To expect my 8 year old DS to not eat with his hands anymore?

[LittleBoot]

I screamed and shouted and ranted at him this morning.

Honestly, I have tried everything. Star charts for eating nicely. Ignoring it when he uses his hands as maybe it's a way of winding me up. Praising his sister (5) for using her cutlery and ignoring that he isn't using his. Ranting. Joking. Disappointment. Threats. Promises. Rewards. Sanctions.

Nothing has worked, what am I doing wrong? How do I get him to use his cutlery as a default?

littleboot I think you are right that this is not acceptable. And he should be using a fork for his rice. I agree about sitting down away from meal times and discussing the issue with him.

Actually my mate who is bengali always eats Indian food with her hands, and she says it tastes nicer. When I go to hers for dinner I do as well and she's right - it does taste nicer! Like when you have a meal in a chinese restaurant with chopsticks. Or tea from a bone china cup. It just does.

(But I won't tell DS that.)

Yes I wonder if it is just that fine motor skill thing. The reason I've been so tolerant of it (believe it or not, I have been, even though I've ranted and raved on here about it) is because a) I was aware that if he eats at all, it's good and I don't want to muddy the water with other issues and b) because I made allowances for the fine motor skills issue.

He isn't that into lego, meccano etc. In fact, he's pretty bad at all that stuff and his writing's fairly atrocious (but I sort of assumed all 8 year old boys were). Maybe he just does have a weakness about pernickety stuff that needs highly developed fine motor skills?

not read other posts, except last and I agree - have this prob with ds2 & I'm 100% sure it's because he has problems with his fine motor skills.

does this sound likely with your ds? No idea what to do about it though. been told pegging clothes on line good

we eat Indian food with our fingers and bread too, but we make sure that we (and the children) only use one hand (as far as possible) and the tips of fingers. Table manners, I think, are a case of what's appropriate and what doesn't upset people around you. So, indian food, bread and finger tips, pizza in front of the telly, two hands and shovel it in, roast dinner at the table, knife and fork and a spoon for the peas, spaghetti, fork and spoon if you're old enough to manage that or spoon once it's been cut up if you're not...and so on.
And I may be old fashioned and repressed and uptight, but I think that manners are important and we do our children a disservice if we don't encourage them to behave in ways that our society finds acceptable.

I agree with you completely kate. And i think the key word in your last post is 'encourage'. I do think I'd try to deal with this with an 8 yr old, but I think the way to go is by encouragement only, I don't think there's a point in going punitive over it and putting in consequences etc.

Warm and consistent encouragement I think.

Maybe if the kids have been good and deserve a reward you could throw them a little dinner party at home with candles and flowers etc, they can dress up if they're interested and you can too, and you can encourage him to eat with his cutlery as part of the general 'poshness'. If he won't - I think fine. He will, one day. I think it's a case of doing this sort of thing perhaps, and just general encouragement at mealtimes, but just leave it there. That's all that you can usefully do, I think. That, and showing him by role modelling what adults do. One day, that WILL make a difference, but it will come from him, when he is interested in being more grown up.

I do agree that table manners are important. Just have faith in him, he will get there with your consistent encouragement and from seeing your own good manners.

but if there is a genuine motor problem, and my ds2 for example does have real genuine motor problems, don't know about op ds, then you can bang on as much as you want about good manners. I don't think it's always a matter of laziness or bad manners, but a genuine physical restriction. I constantly remind my ds to eat nicely, physically show and help him hold his fork, but I know he finds it extremely difficult. I always had axcellent table manners 8but then tbh every meal time was a misery of "don't take your mouth to your fork, take your fork to your mouth, don't look for the next forkfull before you've eaten what's n your mouth, elbows off the table, don't talk with your mouthful, you cut with your knife, don't drag it blahblahbloodyblah"

I think if a kid can use cutlery properly they should, but it does bristle a bit to say you expect high standards when your kid is perfectly capable of doing so. But there is the issue with many kids, especially boys, who might not physically be able to reach those standards. My rules are minimum, not talking with mouth full, not biting down on fork (noise of teeth on metal goes right through me, dh worst offender), & use of cutlery as best they can. Ds3 can use his cutlery better than ds2, who's 3 years older, and ds1 who's nearly 8 is the messiest of 'em all.

see i do get the idea of food tasting nicer without a mouthful of metal in the way. for example dh will always use a spoon for something like a chinese but i much prefer chopsticks as it means less utensil in my mouth. same with something like a gooey cake, he'll use a spoon, i use a fork, spoon means too much metal. i would use my hands i think, except i would find it too messy.