Last night we had a special dinner with all four grandparents. Everyone was using chopsticks and of course the kids wanted to use them as well but we had forgotten our training chopsticks at home. After tracking down two rubberbands from the waitstaff, my husband and I quickly made two pairs of training chopsticks. We've all either done this ourselves or seen someone do it at an Asian restaurant.
There are several versions of DIY training chopsticks but they all involve a pair of disposable chopsticks, the paper wrapper they come in, and a rubber band. Simply wrap the rubber band around the top of the two separated chopsticks until tight. Then fold or roll the paper wrapper and insert between the two chopsticks. Make sure the wrapper is folded tightly. Some people wrap the rubber band around the wrapper as well (see picture above). Your creation may need a bit of adjustment depending on the age of your child but that's it.
We forgot to snap a picture, but we noticed that Esther of Babycinno has tried this too at a Japanese restaurant.
Images: Babyccino
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When is the earliest you can generally expect a kid to start mastering chopsticks? My daughter just turned 2, and her fine motor skills still seem a little rough for this, but I'd like to get her started as soon as it makes sense.
We always do this at Asian restaurants. It's also a great way to work on fine motor skills at home. I always forget the rubber band though and have to take one from my daughter's pigtails :)
Don't teach your child to do this if you're not going to teach the correct grip.
So funny to see this on here- I just recently had the server at a Japanese restaurant give these to my kids. I was happy to learn how to do this because we only have one pair of kids' chopsticks at home, and there is always an argument over who gets them! I used this trick on some of our regular reusable chopsticks at home, and it worked great! And no more fights! (Well, over the chopsticks, anyway...)
It's a really sweet idea, but it seems like it would make it a lot harder to actually learn how to use chopsticks, since it seems like it would be hard to grip a lot of foods that way.
But for kids younger than five or six who don't have the motor skills to manipulate two things at once developed yet, but who wants to join in with everyone else, it's a great idea. Probably a very good way to encourage diversity too!
Hyzen, I believe a study showed that kids in China learn to use chopsticks by an average age of 4 and a half. So 2 might be pushing it.
Oops, no wait, I read that study wrong. They all master chopsticks by 4, but most start learning by 2! So go to town. :D
Kaete, thanks--that's just the sort of info I was looking for!
@kaete: really good post. It's important to remember that this trick is for fun and NOT for teaching. This trick does not help you learn to use chopsticks properly.
When you hold and use chopsticks properly, the upper chopstick pivots around a point near its middle, and the lower chopstick stays mostly still. With this trick, the pivot is moved to the upper ends of the chopsticks just like tweezers. If you get accustomed to the chopsticks moving this way, it will hurt future efforts to learn to move them correctly.
Start kids out on smaller chopsticks, and teach them correctly. =)