Can your children (indeed can you) use a knife and fork?

Ours can all use a knife and fork. Think from about the age of 5 or 6 up they used them properly. Although the youngest who is autistic did find it a challenge and doesn't have the best technique.

For some reason two of them who are both right handers, hold the knife and fork the "wrong" way round i.e. fork in right hand and knife in the left.

I can use one but haven't done for years. I just use a fork or a spoon depending on what I am eating.

Mine know how to use a forkin' knife, as opposed to a knife and fork 😀

Definitely by the age of 6 for both of mine.

I thought they were all using huge zombie knives to shank their food with?

Hello !  I'm a journalist at The Telegraph and Telegraph online.
I'd really like to talk to you more about this feral kid/parent issue and I'd also like to obtain your address for me to send your green ink fountain pen, so that you can correspond most efficiently with our editor in future using the fastlane process.
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We took great pains to teach our children how to eat properly.

When they eat at restaurants/pubs they eat using the proper tools. Likewise we have reports that goes the same for friends houses.

At our house its like a cross between a vietnamese street market and a medieval feast......

My 11 year old is pretty good but still gets confused about left and right - he seems not to notice. He' also defaults to tearing and pulling rather than slicing and cutting.  Overall he's competent though.

I would describe myself as averagely skilled with cutlery.

In the US I was somewhat of a spectacle, with colleagues commenting on my "skills" and getting called a "silverware ninja".

Baffling!

Did they learn from the TV? The entire population of America don't use a knife and fork properly. Slice-swap-stab seems to be the modus operandi.

Getting angry at people not doing things "properly" is peak-Gammon territory surely 😉
I [I]can[/I] use a knife & fork in either hand but generally prefer fork in the right as it enables more efficient food shovelling 🤣
Not as bad as a few adults I know who just use fork only held like an assassin wielding a dagger and impale food with a downwards stabbing motion 😂😂

Our 4 year old can use a knife and fork with softer things, pancakes, potatoes etc. 

He tends to chop and slice rather than 'saw' so would struggle with the sausage example. 

He's very dextrous, and not all kids are but I'd expect they would have the hang of it by the age of 10 though. 

I’m sure I could use a knife and fork by the age of about six.

Your memory may be deceiving you. One of the things that amazed when when I had a kid was how long it takes to develop motor skills to do "simple" things like eating with a knife and fork or holding a pen properly. You may think you were using a knife and fork properly when you were six but my money would be on you using it like a kid and not understanding that you were doing anything wrong.

couldn’t use a knife and fork,

How are you sure whether they couldn't or chose not to? If there's toast or similar, I'll have toast in my left hand and use my fork in my right, use the side of the fork to cut rather than the knife. Because I'm so skilful.

Obviously if it's a fancy restaurant or social pressures to display great manners, I probably wouldn't, but I'm not certain that breakkie in a scout hut really fits into that bracket.

Mouths open as they chewed?

Getting angry at people not doing things “properly” is peak-Gammon territory surely

Well, yes, this is a concern 🙂

How are you sure whethere they couldn’t or chose not to?

Clearly I can't know for sure, but with a technique of holding the knife and fork like a club, but with the pointy ends sticking out of the little-finger end of the fist, and using them to stab and pull at the sausages and beans suggests lack of ability, not choice.

You may think you were using a knife and fork properly when you were six but my money would be on you using it like a kid and not understanding that you were doing anything wrong.

Yep, fair enough (but I know my folks were pretty hot on using cutlery 'properly' and it was encouraged from very early on)

Ours (girls 13 and 16) can both use cutlery properly. We've always tried to have a couple of 'family dinners' at the table every week where we eat proper food which needs cutting up. They also went to a childminder who cooked 'proper' dinners every night and had the kids sitting at the table eating with cutlery.

I cooked a meatloaf a couple of weeks back, my youngest asked if she could have seconds and before i could answer was up at the kitchen counter slicing the rest of the meatloaf with a carving knife - i was pretty impressed actually!

You'd be surprised how many kids exist on finger food in front of the TV and wouldn't know where to start with eating properly - i've been involved with scouting for years and we often get kids through who eat like they should be in a Dickens novel.

For some reason two of them who are both right handers, hold the knife and fork the “wrong” way round i.e. fork in right hand and knife in the left.

I do this, except that it's the "right" way round thank you very much.

It just makes more sense.

Fork's job: spike things, scoop things, balance things, turn things, lift things up and transfer into small facial hole without dropping it in your lap, etc.

Knife's job: back and forth sawing motion. Or sit still to be a wall to push against.

Whoever invented table etiquette: "Hey let's make people use the fork with their weaker uncoordinated hand, it'll be a laugh!"

Maybe you should develop a “Knife and Fork” badge. 

Leftie here........

Assuming the kids were mostly righties and taught to eat by righties....you are all weird and doing it wrong!

I'm a leftie and use the knife and fork just the way around you righties put them down for me - knife in the right hand, fork in the left. The way I see it (and any other sane person, which appears to be precious few) is the knife has the easy gig - fork holds stuff in place so the knife can do its very menial cutty thing then the fork comes back in, does a careful balancing act and then guides the food TO MY FACE....YOU KNOW THE SOFT BIT OF YOUR BODY WITH THE EYES AND DIFFICULT TO REPLACE BITS. Why would you want your less good hand doing the hard stuff? And when you eat with just a fork, what do you righties do......move the ****ing thing to your other hand you mentalists! Why don't you just put the thing there in the first place?

I swear, if you all just got with the programme and taught your freaky righthanded offspring (can you tell I live in a 100% leftie household? Also only boffed leftie girls on the way to finding my perfect partner - very odd, wasn't deliberate) how to eat with the knife and fork reversed from what was clearly intended for those of us blessed with perfect handedness, you'd all be having a load less grief.

edit - cross post - Ossify, you and I should be friends and leave all these losers behind and setup our own colony of etiquette nivana.

My 12 year old was taught properly, but prefers to fork large pieces of food, and hold it in front of her face to bite off smaller pieces. Presumably, because she knows it annoys me.

convert
Also only boffed only leftie girls on the way to finding my perfect partner

This is quite sinister.

Clearly I can’t know for sure, but with a technique of holding the knife and fork like a club, but with the pointy ends sticking out of the little-finger end of the fist, and using them to stab and pull at the sausages and beans suggests lack of ability, not choice.

Fair enough!

I'm conscious that, even in polite company, I can never be bothered to press peas onto the back of my fork with the knife. I just shovel them in on top.

I also will scrape my plate with my knife to get every last tasty morsel of food.

Very non-U.

I hold the fork in my right hand and knife in the left. Its more comfortable for me. I can and sometimes do start with them the 'right' way round but always change as it's not comfortable.

My daughter is left handed what is the 'correct' way for her to hold them?

As long as food is going in their gob and not on the floor WGAS?!?!?

This is quite sinister.

I know. I swear, it was not intentional. I didn't have some dodgy "so I see you are a leftie too" chat up line. In some cases I only found out 'after the fact'. Got to confess I freaked myself out after a while!

We are currently going through this with our 8-year old. Maybe we are being too harsh on her from the sound of this.

She prefers to just use one hand, but then does this with other things like arts & crafts - she will do some drawing while not putting her other hand on the paper to stop it moving & then seems surprised when it moves around. She seems to make a job much harder, by just being 'lazy'.

With the knife & fork, she will do everything she can to not cut things. I think she finds it very difficult & she says the force required to push the knife into the food makes her hands hurt.
We ended up buying her some better cutlery, as the adult stuff was too big/heavy and the first kids set we bought her had no cutting edge on it.
She tends to try and push the knife through in one go, rather than letting the blade cut its way through.
But she is improving.

It's tough, as it's easy to inflame the situation by giving advice/insisting she 'does it properly' at a time of day when she'd whacked from school & we just want her to eat well.

I look at it like this, if you were cutting up some veg and have to hold veg with one hand and hold knife in other hand, which hand is knife in? (whichever it is, this is the correct hand).

Some children are neurodivergent.

I consider it a challenge to approach any meal armed with a fork alone.
Only real struggle is soup.

I look at it like this, if you were cutting up some veg and have to hold veg with one hand and hold knife in other hand, which hand is knife in? (whichever it is, this is the correct hand).

Nope, nope, nope.

The better rule is - alway put things in your gob with the same (good) hand. When I'm using a chisel in the workshop, or a screwdriver, or a craft knife, or cutting veg with a knife - I put it in my dominant left hand - the same hand that balances food towards my face. The knife in the knife & fork gig is (quite literally usually) a blunt instrument doing the easy graft. Your primary hand deserves the primary tasks. You know I'm right (or left).

edit - as a leftie it comes with the tiny disadvantage of also being dyslexic as ****, so the edit tool here is a godsend. The current 'bad gateway' 90% of the time on editing posts is highly stressful!

Ours aren't great with knife and fork tbh, but can use chopsticks.

Ours aren’t great with knife and fork tbh, but can use chopsticks.

Thing is, once you learn to use chopsticks, knives and forks are bloody stupid. Just slice up the food before serving and then use chopsticks to transfer it to your mouth.

Convert speaks sense.

This is quite sinister.

Oh very good 👏

Who needs solid food anyway

I’m sure I could use a knife and fork by the age of about six. Is this a thing, are children not taught to use cutlery any more? Do people not use knives and forks ‘properly’ any more? Or am I just having a “kids today, eh!”, middle aged man moment?

I think Freeagent might have hit the nail on the head with this:

Ours (girls 13 and 16) can both use cutlery properly. We’ve always tried to have a couple of ‘family dinners’ at the table every week where we eat proper food which needs cutting up. They also went to a childminder who cooked ‘proper’ dinners every night and had the kids sitting at the table eating with cutlery.

We eat family dinner almost every night.  Eldest went to childminder who fad proper food.  Youngest went to nursery who were exceedingly good but I suspect were finger food rather than weapons.  Its taken a lot longer to get her to use cutlery sensibly and she still (at 15!) is far from elegant with is and will revert to her fingers for anything that is "dry" given the chance!

Convert - I have new found respect for you!  Someone else who sees life the right way round 😉

I consider it a challenge to approach any meal armed with a fork alone.

Whereas I get annoyed if I am presented with food without both utensils.  It may only be pasta, and I could eat it without a knife, but I'm neither camping nor amercian so lets have both tools please.  I may actually not use the knife, but holding it in my hand somehow makes it feel like a meal rather than a snack.  Apparently I am weird.

I also will scrape my plate with my knife to get every last tasty morsel of food.

Amateur, I lick my plate clean 🤣

This is quite sinister

Oh very good 👏

I can confirm two wrong(un)s didn't make a right(ie).....to my knowledge.

Yeah, but what about people who hold their knife like a pen? Utter scum!

No problems in our household, i'm still working to get them to use a soup spoon properly, as in pushing it away from you to load up with soup 🙄

They're Scouts, they probably did it to deliberately p*** you of OP.😉

I’m conscious that, even in polite company, I can never be bothered to press peas onto the back of my fork with the knife. I just shovel them in on top.

Yes, i'm with you , you can see the pain in my FIL's face when we I do this. To me, the fork has a curve to it and peas / beans etc are naturally scooped up into the curved section , rather than onto the back of it.

I also eat curry with a spoon 🙂

51, left handed , holds fork in left , knife in right....

Spoon in left

I can tell I am going to make some people here really angry.

But I don't bother with the knife most of the time, just use the side of the fork to chop stuff. Its typically about as sharp as most knives these days and means I use my right hand for cutting and eating!

Bloody parents kids these days,don't get me started on fish knives.
😉

I mean fork in left hand, knife in right hand

Why on earth would you care which way round they are?

I’m a leftie and use the knife and fork just the way around you righties put them down for me – knife in the right hand, fork in the left.
...
And when you eat with just a fork, what do you righties do……move the **** thing to your other hand you mentalists! Why don’t you just put the thing there in the first place?

Same. The "right" way makes no sense to me.

i’m still working to get them to use a soup spoon properly, as in pushing it away from you to load up with soup

Again, what difference does it make? They're at the Scouts, not Downton Abbey.

I can never be bothered to press peas onto the back of my fork with the knife.

Wait, what? That's a thing?

Again, what difference does it make?

If you overcook the scoop the scalding hot soup goes on the table rather than on your silken cummerbund *

* Definitely a euphemism

Wait, what? That’s a thing?

Allegedly. I think its one of those handy ways to identify the oiks from their betters.
I did try it once and the only other explanation I could think of is if the person who invented the rule had shaky hands.
I eat with fork in the right hand. Just makes more sense having the more dominant hand being the one that goes to the mouth.

Why on earth would you care which way round they are?

Okay, fair enough, I don't really care about that. But it's still surprises me that, regardless of which hand the children hold each in, no-one seems to have taught them how to use them.

While we are on the subject, what about weirdos who hold the knife as if it were a pen? I think they think it looks 'refined', but it's just idiotic.

I eat with a fork (or fork + spoon if eating spaghetti) unless we are entertaining, then it's a knife and fork every time. My kids (14) can use a knife and fork, but I still catch them using their fingers sometimes and it drives me bonkers.

While we are on the subject, what about weirdos who hold the knife as if it were a pen? I think they think it looks ‘refined’, but it’s just idiotic.

Yeah, trying to look 'posh' and achieving the exact opposite I think. I always wonder how they can eat anything that actually requires a bit of effort to slice. Steak for example. You'd need to ensure you always ate soft, beige food if you hold your knife like you were painting a delicate watercolour.

I do love a good judgemental thread to make me feel better about my own inadequacies! 😁

Anyone got a kid who asks, 'But why!?' every time you tell them to use their knife and fork properly?

I find it difficult to persuade him why he should eat 'properly', tbh,  beyond telling him people will think he's uneducated if he doesn't.

In reality, what are the benefits of eating a sausage properly and not just sticking it on the end of your fork and biting chunks off?  I guess it makes sense if you want eat a piece of sausage, a piece of toast, some beans, back to the sausage, etc but if the kids aren't eating that way anyway what benefit is there for them to do things the 'right' way?

or fork + spoon if eating spaghetti

oh yes!

The art of the fork swirl on the spoon 'bowl' to make a little nest of spaghetti. I see a lot of folk who look otherwise intelligent and sophisticated not pull this off and instead resort to some sort of cutting it up abomination. It's not affectation, it's genuinely useful. But of course you righties might make a better hash of it if you put the bloody fork in the right (in both senses of the word for you) hand. If however we are talking about actual hash (of the food variety) I think there is a law somewhere that it must be eaten fork only. You can eat it in the home, but it's still campfire food, therefore campfire rules apply.

In reality, what are the benefits of eating a sausage properly and not just sticking it on the end of your fork and biting chunks off?

In reality, what are the benefits of eating a sausage properly and not just sticking it on the end of your fork and biting chunks off? 

Partly to reduce mess. Hold it on your fork and gnaw at it repeatedly and bits of meat and fat splashes fall off. On your clothes, on your face and on the table.

Partly good manners and a little respect for those around you. In the same way you teach kids not to masticate their food with a slack jaw and open mouth for all to see.

For all the people who hold the fork in their non dominant hand; if you eat with just a fork, do you still hold it that way? If you're eating a bag of crisps, which hand do you use to eat with?

Partly to reduce mess. Hold it on your fork and gnaw at it repeatedly and bits of meat and fat splashes fall off. On your clothes, on your face and on the table.

Can't say I've ever noticed this being an issue, tbh.

Partly good manners and a little respect for those around you.

Yeah, but good manners should have some basis.  He knows adults don't like it (me and his Mum) but his friends don't care.

Some kids are just going to be oppositional no matter what so you have to pick your battles.  I try to nudge him towards eating properly but it's not worth the argument every ****ing night.

I'm left handed for most things, although I use a knife and fork like a 'rightie'. However I do use a soup spoon in my left hand, which can be irritating dining with a rightie to the left of me...

One thing I've always wondered about: is it considered rude to use chopsticks with your left hand? I really can't do it with my right.

My wife eats with leftie K/F combo and therefore so do my kids. Of all 3 of those only my daughter is actually left handed.  It does annoy me when they "lay the table" that everything is back to front but being as it's only me that it bothers, I have to get over it.  If I'd noticed it while we were "courting", we'd never have gotten married.

I do find it odd that when eating with both utensils my cack hand becomes incredibly dexterous but when faced with a pasta dish or similar where it's a one handed forking that's required, I switch to my right. The fork on it's own in my LH feels wrong.

My wife eats with leftie K/F combo and therefore so do my kids. Of all 3 of those only my daughter is actually left handed. It does annoy me when they “lay the table” that everything is back to front but being as it’s only me that it bothers, I have to get over it. If I’d noticed it while we were “courting”, we’d never have gotten married.

I do find it odd that when eating with both utensils my cack hand becomes incredibly dexterous but when faced with a pasta dish or similar where it’s a one handed forking that’s required, I switch to my right. The fork on it’s own in my LH feels wrong.

You sir are a victim of circumstance. You live with enlightened souls (apart from your leftie daughter who is clearly possessed by the devil) yet still let convention yet in the of own path to enlightenment. I'll pray for you.

edit - I feel this is the right time to out myself as a computer mouse deviant who despite all leftie logic continues to use it in my right hand, because it's there. Tried swapping it to my dominant left hand and I'm crap at it.

You live with enlightened soles

In a sandal factory?

Manners are about respect for others. Blimey it's easy to have your meal spoilt by someone chewing a gobfull with an open mouth or using cutlery like they've just discovered it. My kids always had their meals at the table, no radio or TV, we ate and talked.

In a sandal factory?

Damn you - and I can't even blame that one on my leftie induced dyslexia.

I've edited - but my shame lives on in your post 🙁

I eat my peas with honey

I've done it all my life

It makes the peas taste funny

But it keeps them on my knife

S Milligan

I find it weird that people who are right handed hold the fork(or spoon) in their left hand.

Im a leftie, and as such hold the tool I am trying to control in my dominant hand.

I'm left handed but use a knife and fork in an orthodox fashion. I did get some alarmed stares in India eating with a chappatti in my left hand.

I was amazed by how many of them couldn’t use a knife and fork, by which I mean fork in left hand, knife in right hand, holding the food with the fork whilst using the edge of the blade of the knife to slice it.

I use a spork for certain meals, and I bring a spoon towards me for soup - then again I couldn't give a toss how the food gets to my mouth, sometimes I forgo all cutlery when eating curries and use nan bread/flat breads - and if eating undressed salad I use my fingers.

age 51, and still eats food dropped on the floor.

Wait, what? That’s a thing?

It's what I was taught. My family are all working class from council estates so it's not as though we're posh.

I can,and do use k/f correctly,early 70's Catholic education, with sadistic trigger happy nuns in charge, does not tick me off,if people don't use them correctly.They are going straight to hell.

Manners are about respect for others. Blimey it’s easy to have your meal spoilt by someone chewing a gobfull with an open mouth or using cutlery like they’ve just discovered it. My kids always had their meals at the table, no radio or TV, we ate and talked.

Must be nice to have malleable kids.

For the record, we also eat at the table with no TV.  My kids don't chew with their mouth open because they reckon it's unpleasant for others.

However, my son has decided that the way he uses his knife and fork are up to him.  Anyone who has a problem with that has a 'you' problem and not a 'me' problem.

Other than the fact it might upset some overly precious boomers I'm struggling to find a good reason to persuade him otherwise.

I’d take flailing around with cutlery over chewing with a mouth wide open, or worse, talking with a mouth full of food. We’ve been real sticklers with our kids over this and they both stick to the rule rigidly. Unlike pretty much all their mates. Maybe they just hang round with wrong-uns, but it seems to be universal amongst their peers that inadvertently showing off your masticated food is ok. It ’s clear that nobody has told these kids otherwise.  There’s one kid in particular that easts in such a disgusting way that I have to leave the room when he’s having his tea at ours, it is truly nauseating.  I hadn’t mentioned it to my son, but independently he said to me last week “I don’t like sitting opposite XYZkid at lunchtimes, he eats with his mouth open and I can see all his chewed food.” They are 6y/o. 

Right handed people are weird. They hold the fork in the left hand, do sawing with right hand, and then swap over to the right hand to do shovelling, and then swap back to do more sawing. Wtf. Surely shovelling into your mouth takes more dexterity than sawing. I hold k and f right handed and only ever use my fork in my left hand. I also only use a knife in my right for cutting as I found out early on bread knives are handed and won't cut straight using your left hand.

Right handed people are weird. They hold the fork in the left hand, do sawing with right hand, and then swap over to the right hand to do shovelling, and then swap back to do more sawing.

To be fair what you are describing their are right handed Americans. And their odd table manners is the least of their problems. They are Americans.

it’s still surprises me that, regardless of which hand the children hold each in, no-one seems to have taught them how to use them.

I don't recall ever being taught. I do remember my dad once saying to me with some incredulity "don't you know how to use a knife?" but he never did anything to correct that.

what about weirdos who hold the knife as if it were a pen?

I have half a memory that this is a UK/US split?

He knows adults don’t like it (me and his Mum)

Yet you can't explain why.

My partner eats with a fork and spoon unless she's eating something like a steak which really does need a knife. Think that's a cultural thing.

I feel this is the right time to out myself as a computer mouse deviant who despite all leftie logic continues to use it in my right hand, because it’s there. Tried swapping it to my dominant left hand and I’m crap at it.

Same.

There is a reason for this though. My first mouse was on an Atari STm, it plugged into the side of the computer and the tail wasn't long enough to reach around to the other side so I had no choice. It's proven fortuitous in the long run because I've spent half my career fettling other people's computers and having to continually swap it about would have been a right pain.

"Beep beep beep"

{Diesel engine noises}

"Loading!"

Me eating as a 51 year old.

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I’d take flailing around with cutlery over chewing with a mouth wide open, or worse, talking with a mouth full of food. We’ve been real sticklers with our kids over this and they both stick to the rule rigidly. Unlike pretty much all their mates. Maybe they just hang round with wrong-uns, but it seems to be universal amongst their peers that inadvertently showing off your masticated food is ok. It ’s clear that nobody has told these kids otherwise. There’s one kid in particular that easts in such a disgusting way that I have to leave the room when he’s having his tea at ours, it is truly nauseating.

Yes it is disgusting isn't it – I had manners drilled into me and I drill manners into my girls (so much so it has caused conflict during mealtimes but I think it is worth it).

I have a very good friend – he's well-educated, an ex-teacher, and seemingly a well-rounded adult. But he eats his food with just a fork, leaning over his food with the other arm 'circling' his plate like he is protecting it, and chews very loudly with his mouth open. It is the most horrendous thing to witness. When we go out for a curry, I always have to sit somewhere that minimises what I can see and hear.

@RustyNissanPrairie

forget about the fork, is that… is that pasta with cheese sauce and raisins??? 

Yet you can’t explain why.

It's just good manners.

He's not accepting this, for some reason.