I completely sympathize but you make a good point about potentially glossing over or obscuring the hazards and encouraging abdication of parental responsibility.
Mostly, though, I'm exhausted by and don't have room for all the specialized stuff. It was with real reluctance that I finally bought a couple of plastic place settings.
It's delightful to have your children "help out" in the kitchen, but I don't expect mine to actually do significant work making me hash browns and cole slaw before they're dextrous enough to safely manage a real peeler/grater. Of course, by that time they may not want to help any more.
On the other hand, this reminds me that I did want to get one of those mesh/chain link gloves for myself. I seem to take off the end of my thumbnail every time I peel a carrot, and I'm afraid of my mandoline.

We cannot protect our children from every evil in the world. There aren't enough hours in the day!! ...and heck, there isn't enough money in my bank account either. We can, however, be reasonably vigilant and responsible. What ever happened to common sense??

...do I need a special (obnoxiously large) potato peeler in order to welcome my toddler into the kitchen? No. But am I going to leave him alone with our traditional peeler, or the block of knives?? No.

I'm also from the drinking-from-the-hose generation!

Teach them to use and respect real tools and real appliances in the kitchen. My 5 yr old son uses sharp knives, a mixer, food processor, etc. with my close supervision and hands-on guidance.

I want my son to be independent enough to fend for himself - and maybe one day impress his girlfriends with his cooking skills!

Nothing fancy for the kids in our kitchen either. There's no point.

uh oh... what's wrong with the hose water? BPA? Guess I accidentally created another generation of hose drinkers.

This is silly. I peeled and grated carrots in my grandmother's kitchen from an early age. Cuts happen, she never made me wear an over-sized oven mitt!

I grabbed the hot stove, cut myself, scraped myself with a potato peeler, you name it in the kitchen as a kid. I survived. So will my kids.
If (and they hopefully will) love helping cook, they get to use adult tools. Part of the appeal is doing "adult" things with mom or dad. That said, I did have children's geared cookbooks and loved those. I felt like they were "my" recipes.

And really, if there's not a lot of kids playing outside after dark and drinking from the hose, it's not from a lack of them trying. It's overprotective parents. Probably the same ones making kiddie utensils for kitchens.

I believe the main reason for not drinking from a garden hose is due to high lead levels found in the water. Many hoses are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which uses lead as a stabilizer which can leach into the water, especially when exposed to heat (sun).

That said, my son cut himself while using a peeler on the apples for our Thanksgiving pie and lived!

If the kid is so young that he/she needs an oversized mit for protection, then they don't need to have sharp tools like graters or peelers. They can stick to spoons and spatulas. In another year or two when they're old enough and have enough fine motor control then they get the sharp things.

Duh.

ridiculous! my supervised 5 year old peels and chops and has been helping in the kitchen since he was knee high to a grasshoppper. I alwys sharpen his knife before he uses it, a sharp knife is safer than a blunt one. Yes, accidents can happen, I have been known to 'peel' my own finger and I am a fully grown adult. Kids need to learn how to use kitchen equipment properly or else how are they ever going to learn?

It's called MARKETING! I learned with the real thing and still have all my fingers!

Let your little one practice with Playdoh and plastic utensils...great prep for the real thing.

Hmmm... I too am from the "drink-from-the-hose" generation and yes, we lived. But just like with bicycle helmets, just because we lived without them doesn't mean they're not a good idea. I mean, if I can give my kid something that will keep them from brain-damage, then I think it makes sense. However, when it comes to kids kitchen tools, in our house we got them not for the safety issue but rather to encourage our almost-three-year-old who wants to help. Having her own tools makes her feel like a big part of the "cooking crew". Do I give her a peeler or sharp knives? NO! But when she's ready I will. For now she uses plastic knives (disposable like we use for dinner) and mainly helps me measure and mix but when she's ready we'll move on to "real" tools which she will have a "real" respect for...

Christi B. is right on. A lot of people of my generation born in the late '60s say, "We survived without helmets." Actually, you were lucky you didn't get into one of those accidents that left you brain-dead or just dead.

I don't let my kid use my Chinese butcher knife for a reason. It isn't because he doesn't respect it. It's a damn big chopper. You could easily dismember a small finger with it.

This isn't an either/or question. There are skill-appropriate tools, then there are things that are not appropriate.

I was never allowed to be in the kitchen as a kid, and certainy never cook, so i was 12 when i first decided to try and peel potatoes, of course it ended very very badly with a fair few layers of skin on hands and fingers being torn off! So my kids 8 and 4 both use all normal kitchen tools (as well as other household cleaning tools) and we've never had a major issue.

Wow. I'll never forget the day my dad found a large piece of my skin in the macaroni and cheese I made him one night. I was still proud to grate that bloody sharp cheddar. We still laugh about it to this day! Sad that some kids will miss out on the cuts and bruises of childhood.

No way, I don't have room or $$ for special kid tools. My 4-yr-old son has been cooking with us grown-ups since he was 2, and he uses the same stuff we use. He grates as well as any adult I've seen and we are working on knife skills now. We take safety very seriously and he is appropriately cautious with sharp stuff. Just this evening he told me about how we have to keep our hands out of the food processor or else we can get cut! Of course we aren't leaving him to his own devices with a cleaver. We pay close attention to his ability, interest, and focus on the task at hand, and I think that approach serves us better than a special set of kiddie tools.

I completely agree with Christi B and stickyricemama. I don't think kids need their own tools, but the thought of preschoolers wielding sharp knives is pretty scary no matter how much supervision is involved. There is a balance here. Little ones can stick to stirring, pouring and measuring, and we can teach them to chop, peel and grate once they have the necessary maturity and fine motor control.

Meh! To each his own. There must be enough of you out there who think these are fab or they wouldn't exist.
Who knows? Maybe a kid will grow up with fond memories of their special little chef tools and some parents will save money on bandages. ;)
Not my cuppa, but I can see the value here; it's kind of like learning to play baseball with a tennis ball before the pro hardball and bat, or learning the joys of cutting paper with those kooky safety scissors. Why are these tools not perfectly acceptable?

while I don't think those protective gloves are practical or helpful when learning how to cook; I do think that the grader, knife and cutting board are all good things. They are designed for small hands. I think that we take for granted the fact that most things we use are made to fit us. One of the reasons we can use a knife or grader safely is because they are made for big hands to hold. I would defiantly use these with my kids I think they look like useful learning tools.