Dining with a Fork
It should be a simple task

I'm sure she won't like me putting this on the web, but maybe I can shame her into using a fork. We're 3 days from six-years-old for crying out loud.
It might be some sensory thing or just muscle memory but we have a heck of a time getting this child of ours to stop eating with her hands and use a fork.
Unless she's eating asparagus which is one of the only foods you can eat with your hands, she is expected to use a fork.
She doesn't use a fork.
This lack of fork usage drives BW nuts. I have a bit more patience with her when it comes to this but eve still, it's getting a little old.
We have tried all the things we can think of but that left hand of hers instinctively grabs or just pushes the food in. This is not a good look.
A couple nights ago after we asked her to use the fork, oh, a dozen times when she went to use her fingers once again we both by coincidence yelled "fork!!" at the exact same time and it scared her. She turned bright red and cried and cried. We did not mean to scare her but she was not expecting that.
So, we have established that verbal cues don't work. What does work then?
Maybe making it a game?
Tonight I told her if she used the fork 12 times without using her left hand to touch her food I would give her a special dessert. She was agreeable to this idea.
We had spaghetti, so it was easy to show her how to twirl her noodles. That's fun in iteself - the fact that noodles are the one food you are allowed to play with a bit before you put it in your mouth.
She did pretty well. At first, she tried to put all the noodles in her mouth at the same time.
No. The right way is just a few noodles, twirl and get them in there with the fork
We did okay and there might be hope. She only had one time where she lost a point for getting that left hand in there in the bowl.
We celebrate the small victories here and tonight was one of them - she used a fork fairly well for what might have been the first time.
The dessert was 3 gummy worms that were left over from our trip to the Movies
Everyone came away from the game thinking they won.
And that's a win for sure.