Thank you Susie for the humor and tenderness threaded through this piece. It captures parenting not as instruction, but as constant recalibration. What resonated for me is the quiet realization that modeling isn’t enough for everyone and that noticing what we haven’t noticed is often the real work.
One reflection your piece sparked is that teaching fundamentals isn’t about preparing kids for adulthood. It’s about reducing future friction. Small skills quietly widen a child’s world, not by making them “better,” but by making life less effortful.
It took my autistic daughter years to sort out using a knife, despite repeated attempts to teach her. She’s 16 now and still usually only uses a fork most of the time. She has the additional difficulty of hating metal cutlery on plates, the sound sends her off on one, so plastic cutlery is used at home, except when the boyfriend comes round and eats food with us!!
Its like you've written about my eldest who is 9. He only uses a fork and we still buy velcro shoes for him as he's just not interested in learning how to tie laces.
I noticed this with my year 4 son the other day, can’t hold cutlery, unlike his reception age little brother who holds a knife and fork perfectly…we haven’t taught either of them this skill and it really puzzled me. Then I figured out that my youngest learnt at nursery but my eldest was there during Covid (aged 3-4) and we had to send him in with sandwiches each day as they closed the kitchen…hence no cutlery teaching…
Thank you Susie for the humor and tenderness threaded through this piece. It captures parenting not as instruction, but as constant recalibration. What resonated for me is the quiet realization that modeling isn’t enough for everyone and that noticing what we haven’t noticed is often the real work.
One reflection your piece sparked is that teaching fundamentals isn’t about preparing kids for adulthood. It’s about reducing future friction. Small skills quietly widen a child’s world, not by making them “better,” but by making life less effortful.
It took my autistic daughter years to sort out using a knife, despite repeated attempts to teach her. She’s 16 now and still usually only uses a fork most of the time. She has the additional difficulty of hating metal cutlery on plates, the sound sends her off on one, so plastic cutlery is used at home, except when the boyfriend comes round and eats food with us!!
Its like you've written about my eldest who is 9. He only uses a fork and we still buy velcro shoes for him as he's just not interested in learning how to tie laces.
I noticed this with my year 4 son the other day, can’t hold cutlery, unlike his reception age little brother who holds a knife and fork perfectly…we haven’t taught either of them this skill and it really puzzled me. Then I figured out that my youngest learnt at nursery but my eldest was there during Covid (aged 3-4) and we had to send him in with sandwiches each day as they closed the kitchen…hence no cutlery teaching…
Hey at least he uses a fork, my autistic 7 year old just uses his fingers 🫣😅