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! 😂

If I was on a date with someone who couldn't use a knife and fork or sit at the table and show basic table manners (without SEN of any kind) I would judge. Parents need to parent and prepare their children to go out in the wider world and fly, not crash.

Maybe you should deliver a lesson to your partner on how to bring up children.

I do think this is an issue for your DH to sort out.

He DOES need to sort it, though - 100% for her sake!

How awful that she has got to that age without such basic skills.

I wouldn't give a shite which hand the fork was in as long as she was using it.

I couldn't tolerate her eating with her hands unless it's hand type food. My 7 year old wouldn't even eat broccoli like this, so yes I would say something.

But I wouldn't be fussy over fork/knife hands.

I am aware that 'convention' is to eat with your knife in your right hand and fork in your left.

What I'm failing to understand is WHY some people see it as such a huge problem that people like myself eat the other way around. I am just as neat as everyone else. I don't have my elbows on the table, I use a napkin, I eat with my mouth closed.

So my cutlery is the other way around. What's the big deal?

That's exactly what I'm saying.

They are right handed so can't cut properly with their left hands.

I find it bizarre, especially as I come from a family with a fair share of left handers, who can use cutlery.

😂I was going to say that!

I guess this thread explains teachers/ educators' concerns about kids starting school without basic social skills, all the posters falling over themselves to excuse it. The type of additional needs that leave her eating like a 9 month old would be obvious and picked up by now

In an NT kid, this is chosen behaviour. She will have seen others eating, she will have eaten at school, friends houses. She is acting like a baby for attention. Even if the parents didn't actively teach her, she would know by 12 it's not acceptable. I wonder if she behaves like it elsewhere.

Those saying my comments 'are humiliation' for the kid, how humiliated will she be when her friendship group leaves out of a birthday meal. In the future, a boyfriend/ girlfriend leave her sat in a restaurant as they get up and walk out. It's much kinder to come down hard on it now.
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Your 12 yo isn't eating broccoli like a lollipop in a restaurant.

@sashh But I'm right handed and cut perfectly well with my left as that's the way I've always done it. It definitely is possible. Not sure why your friends can't manage it 🤔

This is called failed parenting. Your partner failed as a parent, as did the girl’s mum.

Think very carefully about this man if you want to have children. This isn’t screaming out the best choice for a father.

YANBU. I would expect children half her age to have developed better table manners than this so unless she does have additional needs then this needs resolving. The lack of manners is a more than likely a result of her parents splitting and neither taking the time to correct manners or enforce no phone at the table. Whatever makes for a quiet life eh!

A gentle word with your partner should be the starting point rather than flatly refusing to eat out with them etc. However it will always be difficult (but not impossible) if you and your partner work hard at teaching her if her mum does not also do this consistently.

She also struggled tying shoe laces and doing buttons up I suppose you would have looked down at her for that too.

Why would anyone look down on a child who is struggling? To struggle means you are trying. Not like the OP's SD who sits at the table and eats like a chimpanzee at a tea party

I would usually agree but in this case there is obviously something else going on than just your basic shit parenting.

She’s 12 and she acts like a 6yo.

If she doesn’t have SEN then it’s not just shit parenting, it’s negligent parenting or trauma at the very least.

I knew a girl who was the same age as us (11-14) and she’d act like a 6yo.
She was being abused by her dad.
Likewise with so many of the children I work with, they act much older or much younger if they’ve had trauma.

There’s a massive difference between acting a bit immature or young and acting half your age.

I don’t feel it’s my place to pull her up on her table manners (although I have done several times).

”pull her up”......”deliver a lesson”

But you did anyway.

Maybe it’s how you interact with her and/or the situation with her DF that she is rebelling against?

Maybe “deliver a lesson on parenting” instead to the useless parent in her life?

This!

Please educate yourself.

There is no right or wrong hand to hold a knife and fork in. Its literally a neurological instinct for many people. Saying its wrong is telling people they need to go against what their brain is telling them to do. It's ridiculous and for young children could have a developmental impact.

I have older family members that used to get hit by teachers for writing with their left hand. Insisting on using cutlery in particular hands is the same concept.

It's your prejudice that makes you see it as clumsy. Insisting on making people feel physically uncomfortable is very poor etiquette.

I'm left handed and I was never told I could choose to use a different hand for my knife and fork. This is the first I've heard of this. I do ok, though I suppose cutting with my right is hard- maybe I should try the other way round if it's considered acceptable.

@Mannersdomatter I think her actions say something about him.

Table manners should be taught from an early age, including sitting up properly, and not playing with phones. My sons went to a school which said in its prospectus “table manners a speciality” .

@Willyoujustbequiet Whilst I agree with you for 90% of that, the way in which the poster described her friends eating is just... bizarre. I eat with my knife in my left hand and can use it for cutting just fine. I don't tear into anything with my fork as the fork is for holding things in place. She was saying that her friends can't manage and just pull things apart with the fork which I can't even make sense of in my head.

er no, it did not.

It did because now we have greater awareness of neurological science and the concept of a dominant hand.

Table manners should be about not making others feel uncomfortable when eating. So eating with your mouth wide open is bad manners. Staring at your phone all evening instead of making conversation is bad manners. Using a knife and fork in whichever hands you find most comfortable? Not a manners issue.

I cut up my food and then put my fork in my right hand to eat it. I have a disability that means if I used my left hand I'd likely get food all over myself. The disability is not apparent by looking at me. I used to be embarrassed about this and avoid going to restaurants but now but I am too old to care and anyone who is offended by it can just fuck off. If they don't want to dine with me again because of something so inconsequential, good riddance.

OP I'd say that some of the things you mention are a problem, others really aren't, but in either case it isn't your place to talk to the 12 year old about it. Talk to her father about your concerns if you want, but an ultimatum 'I won't eat with her if she's like this' is only going to cause conflict. Presumably you want to develop a good relationship with the girl even if this is something you don't like about her. Shaming her for the way she eats won't help that and it won't make her change overnight, even if there are no SEN or trauma issues, which is far from certain.

I had no idea cutlery holding was such a contentious issue. Jeez.

Whatever your view on cutlery holding, OP did not say that despite holding cutlery in the "wrong hands" she ate beautifully. This girl was clearly clueless regarding using cutlery to eat and unless there is an additional need, this will be because nobody has bothered to teach her. The parents are at fault here.

Thank you. I'm the same as you, no issues at all with holding a knife in my left.