Ten Simple Safety Tips When Working with Children in The Kitchen

If you are hoping to bring out the chef in your baby, then you have to turn your kitchen into their first class and that is a huge responsibility. It is actually impossible to keep kids out of the kitchen. They will come in there at one point or another and the rules and shouting may not get the job done. You just have to get down to it and ensure the kitchen is safe enough whenever they come in. When you decide to bring them to the kitchen with you when cooking, then you have to ensure that these 10 safety rules are ticked off in your book.

Train Them for Emergencies

You should train your kids on what to do when they see common danger signs in the kitchen such as gas leaks and responding to smoke and fire alarms. Of course, you may have got these checked by a plumber kettering (or wherever you live for that matter) before allowing your little ones in the kitchen, but a dangerous situation can spring up anytime. This is why it is important to make them prepared to handle all kinds of situations. You can take your children to community fire and safety classes. Most of them are actually offered by fire departments for free. In addition, they should also know how to deal with personal injuries like cuts, burns, and eye damage. Chilli is a common cause of eye injury in children as they often rub their eyes, with many school kitchens having eyewash stations like these here for quick and effective treatment. Whilst your home kitchen doesn’t need an eyewash station, your kitchen sink should be within easy reach for your child to quickly wash the chilli out. As the responsible adult, you have to take it step by step and make sure they understand that the best way to handle an emergency is not to freak out.

Keep All Safety Measures Updated

Even if you teach children in the best of ways, you can’t always trust them to make the right decisions when danger comes so you have to ensure that all dangers are mitigated before they enter the kitchen. You need to ensure that everything that could bring danger from faulty plumbing (for which you would need to call in professionals similar to a santa clarita plumbing) to pointy tiles are fixed. Children also tend to go to places you don’t expect including your cabinets so you may want to ensure that sharp nails, broken glass and any stray cutters are not there either. You should also update your safety alarms.

Train Them with The Easier Tasks

The only thing worse than having kids in the kitchen is having idle kids in the kitchen. Make sure that if they are not munching on something, they are helping out and you are keeping an eye. When you bring them to the kitchen, you should give them the simple tasks they can handle such as arranging fruits and other foods, sorting your cereal and vegies and whatever safe tasks they may enjoy doing. Starting them off with the tough tasks might get them disinterested before they make good cooks.

Enforce Your No-Go Zones

You have to create some rules even if they may not work. One rule you must enforce is the no-touch and no go zones in your kitchen. You should keep them away from electric appliances that might get too hot or ones they might fall into such as the dishwasher. You should also keep them away from racks and pantries that have heavy items that might collapse. The one thing you should never let children approach is the stove.

Deploy Safety Locks

Lock and key are one of the best ways to keep children safe in the kitchen. When you are not in the kitchen, you should lock it or lock away everything that can hurt kids such as glasses and cutlery. You should install locks on your drawers and other areas where you keep stuff that might hurt kids. Just as changing the pointed tiles or countertop of the kitchen is important (firms similar to Stone Boneyard could be helpful in this regard), so that the kids don’t get hurt or cut, so is this step to ensure all-round safety. Though it may not sound wise at first, you can never be too safe when kids are in the kitchen.

Buy A Bay Chair

Some people recommend getting a baby gate when you are dealing with toddlers but that may not help as many tend to find a way around it. It is better to have them near you but too far away to touch anything dangerous and a high chair is the best way to do it. Just make sure you give them something fun to keep them busy on that chair while you work

Keep Knives and Sharp Objects from The Lower Shelves

Kids want to touch everything and they will extend their tiny fingers to everything you don’t want them to touch. You should start by keeping pots and pans away from the edges with handles facing away from them. You also have to pack all the cutlery and the sharp objects to the highest shelves and not even the countertop because they could climb and pull that down too.

Pick The Floor Clean

You have to set up a dress code for coming to the kitchen and ensure that it includes shoes with non-skid soles on them. You also have to clean your floor thoroughly every time there is a spill or broken glass because that is a hazard. Kids are also keep and might harm themselves with items you don’t even expect so you have to pick your floor clean from any cutting, piecing, trip and choking hazards.

Get Them Their Own Tools

One of the best ways to keep kids safe in the kitchen is to make them their own mini kitchen inside your kitchen. You can buy a whole set of kids kitchen tools and it won’t cost you much because most of them are blunt knives, plastic tools and fake foods. You can be sure they are busy with safe tools while you cook your own meals

Keep The Hots and Breakables Out of Reach

The kitchen can become a tricky place to work with children especially during high traffic hours when preparing large meals. Most things are either sharp or hot. You still have to keep them safe so the best thing to do is ensure that anything your child can reach is not an obvious danger.