Keep The Kids Out Of The Kitchen

There used to be a television series called, 'Kids do the Strangest Things.' Maybe they should have called it, 'Kids do the Dumbest Things.' To most adults, it is obvious that the kitchen is a place for preparing meals and that the things we use for making food are meant to stay in the kitchen. Some children, though, seem to think that kitchens are toy boxes.

There are a lot of amusing things that children do with kitchen implements. All kids love to play with an electric hand mixer, for instance. If it's got a battery and is portable, even better. The boys can go play space invaders with it and the girls can mix up mud cookies. Unfortunately, when the battery runs down, they just leave it, thinking it's broken or of no use to them anymore. Meanwhile, you're tearing your hair out, wondering what happened to your mixer.

While annoying, you can laugh off some of the things they do, scold them and tell them never to do it again. Other kitchen utensils they take outside to play with, though, can be downright dangerous and even potentially deadly.

It is hard to imagine how anything as dangerous looking as a Wusthof knife set could look like a child's play thing. That's exactly what it looks like to a small child who only knows that mommy can safely do so many cool things with it. It's more understandable that a child would play with a gun, because guns don't look dangerous like knives do.

The kids probably watch you use your knives every day and assume they can handle them just as easily as you can. If you can chop up the vegetables with a knife and not get hurt, they can go chop up some weeds out in the garden, too. Children don't realize they are vulnerable until they get hurt. They don't grasp the fact that a knife can quickly and easily do a lot of damage.

No one is saying that you have to keep your knives under lock and key like you would a hunting rifle. However, a level of caution is necessary. While knives are out of sight in a drawer, they are not out of the reach of children, who would notice where you keep them. It is probably a better idea to put your sharp knives in a knife block set at the back of the kitchen bench, well out of reach of children.

Children will always act like children. That's who they are, after all. It's lucky they have their parents around to guide them until they are old enough to know better than to play with knives.