Cooking as its Own Reward: How to Keep Lesser Motives From Spoiling the Broth

Mar 23, 2009 by Anna Migeon

At my house, my kids help cook and do some cooking of their own. They also take their turns at doing the dishes after dinner.  My approach to getting them to cook varies greatly from how I get them to do the cleaning up, though. Why? Because while true passion about cooking is possible, probably no one alive has more than a fairly limited enthusiasm for washing dishes.

Every child is born naturally interested in cooking. When they see an adult breaking eggs, stirring, mixing, measuring, using equipment like spring-form pans and muffin tins, and tools like knives, whisks , blenders and mixers, and witness miraculous, appetizing transformations emerging from the oven, they want to get involved. And rightly so.

So how do we encourage that intrinsic motivation, and not extinguish it?

Use the Suzuki Method

I use the Suzuki method of quitting while I’m ahead.  Suzuki’s way of teaching music, counterintuitive in our society, directs us to stop them while they still want more instead of pushing to the point of resistance in order to get in as much as possible of instruction or practice.

Keep an activity fun and it remains something that we get to do, not have to do.  My goal is to aim always at whetting the appetite, increasing the desire to do, not necessarily increasing the amount of doing.

The trick is to avoid making it a burden for either party. I have always been casual and spontaneous about getting my kids cooking. Early and easy successes feed their interest. Brownie mixes are a great tool. Occasion little forays into cooking can have a big impact, building the foundation of fun and confidence.

Also in keeping with Suzuki’s principles, the better cooking they’re regularly exposed to, the more inspired they will be.

Let Cooking Be Its Own Reward

Whatever you do, don’t ever reward a child for cooking. The whole point is that they be interested in doing it for its own sake.  Rewarding them sends the message that it’s not something worth doing except for a reward.

According to dozens of studies reported by Alfie Kohn in Punished by Rewards:  The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes, being rewarded for an activity tends to reduce one’s interest in doing it, and the chances of doing it again without a reward.

The worst move is rewarding someone for doing something that we would like her to find motivating in its own right, like reading, learning or being generous, Kohn warns.  It’s controlling and manipulative and tends to backfire.

I’m cautious, on the other hand, not to turn cooking into a grim duty.  I really do need my kids’ help cooking sometimes and Iet them know when I do. But I don’t see how any good can come of communicating that, “By gum, I have to do this, so you have to do this. You best prepare for reality, for the drudgery of life.”

That’s like going on a first date and telling your date everything that’s wrong with you before they get a chance to fall for your charms. Once we’ve truly fallen in love with someone, we can, ideally at least, accept little flaws that may gradually emerge.

Let Them Do the Fun Part

Being a sous-chef (under-chef) of the kitchen is less interesting than being the chef. The chef takes charge, selects a recipe, makes whatever makes her heart sing, and does the enjoyable parts instead of just chopping vegetables to fulfill someone else’s vision. For kids who think that being an adult means doing whatever you want, this may be a good motivator.  Let them dream of the day they can fix whatever they want to eat, every single day, like I do.  My family knows that since I’m the chef, I make whatever I feel like making.  On the other hand, any time they want to take over, I will be their sous-chef.  I’ll do their menial tasks.  I’ll clean up. Thus their desire for self-determination is encouraged.

Who doesn’t like to get her own way? That desire can be leveraged. At our house, vinaigrette is a subject of disagreement. Three of us have our own ways of doing it and each believes his way is best. The one who makes it gets to Do it My Way.

As for washing dishes, we take turns at our house, according to a little chart on the side of the fridge. We tell the kids to do it because they are contributing members of the family and that it’s part of the necessary drudgery of life. Otherwise, but for a sense of order that helps hold our lives together, an opportunity to enjoy doing it well and a time of quiet reflection and mental relaxation, they get no external motivators for doing dishes any more than cooking. Who needs to be controlled that way, after all? That’s about all there is to my strategy on that.

© Sacred Appetite / Anna Migeon / 23 March 2009 / All rights reserved