A recipe for gaining skills and having fun

BY WENDY LIVINGSTONE

Young, budding chefs, including some who have special needs, are taking part in a fun pastime while they learn skills that will benefit them throughout their lives. Patricia Downs, the mother of two special needs children whom she home-schools, began offering cooking classes for her children and their peers when she couldn’t find appropriate, affordable cooking classes for them. Patricia’s Cooking Classes for Children began as a non-profit pastime but soon blossomed into a small business.

Using the knowledge that she gained working with her children and their health care specialists, Downs strives to bring out the best in her students. “You end up learning a few tricks as you go along. My daughter is 14 and my son’s 16 so I’ve had 16 years to try and learn little tips and tricks,” she says.

By focussing on communication, she is able to reach children of various ages and with a diverse range of abilities. “Not everybody understands what you are saying if you only say it one way. If they don’t

Ready, set, bake! Patricia Downs demonstrates a tasty recipe with the help of her daughter Anna (left) and her granddaughter Jeune (right). SUPPLIED

understand, I say it again in a different way or demonstrate it in a different way and usually that’s all it takes,” Downs says.

Menus range from simple cookies to dishes like slow cooker Mongolian beef, and the children are taught to complete everything from food prep to kitchen clean-up. In addition to kitchen skills, Downs works to develop the children’s confidence, self-esteem, social and communication skills, acceptance of others, and their ability to work as team members. Special needs children work alongside typical children, so they all learn to work with people of different skill levels. She said that being able to cook a meal for themselves and others, and to share with family members some of what they have learned, are tremendous confidence boosters.

Last summer, when COVID-19 restrictions meant that Downs could no longer rent community centre kitchens in which to teach classes, she did some further adapting and problem solving: she began to teach via Zoom. She wanted the classes to be available to all children, and she knew there could be some problems because the procedure was new to her, so she offered the classes free of charge. “During COVID, it was one thing they could look forward to when everything else was taken away,” she says. Eventually, she offered the classes on