Have you ever been standing in your kitchen waiting for your parents to make food? Maybe staring at the fridge or the cabinet wishing you knew how to cook? Now is the time to start learning. A national survey conducted of 1,006 parents found that 45.7% of their teenagers could not confidently follow a recipe through to the end and close to half to the kids, ages ranging 12-18, could not boil an egg.

These statistics are worrying because learning to cook is an essential life skill and helps to develop independence. Cooking teaches time management, problem solving and responsibility. As teenagers learn to prepare their own meals and manage their own nutrition, they are learning self-reliance and preparing themselves for life away from their family. Cooking also enhances fine motor skills as it involves tasks like chopping vegetables, mixing and measuring ingredients. A reliance on processed food and unhealthy additives can also decrease as cooking from scratch allows teens to control the ingredients they add to their meals.

Eating healthy does not have to be expensive. A way to cook on a budget is to buy seasonal produce. Fruits and vegetables are not only fresher when they’re in season, but also cheaper. Additionally, meal prepping, the process of planning and preparing multiple meals in advance, also saves time and money and the leftovers can be used for future meals, reducing food waste.

Cooking an entire meal can seem daunting, but there are plenty of quick and easy recipes that take less than 30 minutes to prepare. Websites like Allrecipes, Food Network, Taste of Home and Delish are all great places to start. They offer a step by step guide of how to cook your meal, usually with pictures to help with any confusion.

One pot meals are a quick and easy way to make a nutritious meal and reduce cleanup time. Stir-fries, soups, baked pastas and casseroles can all be prepared quickly and left in the refrigerator to cook whenever.

Learning to cook has countless benefits by being extremely important for children and teens to make an effort to learn how to prepare their own meals. Cooking is a learning process. You won’t be able to prepare a five course meal the first time you try and, yes, you may burn some things, but that’s a part of learning and it happens to the best of us. Knowing how to cook and create balanced, nutritious meals is one of the most important life skills.