how to keep from overeating while cooking dinner?

Option 1: Intermittent fasting. Do a search for it here, there are a lot of very informative threads.

Option 2: Drink a large amount of water as you cook, and don't taste/eat anything until you've portioned out your dinner.

Plan your snack (a high protein snack is what works best for me), eat just what you planned, then sip lemon water and chew gum. It gives your mouth something to do while you wait for dinner. I'd also highly recommend making sure you have your dinner planned out and prepared as much as possible in advance. Crock pot and freezer meals (and other make aheads) are the working woman's best buddy. If dinner is only going to be 15-20 minutes away, it'll be easier to convince yourself to wait.

Here's a couple tips:
1) When you're making dinner, try not to nibble as you cook… the calories add up pretty darn fast.
2) When you make your portion, make it big enough so that you're satisfied, but small enough so that you're not overeating
3) Before you sit down to eat, but EVERYTHING (leftovers) away in the fridge, pantry, etc, so you aren't tempted
4) Drink water, it makes you fuller
5) If you're starving when you reach dinner time, that means you aren't eating enough during the day. I suggest eating smaller and more frequent meals spaced out evenly during the day.
Good luck I hope this helped you

If you have different dinners from the kids are you doing theirs first? I don't eat the same dinners as my 5 and if I do theirs first I tend to pick quite a lot while I'm waiting for mine to cook after. You could try getting them all ready at the same time or doing yours first. Maybe you could have a portion of carrots or apple handy to snack on while you're cooking?

I make someone else my taster, and I put music on to distract myself, might as-well dance or talking on the phone works well too. I agree with the water thing too.

Two things I do, but not because I snack while making dinner:

1. I precook/make meals on the weekend, so all I have to do is reheat during the week. No cooking on weekdays for me.
2. I eat half my calories between breakfast and 2pm, then the other half for dinner/dessert. This is just the way my body needs calories.

I have had this problem from the beginning, but I'm working on getting this little problem under control. I found that if I went for a quick walk as soon as I got home from work, I tended to not eat until I actually sat down to eat dinner. Once the bad winter weather showed up, that was another story!

I plan my dinner menus a week at a time (plan it on Saturday and go grocery shopping on Sunday morning), so I know what I'm making each night and can usually plan the rest of my day more easily (I'm on 1600 calories a day).

If you have worked snacks into your day, maybe plan one to eat while you're cooking dinner, so you're not tempted to eat the dinner stuff while you're cooking it.

Also, like the other posters have said, drink water....have a lot of water sloshing around in your belly makes other food a little less tempting. I also do squats and countertop push-ups while waiting for things to cook. It keeps me moving and keeps the extra food out of my mouth.

Good luck!