To deliver a lesson in table manners?

[Mannersdomatter]

My partners child is 12 and just started high school (year 7).

I realised last week that she doesn’t know how to use cutlery. We went to a very nice expensive restaurant and she ate her entire meal, including broccoli, with her fingers. She was holding broccoli in her fist like a banana/lollipop and biting it.

later on I asked her to use her cutlery and she had it in the wrong hands and was totally
clueless how to hold it.

in addition to this she lies down at the table, sits on her phone, spills food down herself, chews with her mouth open and is generally lacking in table manners.

I work in education and have children myself and I am astonished at how immature she is. She behaves more like a 6/7 year old. She is clearly bright, but speaks in a very baby voice and asks the most silly questions for her age. I worry she’ll be targeted at school by bullies.

WIBU to say to my partner I won’t eat out with them again until he teaches her how to use cutlery? I don’t feel it’s my place to pull her up on her table manners (although I have done several times).

I just realised I sound like my mother! 😂

ODFOD.

You know writing is totally different as you usually only use one hand not two.
I would bet even money she could use a knife and fork correctly.

Why is it bad manners if you are right handed, to hold your knife in your left hand? I don’t understand what’s offensive or bad mannered about this? Would love a logical explanation?! I suffered - and I mean suffered- from being picked up on this by my step mother and even now in my 40s it upsets me that I was considered to have bad table manners because this is how I was TAUGHT to eat my food?! I know we are going off thread a bit, but if you are picking up on this, I’m just wondering if other things might be being exaggerated.

I hold my knife in my left hand. I eat correctly.

It's bullshit from when fancy people had 12 people to dinner. So you didn't bump elbows etc.

I'm also saying that being left handed does not mean you cannot eat correctly as evidenced by things that are done on a daily basis using both hands

I'm left handed but hold my fork in my left hand, knife in the right to eat, which would fit your definition of correct. However, I hold spoons in my left hand, and if using a knife to spread something (such as butter on a bread roll) I use, my left hand. If I tried using my right hand for those things I'd look extremely awkward, would very likely spill soup/dessert on the table or myself, and make a complete hash of buttering the roll. Would you be OK with that? Or would you allow me to use the hand which I am able to use without making a mess?

I'll add a few more, washing up, washing hair, changing bedding, typing even things like opening doors.
I can't speak for anyone else but it's my left hand which does the work when I wash up, the right just holds the plate /fork/pan etc steady. I also open doors with just one hand, my left.

Sorry I am your exception to the rule… we have left handers and right handers in our family. I am the only right hander that eats with my knife and fork ‘the wrong way round’… Not sure how that’s even a thing!!!!!

Sadly we had similar with SS and cutlery, although thankfully none of the other things….. We used to encourage cutlery usage, but as it was just cutlery we had to take the attitude of picking our hill to die on, gentle persuasion won out in the end…. I always just assumed it’s because he had younger siblings, which I think had a bearing. At 12, now, he is much better. We still praise his use of cutlery as its early days, but he just seems to have suddenly started using it 🤷🏻‍♀️.

She sounds considerably more caring than this child's parents.

Amazed at the amount of drivel on this thread.

It's bullshit from when fancy people had 12 people to dinner. So you didn't bump elbows etc.

Are left elbows bigger than right elbows?

@Gloriously Yeah I find this weird too. I've never bumped elbows with people in my life and I've sat at many a crowded wedding table eating the "wrong" way around. I thought it was rude to stick your elbows out when eating anyway.

I agree I don’t care about the side for cutlery, as a left handed person who used to hate when dinner ladies used to change my cutlery around leaving me struggling when very young, though I had otherwise very good table manners.

But not being able to use it at all to the point you have to eat broccoli like a baby doing baby led weaning (because that’s how you’ve described it - if you’re not exaggerating which I assume you are not) is neglect on BOTH parents’ part. Unless there are additional needs here of course. But surely you’d have mentioned if you thought that was the case..

So, yes, her father definitely needs to teach the poor girl how to use a knife and fork (not in a Victorian way, just enough to be polite and not be bullied). And he definitely needs to speak to her mother about his concerns about other behaviours.

On the subject of picking my battles, I wouldn't object if she held knife in right or left hand. I would concentrate on building the skill of holding it comfortably and using it in a way that is effective.

My ND daughter holds her fork very awkwardly (in my opinion) but she can calmly eat a roast dinner using her cutlery and has been able to since probably infant school.

I might eat American style at home (shovelling with an upturned fork in my right hand) but I know the traditional rules so I can be comfortable in the widest range of dining establishments. That's the life skill part.

Eating broccoli with her hands

Lying across a dining table

On her phone at meal times

All rude that need correcting by the parent present. What so of parent wouldn’t support and encourage their child not do this from age 3 onwards?

L or R with knife inconsequential.

Don’t think it matters if you’re left or right handed - the “correct” way to hold cutlery is fork in the left and knife in the right.

That said, I suppose it doesn’t matter really so long as their table manners aren’t absolutely disgusting. Most people don’t notice / care about which hand people hold their knife and fork in any more.

I am dyspraxic. It doesn't mean I think it's acceptable to shovel food in my mouth with my hands. I use an adapted grip and use my cutlery in a bit of a weird way, but I realise that it's not fair on other people to see me getting food all over my hands and dropping it down myself, so I have to make an effort!

My stepdaughter has ADHD and isn't very interested in table manners. Her preference would probably be to eat a lot like OP's SD. The difference is that her Dad corrects and helps her- even though he has to do it every time and she can be quite resistant. Only last week she was eating spaghetti by putting a mouthful in and then slurping it up with her mouth open, leaving an orange trail across her chin and dropping it all over the tablecloth in the process. He showed her how to twirl some around the fork. She carried on slurping. My 3 yo showed her how to twirl it around a fork. She carried on slurping. Her Dad told her to either make an attempt to eat it tidily or eat it somewhere else as it was making everyone feel sick and setting a terrible example for 3 yo. She ate it tidily.

The issue isn't with OP, or with SD (lots of teens and preteens think manners are for boring old people and not relevant to their lives) it's with OP's partner. Why people get together with incompetent fathers and think they will improve is beyond me- he's had 12 years, this is as good as he's going to get.

No. It's just a matter of maximising table space in a tight area by mandating that everyone lifts the same arm.

Far more people are right-handed, so it's been historically easier to compel left-handed people to use their less dominant side.

The issue isn't with OP, or with SD (lots of teens and preteens think manners are for boring old people and not relevant to their lives) it's with OP's partner. Why people get together with incompetent fathers and think they will improve is beyond me- he's had 12 years, this is as good as he's going to get.

100% agree @MrsSunshine2b - and worse then divert and project their contempt onto the neglected child.

Oh dear…..you’d love my house then! I eat either way & I’m a lefty! DS eats main course RH but holds spoon LH. DD is RH and eats all LH. Husband RH and eats RH. Does this mean apart from DH we all don’t know the correct etiquette! Give your head a wobble ……

That's so sad.
'Too busy' to raise their children. Plenty of peoples' parents were/are busy in life but still manage to pay attention to their kids and teach them basic life skills. Children don't ask to be born!

And 'not important'. I bet in the evenings these same parents are sat on their backsides scrolling their social media like morons. The poor children. The adults of tomorrow are going to be basic af.

I don't care which hands people hold their knives and forks in to eat - that's just personal choice and whatever feels best.

I do care that some parents aren't paying enough attention and consideration to their kids to even teach them to use utensils to eat at all. The mind boggles. It doesn't bode well for other basic standards - hand hygiene, not dropping litter etc.

Actually I think the reverse also applies… my mother ( council house 1940s large family/small kitchen table) said they all had to “keep their elbows in” whilst eating ( with a knife and fork)

I disagree, just no table manners. Unfortunately too common these days.

Couldn’t agree more! I’m right handed but for some reason, eat with my knife & fork the other way round. My dad and sister do too and they’re both right handed. I’m in my 30’s and remember a dinner lady back in junior school forcing me to swap my knife & fork round to eat the ‘right way’. It’s absolutely ridiculous!

Does not surprise me. The majority of kids these days have no table manners.