.”

Just that idea of working in the kitchen together, being a team, being a family, being a team working on something altogether got them connected enough to even be onboard with some of the crazy stuff their mom wanted to do. We hear crazy stuff like that all the time. I feel like service begets service. They always say with babies, sleep begets sleep.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
I think service begets service when we’re serving other people food, the kids tend to notice what needs are there and now, you start to clean up a little bit or help their siblings. All the back connection can start in the kitchen because you’re always making food for someone else.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
It’s automatically an act of service. We hear so many beautiful stories about confidence in the kitchen. One of my favorites, a little three-year-old named Lucy and her mom said she spread her cream cheese on her mom’s bagel. Super simple, right?

Nicole Beurkens:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Katie Kimball:
Mom was really careful not to fix it before she ate it. The girl was so so proud. When I asked her if it would be okay to share that story, she reported like, Lucy, the three-year-old said, “Oh, yes mom because other kids need to learn to cook like I know.”

Nicole Beurkens:
Nice.

Katie Kimball:
These kids, once they feel they have some skills. By the way, skills in the kitchen are so genuine and authentic. Kids feel that. They know they’re doing real things that real adults do, not kid tasks. I’m huge on not boxing kids into kid menus or kid tasks.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yes.

Katie Kimball:
Right? We give them real task. They can see other people eating their food. Nobody needs a participation ribbon for that because it’s just so obvious that you’ve done something that other people are appreciating. It just blossoms into incredible independence. Kids are so proud of themselves in the kitchen.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. I love what you said about that it starts to build that independence and it gives them that confidence. Because especially when we’re thinking about kids with learning and behavioral disorder, kids may be on the autism spectrum or with ADHD or learning disabilities or things like that. These are kids who experience a lot of feelings of failure or overwhelm in a lot of areas of their life. To me, what you’re talking about with getting kids involved in cooking in the kitchen is an area where they can really get comfortable and shine.

Because I have yet to meet a kid no matter how severely impaired they are who can’t learn to take on some level of meaningful role in the kitchen. There’s just so many different things that they can do. I know there are some parents out there thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’d never give my kid a knife. They’d hurt themselves” or “My kid wouldn’t be able to cook things.”

I think what you’re talking about is, really, cooking or these kitchen skills, breaking it down to everything from helping to mix something and maybe helping to pour ingredients or helping to clean up all the way to more advanced skills, right?

Katie Kimball:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We break everything down into about 30 basic skills that any child or adult would need to be able to make real meals, but it starts at age two. It starts with a butter knife and a banana. It starts with learning how to pour appropriately. I mean, oh, talk about confidence and independence when a two-year-old can pour their own milk and the cereal or oatmeal or something. They feel like hot stuff.

Nicole Beurkens:
That’s so huge. I love that you focus on that confidence because a lot of us as adults, we take that for granted, right? We think, “Oh, what difference does it make? I’m just going to do it for my kid and we get in these routines.” I know with four kids and you have four kids too, you just get into these routines and suddenly we realize that we’re doing so many things for them, right? Especially when kids have challenges, we can just get into the habit of doing things for them instead of really being intentional about helping them learn to do things for themselves. It’s not just about, “Oh, when they’re an adult, they’re going to need to learn how to use a knife or use the oven or whatever.” Yes, that’s important, but it’s even about the here and now, the feeling of, “I’m a person who is capable. I’m a person who can do things.” The kitchen is just such an easy place to work on that, I think.

Katie Kimball:
Oh, I love that. Yeah, that’s so very true. Yeah, you’re right. Anyone can do something in the kitchen. Typically, kids who are maybe even a little immature, a little unsafe with normal tools, they know that a sharp knife or working at the stove is, they feel the importance of it and the danger in it. I think kids tend to take things more seriously.

I often recommend to parents that repetition is really important. What I found over the years was that a lot of parents of kids on the spectrum or with down syndrome would email and say, “I know your class isn’t designed for special needs kids, but it’s working perfectly.” Because we teach them really fun phrases, right? When we are cutting that banana or whatever, we might use up and over soldier hold and a tug of war. We just name everything.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yes.

Katie Kimball:
There’s repetition in your language. There’s a repetition on what you do because everybody needs to eat again, right? It’s like the bane of a parent’s existence. “Oh, I just fed them and I need to feed them again,” but what a great opportunity for the child to be involved over and over again. How do we learn best? Every person but particularly those on the spectrums by repeating an activity, repeating the language. Kids love it too. Again, it’s fun and it’s gratifying. It really gives them a sense of self that they’re unable to find other places.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
My daughter is now in fifth grade, but when she was in third grade, her teacher invited me in to do a cooking lesson. I was like “Oh man.” Because mostly, I’m online. I’m in videos.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
I’m like “Okay, 24 kids and food. This is going to be interesting.” We decided to make pancakes. Really vegetable heavy, pumpkin pancakes. She had one of those kids in her class who was constantly in the office, constantly needing behavioral stuff. To the point where the next year, he was not in the school anymore.

Nicole Beurkens:
Sure. Right.

Katie Kimball:
He was really a tough one.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
She, still, two years later, talks about that day. She said, “That was the best day he’s ever had.” He was so focused and so motivated. He stayed in from lunch to help finish flipping the pancakes.

Nicole Beurkens:
Nice.

Katie Kimball:
It’s amazing to see what motivation real tasks can have and that taste of success too that you can do something well that everyone else can do too.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. I think, too, one of the benefits of this, the bonuses of this is, as you said, we’re always having to feed our kids. This is something that’s in the flow of our day anyway. I’m big on helping parents think about how to maximize time, right? It’s like, okay, you’re already in the kitchen making lunches or prepping dinner or whatever you’re doing. It’s a perfect opportunity to be able to pull your child and even for a few minutes, it doesn’t have to be the whole thing, to get them involved in something that is already in your schedule. You can have this meaningful interaction, this working on these skills with your child. You don’t have to carve out separate time because everybody says, “I don’t have time for anything,” right, but you’re already in the kitchen doing this stuff anyway. Why not do double duty by pulling your child into it and using that as an opportunity for learning.

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. I’m going to contradict you real quick though because I always recommend the parents not to teach a new skill during the dinner hour.

Nicole Beurkens:
Oh, yeah. That’s a bad idea.

Katie Kimball:
Because you are generally really stressed out.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
I’ll say, if you’re ready to teach them the skill, do it right after lunch on a Saturday or right after school snack or whatever.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yes. Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
You can still make what’s for dinner that night. It’s just shifting that time frame a little bit away because we don’t want a stressed out experience in the kitchen because then the child feels negative about being in the kitchen.

Nicole Beurkens:
It’s that witching hour of the afterschool through the dinner time, yes, just to get everybody fed. Although, certainly, kids can play a role in helping to plate things and clean up and all of that around dinner time, for sure.

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. Definitely. Once the skill has been learned and may be practiced once outside the dinner, now, then the magic happens, right?

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
Because then they can actually be helpful. When I’m in a rush, I can just be like “John, cucumbers. Paul, carrots. Lee, do this.” Everybody is working. We put some kids at the table so we have more elbow room. Then things actually do move faster and you save time.

Nicole Beurkens:
You walk your talk with that because I follow you in social media. If you don’t follow Katie, I highly recommend that you do. She posts pictures of things that her kids are doing and making. Katie is not just talking about teaching your kids to cut vegetables and make a salad. You can go on her Instagram or her Facebook and see the cool things that her kids are doing with that. I think that’s so important. You’re not just teaching other people to do this stuff. You’re actually doing it with your own kids and that you know then what works and what doesn’t work because you had done that stuff with your own children, which I think is great.

Katie Kimball:
For sure.

Nicole Beurkens:
Let’s talk about vegetables because the area, clinically, one of the recommendations, often, for kids who I’m seeing either whether I’m working with them in the clinic or in my online programs is eating more produce, right? Getting lots of the amazing phytonutrients and just dense nutrients from fruits, and particularly, vegetables. Vegetables are the ones sticky area really, for people where even we have a lot of parents who go, “Oh, I don’t eat vegetable.” It’s like “Really?”

Katie Kimball:
Yeah.

Nicole Beurkens:
You’re like “When is the last time you had a green bean?” I’m pretty sure that we can figure this out, right? Vegetables are so important and I know that that’s a big passion of yours too for getting kids exposed to vegetables and eating more vegetables. Can you talk about how these experiences in the kitchen with vegetables of different kinds of food are helpful for their physical health but also for their brain development?

Katie Kimball:
Sure. Absolutely. You taught me this Dr. Beurkens, is that we all have this tolerance for individual foods. For some people, you might need to taste it once or twice. For others, you might have to taste it 57 times, but I love telling people the great news that any exposure counts.

Nicole Beurkens:
That’s right.

Katie Kimball:
Shopping at the Farmers Market, preparing the meals, serving the meals. It all counts as building that tolerance and getting our smell senses and our taste buds used to those foods. Plus, there’s that sense of ownership where kids find that when they’re working with something and that at least a quarter of our members have said, “My child is actually eating more foods now than they use to because they’re involved,” right?

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
That’s a quarter, but obviously, there are probably a bunch of kids who are a good eaters too. I was just reading one story from my mom who said, “Oh my goodness, I have a child who is picky,” like count on the fingers the foods he will eat picky. He helped me cut some peppers for a meal because he was practicing his nice skills. He actually asked to try one. She was like all over shocked.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
Just getting that experience with vegetables is super, super important for building our tolerance, getting them passed, the tongue. Definitely, for mental health and resiliency, when we talk about nourishing our bodies, we’ve got to get more vegetables in and of course, things like fish and fish oil are often recommended. It’s like that’s not a real kid friendly mild food that most people think of right away. Oh, let’s get our kids stinky fish.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
The same with vegetables, they can be more bitter but we know that those bitter foods are packed with exactly what we need for our brain health and development in calming anxiety. We always tell our families too, I love this reminder, is that vegetables are best assimilated with a healthy fat. Kids love dips and kids love butter. All these things that you can use. They make vegetables taste better and they’re actually healthier too as long as it’s a whole fat found in nature.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. The piece about exposure is so important. Often, parents will just say, “Oh, my kid won’t eat that.” Or kids will go, “Oh, I don’t eat that. I don’t eat green things. I don’t eat vegetables. I don’t eat fish” or whatever it might be. That point about how exposure, in any way, helps expand the palate is so critical. That’s one of the areas where I think that cooking is so important. If you’re hearing out there listening to this and you’re like “Oh, I’d love to get my kid eating more stuff, but he just won’t or she just won’t.”

What Katie is talking about with this involving kids in the kitchen, in the cooking process is really key for that because they don’t have to just be willing to put it in their mouth to experience it by washing produce, peeling it, cutting it, sauteing it, cooking it. All of these skills that you’re working on in the kitchen, that’s exposing them to the sights, the smells, the textures. Everything with these foods. It moves kids more towards being interested in and willing to actually taste it and try it.

I don’t know if you have found this true with your kids, your personal kids and your kids in the program, but for my personal children, they have an investment in things that they’ve helped make. They’re more willing. They’re more excited or interested in trying it because they’ve worked hard to help make it. I think that’s a big factor too.

Katie Kimball:
Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. There’s definitely that ownership and that so much pride. They’re involved in part of it. They want to see it through. We have a need to close those loops …

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
… complete things. Yeah. Absolutely.

Nicole Beurkens:
Absolutely. Well, that’s funny too because sometimes I’ll see kids will even be cooking here at the clinic or something and they’ll just sneak a little taste while we’re cooking, which I’m like “Yeah, good.” That exposure of it where it’s like “I don’t know if I want to admit that this is something that I would eat, but this looks interesting.” They’ll just look over and they’ll be taking a little nibble. It’s those opportunities by having them in the kitchen for them to be able to try that is so great. I’d love to get into some practical recommendations.

We’ve got parents now listening thinking, “Okay, great. I get it. I want to commit to getting my child in the kitchen more. We’ve never done this. Where do I start?” What are some practical skills that parents can tackle with kids to get this magic happening in the kitchen?

Katie Kimball:
Absolutely. I like to divide kids into skill level, developmental level. We’ll talk about pre-schoolers, early elementary and big kids. For our pre-schoolers, just like in pre-school are already focused on small motor skills. They’re working on holding a pencil, cutting. We focus on the same skills in the kitchen. We’re pouring. We’re aiming for the center and using care. We’re using that butter knife in a banana or cooked carrots, melon that you’ve cut the rind off. Anything that’s soft enough, but remember to teach the child to treat that dull knife like it’s a sharp knife. Because we want them to have really good habits and really good techniques, and then you’ll feel super comfortable giving them a paring knife when they’re six. The other parents are going to go, “Really? Is that knife?” You’re like “Yeah.”

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
“I’ve been doing this for three years and keeping their fingers perfectly safe for the butter knife,” right? We work on measuring too. How do we measure flat? We call it no holes, no hills. All these really cool small motor skills and feeling really positive in the kitchen. You want to work hard on your own stress level with children of that age to make sure that you’re really preserving that positive feeling in the kitchen so that they want to continue coming back.

Generally, two year olds want to be involved. We have to be really careful not to break that line of motivation. Because if we don’t, we probably will have a nine-year-old who can help and will actually want to help which is cool.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
Okay. Now, our early elementary kids. Once they can read, that opens up a whole new world at school. Open to the whole new world in the kitchen. Once they can read their own recipes, we want to show them how to follow a recipe well, right? How to read the whole thing before you get started, make sure you ask mom and dad about things, terms you don’t understand and organize your supplies. We teach them to move ingredients from left to right so that you don’t forget what you put in. Again, that’s just all. These are the same skills that kids need in life, in school when they do their planners, when they read their worksheets. It’s all the same skills. It’s just applying it in a different situation.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
I also think that early elementary kids are generally mature enough especially if you’ve been working with them to work at the stove and to use a small paring knife. My tip for paring knives is, really consider the food you’re asking the child to cut. An onion or an apple or a melon, these are just too big and gangly. Even carrots are too solid for a paring knife.

We want to think about radishes, mushrooms, strawberries, pineapples. Smaller, softer things. Cucumbers and zucchini are awesome because they’re long. Fingers can stay far away and they’re just the right density for a paring knife to easily get through and the child’s like “I’m doing real work. This is awesome.”

Then we take those skills and no matter what your child is, maybe you have a 12-year-old and they’ve never been at the stove and never used a small sharp knife, you’re going to want to start there. Once you see some mastery in those skills, once they’re showing maturity, then you can just move up into just about everything. We go to our kids’ chef knives, starting about seven or eight or nine. Depending on interest and maturity. They have to be motivated to do it …

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
… but if a kid is motivated by a big knife, they will be careful when you require them to be careful in order to pass into that realm.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
We help our kids think about multi-tasking, how do you make a main dish and a side dish at the same time. This is still a challenge for me. I’m always when he’s like “Oh, part of dinner is ready.” Parents can learn too along with your kids refining your skills. Then the oven, of course. You have to be big enough and strong enough to deal with oven stuff. I don’t usually recommend that parents get kids to the oven until they’re eight, nine, or 10. Again, there’s a lot of fear there. The tip for stoves and ovens is, practice with it off. Talk about what will be hot and let them open it and put just an empty cookie sheet in and out of the oven as many times as it takes when everything is cold.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
Kids will totally get rid of their fear and build up their confidence when they realize that, “I can do this. This is not as scary as I thought.” Then of course, the oven is a little … it’s a little scary that first time when they open the oven and the heat hits them, but again, if you just talk it through and think about those things, they just need to back up first.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
“Come stand to the side”, or whatever. If you’re thinking about it intentionally and thinking it through, which is, again, this is why I created the course because that’s a lot of thinking for parents.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
I’ll think it through one time with these easy videos, but it’s totally something you can do bit by bit too in your own home.

Nicole Beurkens:
That’s a great tip about the practicing with the stove and with the oven in particular with it off, because I know that one of the things that many kids with either developmental or mental health challenges run into is quite a bit of anxiety around that stuff. In fact, I was just talking about that with a family last week with their 13 year old who we’ve been working on skills with independence in the kitchen, those kinds of things, that he’s been pretty fearful about the heat and about burning himself and those kinds of things.

We’ve been working on getting over the anxiety of that and taking it in steps, but I love that idea of really thinking it through and practicing with the skills of that with it off so that they gain confidence.

One of the things is, you’re talking through the different ages. I think it’s important to note, if you are the parent of a child who, maybe, their developmental level is not where their age is, you focus on where their developmental level is. If you have a 20-year-old who developmentally is that of three-year-old level, they can be doing those three-year-old level things. You don’t have to say, “Well, they can’t read and so they can’t do anything in the kitchen.”

No, start where they are and start with where that developmental level is and then let them build the skills from there regardless of what their chronological age is.

Katie Kimball:
Perfect. Yeah. So much can be done without reading in the kitchen too as far as people with delays or challenges in academia. First of all, it’s great to just be able to throw some vegetables in a pan, add some fat, smell some spices and herbs and be “Yeah, this smells good.”

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
“Put some in.” The risk is relatively low, especially if you try small batches. Maybe you’ll lose a buck.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
Throw some spaghetti sauce on. It’ll probably taste good, right? Get your buck back.

Nicole Beurkens:
That’ll hide anything. It’s perfect. Well, speaking of that, that makes me think about one of the things when you were talking about the resilience piece. I think that cooking is great for as teaching that it’s okay to make mistakes and that the kitchen is a place for just like anywhere else in life. Things can go in unexpected ways or something can get screwed up or whatever.

It teaches, it gives us forums for just being resilient around that, right, and figuring, “Oh, I screwed something up. How do I repair that?” So many kids now with learning and behavioral disorders, and just kids in general, are struggling with the idea of being okay with screwing things up, being okay with making a mistake. I think the kitchen is a great platform for learning that. Do you see that too?

Katie Kimball:
Oh, absolutely. I’ve taken an interest in the mental health side of things for kids because I interviewed some school counselors, talked to a bunch of teachers, and by and large, they say the biggest issue they’re seeing that’s really increasing the most over the last decade is anxiety.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
That kids are so worried and so anxious. Yes, unable to cope, unable to be independent. My son’s second-grade teachers said, “So many kids will come up and just be like ‘I can’t open this. I can’t tie my shoes.'” They’re not even thinking about ways to solve their own problem other than relying on the adult.

Definitely, working in the kitchen, not only … because you’re building those strong family connections, that helps resiliency too because there is that trustworthiness, your parents trust in you with some real tasks that feels amazing. You’re trusting your parents. You’re working together. Studies show, if kids have just one strong bond with any adult, right, that gives them a better chance to have solid balanced mental health as they grow older. Building those connections is amazing. Learning to fail, absolutely. You can’t just walk away.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
You might not be able to completely fix the problem, but at least you got to clean up and hopefully learn for next time. Because again, guess what, we got to eat again in five hours. You’ll get another chance to try it. I do find that resiliency is so important for kids. In so many ways, it can be built in the kitchen. Especially as we’re increasing that feeling connection and building the confidence. Creativity, just that idea of being able to create something from nothing. Even my own kids, just a few weeks ago, they make dinner every Sunday. I go off to church and volunteer, which is good because I can’t micromanage.

Nicole Beurkens:
Gets you out of the way.

Katie Kimball:
It does. I’m not even involved. This day, their plan was pretty loose. They were making breakfast burritos. We didn’t even have any eggs in the house. It’s like I’m driving to church thinking, “Yeah, you can learn from failure today. This is going to be really interesting to see what happens,” but that wasn’t what happened because I came home and my daughter’s face was glowing. She was like “Mom, Paul and I are so proud of ourselves because we just put stuff in the pan and we didn’t even really use a recipe. It totally was good and everybody loves and there’s hardly any left for you, mom.”

Nicole Beurkens:
I love it.

Katie Kimball:
I didn’t really get to eat dinner, but I was definitely full of pride in my kids that they were so proud. They actually verbalized, “We’re proud of ourselves.” It’s like “Oh, this is how it should work.”

Nicole Beurkens:
That’s fabulous. That problem solving though, so many of our kids with this learning and behavior challenges need to work on not only the resilience piece but also that executive function piece that those frontal lobe functions of prioritizing and planning and organizing and problem-solving and everything you’re talking about and all these examples that you’re giving in the kitchen are such great practical ways to strengthen those parts of kid’s brain.

Just so fabulous. I want to touch on one more thing. We’ve just got a couple more minutes, but on your Instagram, I see pictures all the time about your kids packing their lunches.

I know we’re in the school year right now, lunches are the bane of every parents’ existence, right? Getting those lunches packed in the morning. Can you just throw out one or two quick tips for people like if they want to get their kids involved with just making their lives easier in the morning with packing those lunches, one or two quick things for parents to start with?

Katie Kimball:
Yeah. These tips are going to be for parents or kids, right?

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
Regardless of who’s packing. We pack right after dinner because everything’s out. Our raw veggies are out. The kitchen is a mess. A lot of times, I’ll try to make a couple meals a week that are really good cold, right?

Nicole Beurkens:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Katie Kimball:
Like grilled chicken or if you think about … We eat pasta salad. That’s cold pasta. Why not be able to take the pasta or the rice meal that you had at dinner and eat it cold. It depends on your kid’s preferences, but we find it that it’s just a lot quicker as clean up from dinner is going on to put things directly into lunch boxes. Plus, then, you don’t have this whole feeling of like “The kitchen is not cleaned up.” Like “Oh, I have to pack lunches. It’s one more thing.” Or in the morning, when you rush packing.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
We encourage our kids. Again, my older two, 10 and 13, they pack their own completely.

Nicole Beurkens:
Right.

Katie Kimball:
My seven-year-old, he’s right on the edge where we’re thinking this year, he’s going to take more responsibility. He’s in charge of unpacking his own. We kind of build that. In kindergarten, they just have to deliver the lunch to the counter.

First and second grade, they help unpack it, put things in the dishwasher, stuff like that but anyway, regardless of his packing, do it right after a meal. I like to tell people to have at least one no-brainer. Have something that your kids will eat every single day that you don’t have to think about it. That way, you’re not starting with the blank slate.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah.

Katie Kimball:
For us, it’s yogurt. I make homemade yogurt as we always have jars in the fridge with frozen fruit. At least, we know like “Okay, there’s something with fat and protein that they like that they will eat. Now, I can continue instead of looking like I don’t know where to start.”

Nicole Beurkens:
Great. Awesome tips. So practical things that every parent can start to implement. That’s fantastic. This has been great. You’ve shared so many big picture things as well as specific practical strategies. I want to make sure that people can find you online because you’ve got so many awesome resources. Let people know where they can find you. I know that you’ve got something special that our listeners can get. Let’s talk about that.

Katie Kimball:
Definitely. Well, we talked about the importance of resiliency. I just have a short downloadable eBook that walks you through three simple ways at all ages to build kids’ resiliency, specifically, in the kitchen. That’s at kidscookrealfood.com/doctornicole. Special for your listeners.

Nicole Beurkens:
Awesome.

Katie Kimball:
In general, yes, I do share a lot of real life on Instagram at Kids Cook Real Food and not as many lunches because it’s dark in Michigan when we …

Nicole Beurkens:
I know.

Katie Kimball:
… have our lunches. They’re so ugly, but definitely, we try to get out there and be really encouraging with what real life is like with four kids trying to learn to cook in the kitchen. Just kidscookrealfood.com is where you can learn more about what we do building that connection, confidence, and creativity in kids.

Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah. I just want to put in a plug for your cooking course online. I recommend it often at the clinic. I’ve looked through the entire thing as a former teacher myself as well as a parent and a clinician. It’s really well-put together. Any of you parents out there who are looking for a structured way to just take kids through learning, these valuable cooking skills cannot recommend Katie’s program enough. Definitely, get online and check out what she’s built there. Katie, I want to thank you so much for being with us today. This has been awesome. I appreciate you spending time with us on the show.

Katie Kimball:
Oh, it’s an honor. Thank you so much for the compliments. It means a lot. I just really want to get kids in the kitchen, eating vegetables, building independence. The easier I can make it for parents, the better.

Nicole Beurkens:
Awesome. All right. That does it for today’s show. We will see you next time.