Often Ricki is in the kitchen, but usually it’s just to fry an egg or heat up some soya patty in the microwave. Sometimes I have her help me make soup or salad, peeling and cutting up the vegetables. Up until now, however, her cutting of vegetables has tended to be rather big.
So the last time I did a salad with Ricki, I decided to tackle the “too big pieces” problem. I suddenly realized that the problem was that she was, in essence, (rightfully) scared of the knife. I wanted to show her how she could cut slowly, near her fingers in a way that would be safe, and she was insisting on doing it “herself” without help. Finally I managed to convince her to watch a demonstration or two, and from then on her cutting size decreased by about 30%, making a significant difference.
But the hardest part was convincing her that it is OK to watch and learn, that it is no crime to not know something at the outset.
2 comments:
My daughter is often the same way. It can be a real challenge to get her to either accept help or at least stop and watch long enough to see what it is she's supposed to be doing.
I think that lesson is more important than the one with the knife -that we all have things we have to learn and we have to be open to learning them - even if (or especially when) they scare us.
Post a Comment