Kids in the kitchen: cooking experiences and knowledge of risky activities

In middle childhood and into adolescence, children increasingly engage in cooking activities using devices that can elevate their risk of experiencing burn and cut injuries. There is limited research, however, on what kitchen devices they use at different ages and their knowledge of unsafe cooking activities.

Focusing on burn and cut risks, this study considered younger (10-11 years old) and older children (13-14 years old) and used parent reports to determine the kitchen devices children use, under what supervision conditions, and the factors parents considered in deciding on their child's readiness to do so. Additionally, children viewed a videotape of a similarly aged child engaging in various kitchen activities while cooking and identified actions they considered unsafe. Their parent did similarly to identify the risky activities they expected their child to recognize.

Older age children used more kitchen devices without parent supervision than younger-aged children. In making decisions about burn-risk devices, parents considered dangerousness as well as the benefits to them of their child doing so, though injury severity risk did not contribute, and none of these factors predicted decisions about the usage of cut-risk devices. Regardless of age, children identified fewer than half of the injury-risk behaviors shown, and parents believed that children would identify a significantly greater proportion of risks than children actually did.

Children are not aware of many risk behaviors in the kitchen, and parents significantly overestimate their child's knowledge of such behaviors. Implications for injury prevention and directions for future research are discussed.