How to teach children to eat with chopsticks?

How to teach children to eat with chopsticks? Eating is a science, and using chopsticks is even more a science. Then everyone will spend his whole life studying and perfecting this science. So how should parents guide our dear baby? Please have a look.

Western scholars believe that training infants to use chopsticks can improve the coordination ability of fingers and contribute to the development of limb motor intelligence. When the baby is interested in chopsticks, you can teach him the correct way to use them, but you should avoid possible accidental injuries. After the age of 2, when the baby notices that the eating "guy" you use is different from him and shows a strong interest in "research", you can prepare a suitable learning tool for him-chopsticks. Chopsticks are much more difficult to learn than using spoons. Don't worry, let him familiarize himself with the tools he uses first. As long as he takes out chopsticks every time he eats, the baby's posture of holding chopsticks will become more and more accurate with age.

Tool preparation

Material: preferably bamboo or wood. Plastic chopsticks are too slippery to hold food and easy to break, so they are not suitable for babies to learn and use.

Length: 3 times the width of the baby's palm.

Thickness: it is better to operate the baby's fingers flexibly. Square chopsticks are easier to use.

Learn to use chopsticks

When you start using chopsticks, you can let your baby sit on your knee and let him imitate the way you hold chopsticks. When he can hold chopsticks by himself, you can let him learn to hold some lumpy food with moderate volume, which is easy to hold when eating. Or, you can play a family-style eating game with your baby and let him practice constantly in the game.

Tips:

For 2-3-year-old babies, chopsticks are dangerous goods, and you can't do dangerous actions such as waving chopsticks, walking with chopsticks in your mouth, and pointing at others with chopsticks.

Eat with chopsticks and bowls.

When the baby enters the proficient stage of using chopsticks, he can be taught to eat with chopsticks and bowls: chopsticks in his right hand and rice bowl in his left hand. Put your left palm on the edge of your rice bowl. Remind him to pay attention to the correct posture when eating, put the rice bowl on his chest, don't bend his back and neck, put his mouth close to the rice bowl, and prevent the baby from using chopsticks and bowls as toys. Learn table manners and polite dining.

Eating habits are established at the age of 2-3, and you should also help him learn the necessary table manners, which will benefit him for life.

Get used to eating alone.

Eating alone is the first step in learning table manners. In the process of eating, you can say:

"What a delicious meal!"

"The baby can eat by himself, great!"

Avoid saying:

"Silly, eat everywhere."

"Hurry up, or your mother will feed you."

"Make eating a pleasure"

Keep the table clean.

Before eating, I will let my baby wear a bib and prepare some paper towels to help him wipe his mouth or hands. Pick up the food dropped during eating at any time and keep the table clean.

Concentrate on eating

It's best to turn off the TV or put away all the toys at dinner time. Let the meal time be a time for the family to enjoy food together.

Get into the habit of cleaning up after meals.

My baby is almost 3 years old. After dinner, I will ask her to do something that she can, such as clearing her own tableware, or let her clean the dirty table with me. Box table rule

Wash your hands before eating;

Avoid watching TV and playing with toys while eating;

Chew slowly and concentrate on eating;

Don't leave the table without eating;

Don't play with food and tableware.

Can chopsticks promote children's intellectual development?

Using chopsticks is a complex and subtle movement of the hand, which must be coordinated with appropriate strength. Pick up the food and send it to your mouth. Scientists' research shows that holding food with chopsticks involves more than 30 joints and more than 50 muscles, such as shoulders, arms, palms and fingers. Scientists' research has confirmed that the nerve area related to human cerebral cortex and fingers is the widest, and the thumb motor area is 10 times that of thigh motor area, which shows that hand and brain are inextricably linked. The famous educator Suhomlinski said. A child's wisdom lies in his fingers. A scholar who has studied the relationship between hand and brain for many years pointed out that it is necessary to cultivate intelligent children. It is necessary for them to exercise their finger movement ability, because finger movement can stimulate the motor area of the cerebral cortex and make some special, positive and creative areas more active. Further enhance the thinking ability of the brain, and the result of using both hands and brain will inevitably make children ingenious.

How to teach children to use chopsticks?

1. The atmosphere should be strong

To teach your baby to eat with chopsticks, you must have a good learning atmosphere, so that the little guy can learn to use chopsticks as soon as he touches them. At the dinner table, let the baby see everyone eating with chopsticks as much as possible. You can make exaggerated movements in front of him, such as putting food in your mouth in slow motion and eating it satisfactorily, so that the baby feels that eating like this is very interesting. Don't give your baby other tableware, let your baby get used to eating with chopsticks, and often make faster progress when there is no choice. Encouragement is the most important thing.

In the process of learning new skills, in addition to interest, the baby has to pay, and he will encounter some difficulties. Your encouragement will give him a powerful motivation invisibly. Don't blame him for choking and throwing things because he can't pick up food, and don't blame him for throwing food all over the floor because of his inflexible fingers. Use your kindest words to comfort and encourage him and let him know that you are always by his side.

3. Forced or not

Before learning new skills, the baby will show a certain desire, such as grabbing chopsticks in your hand, staring at others to eat, and enjoying playing with chopsticks. So your task is to grasp the details of his interests, not to force him to study because he is old enough to study. Doing so is counterproductive, and it is best to let nature take its course!

4. Use small games skillfully

(1) Chopsticks pick up building blocks:

Pick a few branches that are straight and suitable for baby's small hands as "chopsticks". Now, with your help and demonstration, you should pick up the scattered building blocks and put them back in the basket. Take a branch in one hand, then slowly pick up the building blocks with both hands and put them in the basket; After proficiency, you can show your baby how to take the building blocks home like chopsticks.

(2) I feed my mother a piece of cake:

Baby and mother sit face to face, with a bowl of cake and a pair of chopsticks in front of each person; First, the mother picked up the cake with chopsticks and fed it to the baby. Move slowly so that the baby can see the whole process. Then let the baby imitate the mother's appearance and feed the cake to the mother with his own chopsticks (it is best to choose chopsticks suitable for the baby); Be patient, pay attention to the baby's expression, hold his hand, pick up food and eat it in his mouth before he loses patience, praise him in time and keep him interested at all times.

The sooner children learn to use chopsticks, the better.

Children who are too young are not suitable for learning to use chopsticks too early because of their imperfect brain development. The action of holding food with chopsticks needs to involve many joints and muscles. It is not only the simple flexion and extension of five fingers, but also the wrist, shoulder and elbow joint, which is quite complicated to complete. If the child is young, such as about 2 years old, and just begins to learn to eat with a spoon, he may not be able to finish eating with chopsticks well. Although the training of hand movements can promote the development of the brain, it should also be based on the premise that the brain develops to a certain extent, so "the sooner the better" should also have a certain limit. The same is true of other intelligence training for children, which should follow the objective laws of children's brain development. If children are taught to use chopsticks too early and too quickly, it will dampen their enthusiasm for eating. If children are forced to use chopsticks too early, because the movements of their hands are not well developed, they will not only have difficulty in learning, but may also upset their rice bowls and spill food because of uncoordinated movements. If parents are impatient at this time, it is difficult to control their emotions, scold their children, or even beat and scold them, but it will be self-defeating and dampen their enthusiasm and self-confidence in eating by themselves.

When can children use chopsticks?

Anxious parents always hope that their children can master many life skills quickly and show unusual intelligence and ability as soon as possible. Nowadays, many parents believe that children should form the habit of using chopsticks from an early age, and the earlier the better, it will help children's intellectual development. There are also some parents who ask this question: Is it stupid for a child to be unable to use chopsticks at the age of 2? But in fact, too young children's brains are not well developed and they are not suitable for using chopsticks. Premature and radical education will dampen their enthusiasm for eating. Generally speaking, children begin to use chopsticks from about 3 years old, step by step. For children who are too young, we might as well prepare a set of tableware containing spoons, forks and chopsticks for him, so that he can practice eating with the tableware he wants at any time in peacetime. At the beginning, it doesn't matter which way the child uses which tableware. But from the age of three, every time when eating, parents should pay attention to let him take the tableware in the right way. If you change hands or grab chopsticks in the middle of a meal, you don't need to remind him. As long as he is taught the correct grip repeatedly every day and slowly remembers it, he can hold it well.