Afternoon Drive withJoanne Joseph

Children today are at risk of not acquiring some of the simplest of life skills, which can affect their problem solving ability. Creative parenting expert Nikki Bush chats about why it’s important to start teaching children some basic life skills from an early age.

I was at a 7-year-olds birthday party and there were about 20 children there says Bush. She adds that one of the games they played was the chocolate eating game.

Bush says that the game involves rolling a dice, and the aim is to get 6. She adds that the dice goes around in the group, and when somebody rolls a 6, they get to dress up and eat the chocolate with a knife and fork.

You must eat as much chocolate as you can before someone else rolls a 6 says Bush.

It’s not the easiest thing to cut a bar of chocolate, but why we’re actually doing this little exercise today is because what I noticed was that in those two groups of 10 kids, 9 out of 10 of each of the groups could not hold a knife and folk.

— Nikki Bush, creative parenting expert

Bush says that the kids didn’t know how to hold a knife and fork, or they held it in a fist. They held them in every way possible expect for the right way says Bush.

What we observed was that the children didn’t have the fine motor coordination skills to hold the knife and fork.

— Nikki Bush, creative parenting expert

We also noticed that the children didn’t have the ability to copy the kids who could hold a knife and fork says the creative parenting expert.

[WATCH] Parenting Expert Nikki Bush chats about problem solving and life skills

Click on the link below to hear why you should be concerned...