The Failure Of "The Talking Fork"

For those of you who are incapable of paying attention to details new to the site, my daughter is three and a half years old. She is quite verbal for her age, meaning that she is incapable of living in silence she talks non-stop. Dinner time had become problematic of late, since every time MTM and I try to have a conversation, the munchkin interrupts.

Our original effort to combat this was the "silent request". In lieu of blurting out whatever her mind brought forth instantaneously with little no regard for what anyone else was saying, we got her to put her hand on one of our legs to indicate she wanted to speak next. In concept, this worked well. In practice? Not so much.

She would place her hand on my thigh, and as soon as I paused to acknowledge her, she would seize the opportunity to speak to MTM or myself, effectively ending the pre-existing conversation.

For a few weeks, MTM had been contemplating the implementation of a new system: "The Talking Spoon". The spoon would serve a similar purpose to The Conch in Lord of the Flies; the holder of the spoon had the right to speak, uninterrupted. On Sunday night, she introduced it, except that instead of a large wooden spoon, she chose the munchkin's Disney Princess dinner fork that had been cast aside in favour of fingers.

"The Talking Fork" experiment was marked with the following events:

• Initially, the munchkin would demand the fork immediately after surrendering it, in an effort to prolong her "talk time".
• Then, she reasoned that since she sat in the middle, the fork would follow the path of munchkin - MTM - munchkin - SFD - munchkin - MTM...
• When both of those plans failed, she argued that since it was her fork, she was "in charge" of its distribution, insisting that it had to be passed to whoever she chose, not the person whose turn was next.
• At one point she became so frustrated that she flung the fork, nearly impaling my hand on it.
• "The Talking Fork" era ended with my suggestion to use "The Talking Corn Cob" instead, since a) it lacked anything sharp enough to break skin and b) it could be used to encourage the girl to eat more vegetables, as the holder of The Cob would have to eat some corn before speaking.

The next night, the munchkin asked if we could play "the fork game", and proceeded to talk into her dinner fork as if it was a microphone.

Since then, "The Talking Fork" has not reappeared, nor have any of its cousins, including, sadly, The Cob.