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My daughter wants and needs to learn to cook. As a single father that doesn't know how himself, I wish I could cook and want my 12-year-old daughter to learn about cooking. I'm sure there are other life skills children also need that their parent or parents don't always really know how to do either. How do you go about figuring out how to teach such skills to your kids when you don't have the skills yourself?

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Father needs to learn how to cook before teaching his girl how to cook. – Dave Clarke Sep 7 '12 at 16:42
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What dave said. They need to make it a joint venture. Learn to cook together. That and watch lots of Alton Brown. – DA01 Sep 7 '12 at 17:45
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@DaveClarke: You should write up an answer expanding on that. One can't really teach something that they're unable to do. I think another thing to be careful for is that the father doesn't some to rely on or expect the daughter to cook for him. – afrazier Sep 7 '12 at 18:57
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I disagree with closing this question. I think it is relevant and, while needing to be improved, is a good question. The need to teach a child a basic life skill that you don't possess yourself is something that many parents have questions about. Maybe it could be generalized to something like that – Kevin Sep 10 '12 at 21:02
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Since I'm the one who edited this hoping I could make it re-openable, I'm surprised I was offered the review and vote. I'm skipping the opportunity to vote, but hoping it can be reopened because I do think it has potential as a question. – balanced mama Nov 27 '12 at 14:33
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closed as off topic by Beofett♦ Sep 10 '12 at 2:18

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1 Answer

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Since neither of you knows how to cook you may wish to have a look at CBeebies Cooking Game. The game essentially consists of interactive, visual, step by step instructions of a number of different recipes. The instruction of the recipes used in the game are child friendly and easy to understand.

I made tomato spirals last week with a 4 year old. I let her play the game before we started cooking so she understood what we needed to do. She's still a little bit young so it got a bit messy (there was flour everywhere :) but we did manage to successfully make the dish together.

If you don't like the recipe ideas used in the CBeebies cooking game the BBC has another cooking recipes resource for kids here.

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I like the CBeebie's Cooking Game link but I think that a 12-year old would find it a bit too childish. The second link is good though. – afrazier Sep 7 '12 at 19:01

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