Is teaching children to use cutlery no longer a thing?

[Pixieb34]

Genuine question…
Do parents of younger children teach them to use a knife and fork nowadays?
I’m a parent of older teens and I did, along with general table manners like eating with your mouth closed and waiting for others to start/finish.
Am I being old fashioned to think being able to eat food with a knife and fork is a basic skill, or is eating with fingers or just a fork or spoon what’s done nowadays?

I tend to just use a fork now and its difficult to insist on knives and forks when I hardly use one. Very different from when I was growing up in the 1980's. We often had the cutlery laid out at my Grans and worked from the outside in. I keep at it with the the kids, but it is tiresome nagging them. I wonder if it's part of a bigger cultural change?

I spend my whole life nagging my 4 year old to use cutlery. He can but would prefer to hold the fork while eating with fingers.

We eat every meal at the table if we're home (no TV) but I guess there is more finger food in the general diet than there used to be - wraps (wheat or lettuce) are a regular staple, as are things like tacos.

8yo does now use cutlery properly but there's a stage when they consider something that slows them down decidedly unhelpful to the urgent job of eating.

Wish I knew what to do to "enforce" proper manners!

😂

Do you sometimes throw in a strawberry to see who gets it first? Or sit back and watch the scuffle?

I’ll admit mine, as adults, really struggle to the point it’s a bit embarrassing. It all stems from the fact they never really ate meals requiring knives as kids and still don’t as adults. For instance, they would never have had a piece of meat to cut up. They have lived on stir-fries and curries which have bite size pieces of meat and or-cut veg, soups and home-made burgers, with some spag bol thrown in. I think the hardest they have to contend with is lasagne. Even sausages at a bbq don’t present a problem for them as they all tend to put it on a roll with salad and it eat it that way, and just eat the sides such as potato salad or coleslaw with a fork. Other bbq meats these days tend to be skewers or wings or similar, not slabs of meat. I would think that due to what they have grown up on, a full piece of meat is an odd thing to them, and none will willingly eat it.

So, if they go out to a restaurant that only/mainly has dishes with full pieces of meat it’s the only time they eat it and use a knife - and it shows. Not a day to day problem with restaurants though as they tend to go to Thai or Indian restaurants, or pub meals where you order a burger. So they may face a knife once or twice a year. I on the other hand take any opportunity to have a decent steak if out as it’s a nice change, and i can use a knife😊.

I'm a teacher and over the years I've noticed an ever-increasing amount of children who genuinely don't know how to use cutlery

This is exactly what I was saying in my post. I just think people eat completely differently now.

I was at a kid's birthday party this weekend and was amazed to see that 2 of the seven year olds did not know how to eat a cake with the fork they were provided with!
I think table manners aren't being taught as much nowadays, there just isn't the societal pressure anymore.

I have infinite respect for teachers who have to teach young children to eat properly, go to the toilet unaided, wash their hands, dress and undress for PE. No wonder they've got no extra time for academics. This is basic stuff, and ND aside, every child should be school ready by four.

No there not by and large it seems to be a case of throw them a spoon and a screen and go do something else. I've had a parent say no they can't use a fork they might stab someone

Are your pre school twins going into full time reception class and nearing 5?

How do you cut steak with a fork?

But table knives aren't sharp enough to accidentally cut yourself on.

I'm surprised at how many posters have voted YABU, given that the posters who work in schools have noticed that there is an increase in children who can't use cutlery.

DD had a couple of friends from school who used a fork in their fist to stab their food to be able to cut it.

My son went to school knowing how to use cutlery and had wonderful table manners e.g “please may I get down?” … like a well-to-do Victorian child. A few weeks of school dinners soon knocked that out of him! At school they grab food off each others plates, do “trades”, eat everything with a spoon or fingers, dip potatoes into the custard (it’s all served up on 1 plastic tray). He’s told me this himself! So what you see in school may be very far from what is expected of them at home, at least some of them anyway!

@deveronvalley yes! I'm so glad someone else has noticed this! I think they shovel it down to play and they definitely don't wait for everyone to be seated like we do at home. It's really grating to hear complaints about lazy parenting when I know I worked bloody hard at home to get him to have good manners and he's lost it at school!

All children will fork food and try to eat it like it's a lollipop , they need to be told no that is not how we eat. It is trying but you do have to keep telling them .Put your fork down and cut it a piece at a time .

I appreciate that food culture has changed, as some pp have mentioned, and that cutlery use is less formal now- but I also feel there’s an undertone of things “going to the dogs” and things being “better in my day” going on in this thread. I’m in my 40s, so no spring chicken, but I loathe that generational one-up-manship that I see on social media.

I still have to remind mine which hand the cutlery goes in. They're teen and tween. We have eaten by the table since they were tiny, so no idea why they still can't get it right. I have to remind one of them to eat with mouth closed too. Even when they're in the back of the car eating sweets, I can tell if mouth is open.

Modelling good behaviour and reminders don't appear to work.

Teaching “proper” cutlery use isn’t something that’s important to me. If they can cut with a knife and eat with a fork I don’t care which hand it’s in. I find formality over cutlery use annoying.

Do you mean being able to cut food with a knife and pick it up with a fork? Or which implement goes in which hand/stabbing meat with the prongs rather than shovelling/scooping soup up backwards etc?

I work in a primary lunch hall. All the children with school dinners are capable of using their cutlery to varying levels. We help the Reception children with cutting up mostly. But sometimes some of the older ones need a hand if there’s something a bit tough. Jacket potatoes are tricky for some. There is one little lad who sometimes wants to eat using finger, but he’s just reminded about his cutlery. My own daughter is at secondary and struggles with cutlery in the conventional sense, but still uses it. But this is due to a mobility issue with her fingers and wrists. She had a very bad experience with a welfare assistant at primary who yanked the cutlery out of her hands and forced them back into her hands in the way the welfare assistant wanted them to be - she still talks about that. I think the best way to teach children to use cutlery is to model how they’re used, with a guiding hand if they’re struggling.

My DD does know how to use cutlery but I don’t think I’ve ever taught her to wait until everyone’s finished before getting up (she’s always the last one) or any other table manners, as she has never really needed it.

But we’ve never had a dining table as we’ve never lived in a home big enough, so sitting at the table has always been very rare.

I think this is a big issue with most children these days, is that many people don’t have the room for a dining table and so table manners aren’t necessarily taught as strictly as they once were.

There has also been an increase in bringing in crap for packed lunches eg a packet of biscuits and an energy drink or a happy meal that was bought 2 days ago or a just share bag of Doritos (all real examples).
I don’t know where this has stemmed from though and why making a sandwich is so difficult.

I've taught mine - of course eldest insists on using his knife and fork in the wrong hands (and he's not a lefty), but at least they know how in theory, and I don't feel embarrassed if we're out for dinner.

They even eat cake with a fork - but that's more because they don't like getting dirty hands than out of training.

I haven't taught them about weirder cutlery or odd rules like piling peas on the back of the fork or the 'correct' way to eat soup, because that's a step to far in my opinion :)

Personally, I think it's such an easy basic, something that will get noticed when they're adults (a bit like how they hold a pencil) that I feel sorry for kids who haven't been taught it.

I’m an adult and couldn’t tell you which hand the knife and fork go in.

I tend to put my fork in my left hand and use my right hand for the knife, as I’m right handed.
If I’m eating soup or stir fry and don’t need a knife I would use my right hand only as that’s my dominant hand.

But I would assume that left handed people would be the opposite.

I didn’t know there was a correct hand.

My kid can sort of use them, at the age of 6 but she's still ever so clumsy with cutting. I think it's a coordination thing with her, she writes with her right hand but everything else she does lefty! So she gets lazy and tries to get away without doing it. She's getting better, she can cut stuff like fish fingers or sausage ok but then we have to remind her when she's trying to shovel a whole Yorkshire pudding into her mouth.

In an English school children are given metal cutlery at school from day 1, so from age 4y. We would expect most to be able to use it to some extent.

To be fair most table knives aren't very sharp anyway.