The other day I was baking with my 5-year-old.  We were making Grain-Free Bread (recipe HERE).  He was helping me scrape down the sides of my stand mixer (I have an old model of THIS) when suddenly the spatula he was holding went right through the beaters.  Yikes!

Thankfully he let go of the spatula as soon as he felt something was off.  As a result, our little incident didn’t hurt anyone.  The beaters certainly came out worse for wear, though later my husband managed to [mostly] reshape them, and they’re now back in usable, if not ideal, condition.

Kids can be tough on small appliances.  Really, kids can be tough on houses in general.  At least my boys are.  They jump on beds and chairs and couches.  They spill things all over carpeting and rugs.  They write on walls and furniture.  They dump out full bottles of soap.  They send heavy things down the stairs and dent the drywall at the bottom.  And so on and so on.

But kids learn a lot of practical life lessons from making mistakes.  Truly, we all do.  And replacing some of those things that get broken or damaged along the way is a small price to pay for the big lessons taught by these incidents.

This is not to say that I want my kids to damage or destroy the appliances or the other things in my house.  Of course not!  I simply accept that we all make mistakes.  And sometimes, in spite of our best intentions, these things happen.

I want my kids to grow up feeling competent in the kitchen, as well as in the rest of their lives.  And part of learning competence is having a few snafus along the way.  In the kitchen this means: food gets burned (sometimes beyond repair or recognition).  Fingers get cut.  Meals are seasoned so horribly that no one will eat them.  Dishes get broken.  Appliances get broken.  And my kids learn from the experience, grow, and move on.

Life is full of mishaps.  We cannot avoid all of them.  And we all make them.  I want my children to know that how we respond to these mishaps is perhaps the most important part of them.  I know I can’t imagine or anticipate all of the mistakes my boys will make as they grow.  But I can help them learn how to react when they’ve blundered something.

Instead of chastising my 5-year-old, who was rightfully scared after this incident (so was I!), we talked about the importance of paying attention when we’re using machinery.  We discussed how even one moment of inattention (as he just saw) could result in a serious injury.  I reminded him that next time he was working with a machine, this oops would help him to remember to focus his attention on the task at hand.  It’ll also remind him to be aware of where his body, or anything he is holding, is situated relative to the machine.

When something goes wrong, I do my best to model resiliency for my kids.  I try to show them by example that we acknowledge our mistake.  We try to repair any damage we may have done.  And we do our best to not make the same mistake again (though I know sometimes life has to teach me the same lesson over and over and over before it sinks in).

The next time we were baking (making a pumpkin custard – recipe HERE), my 5-year-old again helped me cook.  When it came time to mix the ingredients, I asked him to help me.  He was hesitant at first, but I told him we could do it together, and with both of our hands on the spatula, we stirred up our custard.  And hopefully, this helped him to remember that just because you make a mistake one time, it doesn’t mean you won’t get another chance to try again.

So while I am looking to replace the beaters on my stand mixer (they now click a bit as they go around), I’m looking at this incident as a learning experience.  Whether we’re a child or not, just because we make a mistake once, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to repeat the mistake if faced with the same circumstances.  We can all learn and grow and do better next time.

Have you had mishaps with your children in the kitchen?  What lessons do you hope your kids learn from their mistakes?