This summer, why don't you try cooking with the kids. This is a great family activity that teaches lifeskills. Patience, following directions, proper nutrition, and math are all used in cooking.

Cooking is especially good for kids with ADD. It is a reward, so they are able to maintain better focus. It helps them learn about life and being independent, too.

BellaOnline has many cooking websites. Two that are especially good for kids are the Cooking for Kids and the Sandwiches websites.

If you want to have some specific sandwiches designed to make with your kids, just post in the Sandwiches forum. Let me know what ingredients you want to feature.


Here are links to those sites:
Cooking for Kids
Sandwiches


Have a blessed week,
Connie

Hi Connie,

This is a family activity in my house. We enjoy cooking together every Thursday and Friday. I love your sandwiches article. Thanks for sharing!

Hey Tuculia,

When my kids were young, we did this as an activity. Both of my boys are good cooks. Also, when I had a home day care, little bitty kids learned to cook things appropriate to their ages.

Kids with ADD need a reward to help them attend to a subject. What is a better reward than choosing something to cook, and then getting to eat it?

Thanks Connie! All of my children enjoy cooking a great deal however, my son with special needs has asked if I could enroll him into a culinary course so that he can come up with his own dishes with other people. Thanks for inspiring other parents to share this experience with their kids. Thanks for sharing!

Tuculia, that sounds like it would be a good deal for him.

As you know, I work in a special day school where all of the students have special needs. Several years ago I applied for and received a grant from the Sprint Corporation. It was more than $7,000. The money was used to help students develop social skills while learning to cook foods from other cultures. We also had money to take them on field trips to lunch at ethnic restaurants.

That was a wonderful time! We had money for exotic ingredients. One meal, our Spanish food, had meatballs with saffron and ground cashews. The dessert had a fresh orange sauce. People still talk about it!

One young man found a passion for cooking. He is now in a technical school taking chef training. Food is a great way to express creativity.

One day you should write about your personal experences with the special day school and how it made a difference in the kids. This is something that parents would benefit from as well as other kids. I would love to see that and I'm sure other parents would too. Thanks again for sharing!

I would love to do that, but I'd be afraid of inadvertently breeching confidentiality. Maybe when there is more time and distance between the events.

Summer is hot, but usually there is some part of the day that is cool enough to bake with the kids. Make individual pizzas.

If you don't want to make dough, get frozen rolls at the store. Thaw them, roll them out into a pizza crust, and put them on a cooking sheet. Apply pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings. Everybody can choose their own combo of toppings. It's a perfect family activity.

Making pasta is something that kids can help with. Just don't let them mess with boiling water! That goes at the back of the stove.

Now is the time when fresh vegetables come into the farmer's markets. Burn some energy walking around the market. Let your child help you choose some vegetables. Fix them together for lunch or dinner. Your child burns some energy, learns about good nutrition, and gains skills for life. Win, win, win!