As a way to support his creativity and curiosity with baking, I fought against my urge to suggest that he follow a recipe and let my then preschool-aged kid combine whatever ingredients he deemed necessary for his baking endeavor that day. My son was the baker; I was merely an assistant.
When our church asked for people to volunteer to bring baked goods for a neighborhood outreach, I saw an opportunity to combine doing something meaningful together and that he would delight to do.
For the first time, we decided to follow a recipe because my five-year-old wanted to make chocolate cookie bars. With his budding reading skills, he was starting to connect the dots that the recipes contained the secrets to baking some of his favorite goodies.
“We need flour and sugar,” I told him as I peered at the recipe. He marched toward the pantry to grab the ingredients off the shelf.
“What’s next?” my son asked.
“Butter and eggs,” I said.
“Um, where are the chocolate chips?” he asked in a silly tone of voice. A huge grin filled his face as he looked at me.
“Ops! Pantry!” I playfully called.
My son skipped back to the pantry to locate the most essential ingredient of all.
As I read the recipe out loud, we fell into step with our established baking roles—him leading, me assisting. When it was time to bake the bars, my son helped set the timer while I placed them inside the oven.
“What now?” my son asked.
“Should we play a game or read?”
“Let’s read first, then play a game!” my kindergarten proclaimed as he bounced into our living room to pick out a library book. Then we snuggled up on our couch to read.
I smiled to myself. I loved these moments to bake together.
After losing more rounds of Candy Land than should be possible, the chocolate chip cookie bar timer sounded. Once the bars had time to cool, we hopped in our car to drop them off at our church. As we drove, we talked about how these bars would be used to show our love for those in our church’s neighborhood and would include a note inviting them to our church.
When we arrived at church, my kindergartener clutched the chocolate chip cookie bars in his hand and shyly passed them to our pastor who was coordinating the outreach.
My heart was bursting with joy. The chance for my son and I to bond while doing an outreach activity so well suited to his interests was priceless. As I gazed at my kindergartener in the rearview mirror, pride was etched on his round face.
CONNECTING WITH OUR KIDS
I've found over the years, baking is a great point of connection with my boys! Recently, my nine-year-old wanted to bake apple pies together. While I wasn't quite as eager to tackle a bigger baking project, it was a great connecting point with him—and totally worth the effort!
How have you found baking helpful in bonding with your kids? What recipes have been the most fun? What are new ways you can keep connecting with your children? How can you combine interests with serving together?
As you mull over these questions to find your own ideas, here are five ideas for connecting with our kids.
1) Volunteering at an animal shelter can provide a way to serve while interacting with furry critters!
2) Start bike riding together. Explore your neighborhood or start hitting biking trails!
3) Start out with local hikes and build up to bigger ones!
4) Read How This Book Was Made, then write a story together!
5) Using The Big Book of Science Experiments, jump into 100 science experiments to do together!