Kid Friendly Cookies: A Mom’s Failed Attempt at Getting Her Kids Involved in the Kitchen

I would like to preface this story with a little about our family dynamic. I am a stay at home mom with a six year old in Kindergarten and four year old triplets in preschool. All boys. I know, I’m outnumbered. However, I have actually had much success with them in the kitchen. They love to help me make muffins and cupcakes, so I thought I could handle letting them help out with some cute Valentine cookies, that I would then write up a cute post on and share with other moms who love to do this type of activity. However, I suppose they just weren’t feeling it, because it quickly became more of a chore, than a fun time. I found the recipe by googling ‘kid friendly valentine cookie recipes’ and chose one that sounded perfect for their ages. Not too many ingredients, which meant not too expensive and not too many steps, but enough to get them all involved. I want to be honest and upfront, my boys said they still prefer Chips Ahoy chocolate chip. All of them agreed and let me know this fact as they shoved the cookies in their mouths, despite them acting as if they were barely edible. Spoiler alert, they weren’t exactly wrong.

As a mom of four I can tell you, no matter the activity, be prepared before corralling the kids. I had everything ready to go. Every single ingredient and tool you would need, right down to the stirring spoon, was ready. I even put down parchment paper for each because the recipe calls for rolling the dough into balls. We started off pretty good.

It went something like this:

I measured out the ingredients while they held the cups and dumped it in. They are very familiar with taking turns and are usually content waiting as each one does their part. As we went down the line letting each dump in an ingredient, they seemed to be enjoying the small tasks given to them.

But then:

Kid 1 wanted to protect the bowl of flour. He said he didn’t want it to get knocked over. So, he basically hugged it, put his face in it, and freaked out when big brother tried to move it.

Kid 2 wanted to continuously stir flour for no reason whatsoever, just stirring and playing in it, which then attracted the other three’s attention. They all wanted to then stir the bowl of just flour.

Kid 3 is probably the most patient of the four, but he couldn’t resist his urge to stick his finger in the bowl, even while we were mixing. I very delicately tried to explain the mixer might slice his finger off completely, which made him very sad and led to a few tears.

Kid 4 wanted to be in charge of the butter. This food loving boy knows that butter makes everything better. (It’s a southern thing.) He wanted to squeeze it through his fingers and lick it off of his hands while his brothers continued to help. It wasn’t until we had the dough mixed thoroughly that he decided to join in tasting by reaching in with his very nasty spit covered hands.

Keep in mind while each one was doing their own thing, there was pushing, arguing, aggravating, and taunting going on all the while. It was a never ending cycle of ‘please stop doing that’, ‘let’s be nice’, ‘it’s their turn’, ‘if we can’t listen’, and other behavior correcting phrases from myself during the whole process.

At one point, someone fell off of a chair. Another one played in the sink. One of them put their hand in the bowl of flour, grabbed a fist full, and let it go over the counter. There was bickering, shoving, licking, and whining going on until it was time for the dough to go in the refrigerator to cool. So, we washed our hands and went to play while we waited. I thought it could only get better for the dough rolling, but I was mistaken.

When it was time to make little balls of dough, they decided it was more fun to use it like playdough and create whatever their imagination was feeling at the time. We had a dinosaur, a boat, and a failed attempt at Batman, which led to a few more tears. Once I finally got them rolling, the dough was too soft and they decided to eat more than they rolled. We made one batch, due to my oldest really wanting a warm cookie out of the oven. I figured all would be well once we were eating cookies.

Needless to say, I was wrong again. The cookies came out, they put chocolate heart candies on them, GLADLY following this step. When they finally took a bite they were disappointed and said they would like chocolate chip cookies instead and that the red bag in the pantry was way better. My oldest said he gave them a 5/10 solely because of the heart chocolate on top. They finished said terrible cookie, but after trying one myself, I concurred with their assessment. They weren’t great, just edible, and the chocolate was the best part.

To put it bluntly, the whole process was not much fun. They didn’t enjoy most of it and neither did I, BUT that’s okay. Trial and error is all we can really do in this phase of life. Will I ever make cookies with them again? Yes, I absolutely will. Looking back on the whole process I can laugh and say that we still made some good memories. The boys have even asked to do it again as well, although they have requested to make just chocolate chip. I am perfectly fine with that request and I hope to do it soon. Maybe I will be able to update everyone with a tale of the perfect cookie making experience with kids. Probably not, but that’s just life as a mom, I suppose. I hope this story encourages you to do all the things with your kids. Memories like these have a funny way of becoming sweeter over time. Enjoy your chaos Mamas!