My kids, 8 and 11, use the Advantium speedcook all the time. They also use the induction cooktop a lot. The extra safety of an inductions allows them to do a lot of cooking that I wouldn't be comfortable with on any other cooktop. Although I love my dish drawers, they are not very kid friendly. The kids empty them, but loading is hard for them to get the hang of.

The one really important thing to do is to put items where the kids can easily reach them: countertop height and below. Not just the appliances, but the dishes, glasses, & cooking tools. They are capable of setting the table, doing dishes, & learning to cook, but not if they can't safely reach everything. You can & should put valuable glassware & other nice things up high.

You definitely want to put a microwave no higher than countertop height. DS is now 14, but learned to safely use a MW & toaster oven at age 5. Get kid-sized mitts & pot holders for them to use. Teaching them about safety while using the appliances is more important than which ones you choose, IMO.

We had a KitchenAid DW in our former kitchen & have the Miele Excella now. Our family finds the Miele much easier to load & it gets the dishes the cleanest they've ever been. DS especially likes the cutlery tray.

We started using our first speed cooker 6 months ago, the Advantium 240 wall oven, & really like it. It can make a flavorful one dish meal in 17 minutes or quickly prepare frozen snack-type foods & have them taste better than in the microwave. The Advantium is also a powerful microwave in addition to speed cooking.

I forgot about our induction cooktop! We started with a Mr. Induction countertop unit to test out induction, & DS loves to cook with it. We installed a single burner induction cooktop in our new kitchen alongside our all-gas range, and DS prefers the induction because it doesn't have a flame or extra heat & it responds very quickly on or off.

I like the idea of adding the single burner induction. I didn't even look at the induction because I didn't want to buy new pots and pans. I have a wonderful set of All Clad; can I use it on an induction cooktop?

Would I get the Advantium in lieu of a microwave? I think there is a smaller version too, like a 120 or something? I hate that it's GE. Most of the broken stuff I had in this kitchen are relatively new GE profiles. Ugh.

Induction is great but I think your kids are old enough to use a real cooktop. If you get gas, make sure it's got auto-ignition or something to prevent accidents with just gas no flame (they probably all do).

Stick a magnet to your cookware--if it sticks, it's probably induction capable.

There are multiple versions of Advantium ovens: GE Monogram vs. Profile, 120 power vs. 240 power, OTR vs. wall. All are speed cookers, but not at the same speed (depends on the power), and all offer microwave only in addition to speed mode. We have the Monogram 240 wall version, and we don't have another microwave in the kitchen.

All Clad stainless works great with induction, but not all All Clad does. Test it with a magnet.

Thanks for the clarification on the Advantium. I tested the All Clad with a magnet. It sticks!

I can't for the life of me figure WHY a kid 7 years old needs to be learning how to use any very grown up kitchen appliances. What's Mom or Dad doing? A child that age should be playing games outside with friends. But then, I supposed I'm just from a different era at age 63.

Mom & Dad should be supervising. 7 is not too young to be setting & clearing the table, including loading the dishwasher. 7 is also old enough to use a toaster & microwave. Montessori preschools routinely teach using a paring knife to cut up fruits & vegetables, and how to clean silver, not just for life skills but to teach task sequencing. 8 year old Cub Scouts learn the proper way to use a pocketknife. Certainly the 10 & 14 yo should be learning proper cooking skills. Too many kids & adults don't have a clue.

BTW, I'm 60 & I'm glad I started learning kitchen skills at a very early age.

Goodness, 7 year old is not using the stove by himself. Yes, he plays outside. But he won't be 7 in a year or two, and the appliances will be there when he is 10.

My 7 year old son LOVES to help in the kitchen in any way he can. I let him turn on our gas cooktop when I am right there. He stands on a stool and sautees veggies, stirs things in a saucepan, etc. He also loves to prep and is quite helpful with cutting up veggies and mixing ingredients. I would never make him do these things, but he has wanted to since very young. My daughter doesn't show the same interest and doesn't do as much.

When we redid our kitchen recently, I honestly didn't give much thought to making the appliances kid-friendly, but I did design the kitchen to be kid-friendly (storage of things in a way that kids can have access to their own dishes, flatware, etc.; dishes stored in drawers for ease of unloading dishwasher, stools handy for reaching the counter). I got the appliances I wanted, since I am the chief cook--Got a Dacor cooktop and everything else is Kitchenaid and have been very happy).

The real kid-friendly appliances are the smaller ones. DS loves to work the coffee grinder, stick blender, stand mixer, etc.

Good luck and have fun.

My kids started cooking at early ages and LOVE it. I would have had to go to a lot of work to get them to stay out of the kitchen. My 7 yo is, at this moment, cooking her own scrambled eggs while I'm nearby. My girls, particularly, are excited about the Wolf rangetop (our big splurge) we'll have in the new house...We got a 48" so there'd be room for more than one of us to use it at a time...and got separate wall ovens so someone else can be baking, too. They will be excellent cooks and bakers...actually, already are. They have more patience for details and lengthy processes than I do. Apparently not too many coming out of the recent generations know how to cook from scratch, which is SAD. My kids' favorite things to make are from my grandmas' recipes and things from older cookbooks. Cooking/baking to them IS as fun as play, but does not take away from their outside time either.

My 19 yo dd started inventing her own cookie recipes when she was 5. She now works at a retirement/assisted living facility to pay her college tuition. One of the 84 yo ladies just handed over hundreds of tried and true recipes to her, handwritten on the cards, because her daughter-in-law and granddaughters weren't interested. She and my dd talk baking all the time, and now that her husband's health have forced them into assisted living, she has no oven, so dd bakes for them from the dear lady's recipes, as well as some favorites my dd has found on her own.

As far as kid-friendly, we will have lowered counters (33-34") in a few areas of the kitchen, because we all prefer them. In our last kitchen, we all wanted to use the island, because the other counters felt too high. Induction would be kid friendly and great to really cook on, but we need more large burners, so it's the non-kid friendly gas for us. But they will learn to treat it respectfully, be supervised, and cook on the best tool we could get them.

I certainly was helping out in the kitchen by age 7, and my 4 yo daughter loves to "help", although it's really more just fun and games for her. Certainly wouldn't *make* her cook, but she looks at it like another activity. If she's not interested, she can go outside and play.

My dd is 8 and can cook a full meal, has been for a year. I started her with safe things like a lettuce knife and moved her up. Right now she uses a really cheap ($3) chef's knife from Target that is so dull she can hardly cut a carrot. It's just right for a kid though, small, not crazy sharp. She uses the toaster oven or can put things in the oven, warm things on the stove. I don't let her do anything splattery on the stove, because she's not really tall enough to control that. She can scramble eggs or cook oatmeal though. So she'll make a meal like baked chicken, caesar salad, deviled eggs, wild rice and beans (both of which she just warms, I keep them on hand). In fact, she did this Saturday for me when I had someone over and didn't have time to cook! Kids CAN cook. You just have to teach them how and give them safe tools to work with. We also emphasize that she's not to do things that are too hard for her (lifting heavy things, taking hot stuff from the big oven, etc.).

I designed the entire kitchen to be kid friendly. My kids are 1, 4, and 7. The remodel isn't done yet, but these are the things that are going in:

1. Side-by-side refrigerator with water and ice dispenser outside. The kids can reach things in the refrigerator, and get water/ice themselves. Even at 2 yrs, my kids have been able to open the refrigerator to get pre-prepared sippy cups of milk. My 7-year-old helps clean up and put left-overs in the refrigerator as well as pour drinks or prepare snacks for the 1 and 4 year old. Actually, my 4-year-old enjoys pouring his own milk when the container is 1/4 full or less. Otherwise he asks his brother or an adult to help.

2. Microwave built-in at counter height. This is enough to keep the little one out of the microwave, but still at a safe height for my 7-year-old to heat up meals/snacks for himself and his brother when needed.

3. Dish cabinets and drawers at low-cabinet height for the kids to get their own cups and dishes.

4. Induction stove. My 7-year-old (he's almost 8) likes to cook scrambled eggs. I'm not closely supervising him, but I'm usually in the room.

5. Toe-kick stepstool. I haven't actually added this, but I read about it in a magazine last week and plan to talk to our cabinet maker this week to ask about the possibility. If anyone has this, feedback would be helpful!!

The kids regularly unload the dishwasher for me. My 4-year-old does the silverware, my 7-year-old does everything else. Also, my 7-year-old wipes the table, sets the table, clears leftovers and puts them into the refrigerator.

The kids need to be independent when I have my hands full with a screaming colicky baby! Our 1-year-old seems to have moved from colick directly to the terrible two's! She is a real challenge. Did I mention that I work full-time? And my husband isn't around for weeks at a time (even when he is around he isn't exactly helpful).

I hope our new kitchen will be as kid-friendly and safe as possible. They managed the old kitchen by dragging a step stool and being as agile as monkeys.

Ok, we have established that kids do like to cook and it's acceptable to allow them to cook. I have some good ideas on some items: No dishwasher drawers, give induction some thought (although I have had gas since before they were born), Dacor cooktop is good. What about ovens? Is the Miele too complicated? Should I go basic KA or GE? I don't know if the Advantium is worth it for me. I will check it out more after the holiday.

TIA!

There is much more to consider, I think, than ease of use when looking at the big differences in ovens. First of all, 'ease of use' can be certainly mean different things to different people. KA and GE aren't just simpler than an oven like the Miele or other 'higher end' names...There's size, performance, number of cooking modes, customer service, and quality of construction differences. Even something like the Miele with it's high tech options offers simple functions like plain old 'bake.' The kids will grow and possibly, like mine, enjoy and use the breadth of whatever options they have available to them. What you want, I think, is an appliance that will last for them to use, and work well and accurately, because that's what will make a difference in the results and whether or not it's frustrating to use. Bad results and the frustration of dealing with badly performing tools will chase them out of the kitchen faster than a longer learning curve. Kids get quickly used to computers and all sorts of high tech gadgets...I don't think a few more buttons or steps will be a problem, especially in the long run.

Kids do better with complicated electronic menus than most adults...once you walk them through the basics, they'll be walking YOU through the obscure cooking modes.