How baking can make your kid happier

The great wave of home baking in 2020 was noticed by all. With most of the world locked down, people found ways of dealing with isolation, and quarantine baking became a craze. It’s not surprising, since baking helps relieve stress, anxiety, and even depression. Given that the baking wave is continuing, it’s clearly helping a lot of people. Baking classes are booming, online, on social media, on TV, in newspapers and even on radio.  

But why would baking classes help kids? Let’s find that out today.  

Baking is a form of self-expression 
Recipes are merely instructions. The person bringing it to life can add love, appreciation, joy and even sympathy to it. If a class of 10 kids follow the same recipe, they will still bake 10 different cakes. It’s because all of us are individuals with the power to be creative in varying degrees, and cooking brings this out best.   

It is a mindfulness exercise 
Mindfulness means being focused and aware of what we are sensing, feeling, and doing. Kids experience a sort of mindfulness sometimes while playing. Baking sharpens it further for them. It’s because they pay more attention to the feel of the ingredients, the measuring process, kneading and finalising the bake. In the process, they let go of stress and anxiety and experience the simple joy of living in the moment.   

Baking for others makes kids generous 
The act of giving satisfaction to others generates a warm feeling in us, a bit like a good meal. When a child experiences the joy of seeing others enjoying what he or she has baked, it makes the child want to experience this again, and ends up in creating a more generous person who is willing to share resources. 

It is creative and richly sensory  
We mentioned creativity before, and now we want to add to it. The five senses are strongly awakened and sharpened when we bake. Baking boosts motor responses in kids and sharpens their sensory perceptions considerably.   

Baking also makes kids more organised, confident, neat and financially aware. So introduce them to this art, the results can be truly savoury.