AIBU for making DD12 give up her treat for eating more than her share of a takeaway?

But why do you assume your daughter was doing it deliberately to hurt her sister? It doesn't seem that way at all. You seem really stuck on this image of your daughters as 'selfish' and 'kind and supportive' respectively. But the two situations are just the same - some kids ate more than their share, and while annoying, it's not really a big deal as long as no one actually goes hungry. The knots you're twisting into in order to justify your assessment of your daughter as 'selfish' and 'greedy' is honestly too much. And the fact you thought it would be funny and entertaining to slag off your daughter to strangers online - it's all just really unpleasant, OP, and I hope you can stop yourself from continuing down this path.

Its really quite a stretch to jump from 'got distracted and was a bit thoughtless' to 'is a bully and did it deliberately to hurt'

Only OP knows the context but from what she's described, its the former not the latter. The poor kid apologised.

The mum needs to now let it go and move on but for some reason she can't, is massively invested in this and has blown it out of all proportion.

My dad is really bad at sharing plates. In all other areas of life he's kind, giving and thoughtful but with food he seems to have a really blind spot. He's not a cruel bully, he just loves his food and gets distracted. We all just laugh at him and take the piss and have learnt to get in first. No drama needed.

Accidentally eating more than your share of a shared food while munching in front of the tv (OP has said they were watching a film) isn't normal?

Plenty of adults would do this 🤷‍♀️

This, totally agree, two separate issues

1. elder daughters relationship with food
2. a lesson in consideration of others and the consequences of acting selfishly towards her sister.

11 and 12, not 3 and 4. Are you really saying its not a reasonable expectation of a 12 year old that they have decent table manners? That they can’t be trusted to feed themselves from a shared pot and must be portioned up like a toddler?

No wonder so many teens can’t escape the helicopter when adults have such low expectations of them.

Yes the problem here is the child whose share of edamame was taken, not the child who took her sister’s share. 🙄There was other food available - even if the older sister was still hungry she did not have to take her sister’s meal.

This thread is nuts. At 12, children are plenty old enough to behave at a meal and not take more than their share. They are old enough to accept the consequences of taking stuff from their siblings. In this case the girl herself explicitly said it wasn’t necessary to divide up the edamame because they could share. It is selfish and greedy to grab shared food with no consideration of others.

If children are raised with such low expectations of sharing, consideration of others and basic manners at the table no wonder we get so many greedy husband threads - they were presumably raised the same way.

Just let it pass. She was sorry after she realised, surely that's the point. She knew she had messed up so why make her feel bad forever, especially when presumably she was distracted by the TV, or couldn't stop eating, which is a whole different thing

The girls are 11 and 12. Take more control over meal times. Who needs 30 pieces of anything at one meal? Everything - the set up, the amount of food, the 'punishment' is out of proportion.

Also, the OP told her kids it needed split but the older daughter said, “no, we can share reasonably.” So she had been reminded, it was fresh in her head and she knew what was expected and what she promised. When she was ready to eat her side, she should have taken her half and placed them on her plate and only eaten those. It is not her sister’s responsibility to jump in and grab her half preemptively to stop it being eaten. That’s a terrible way to have to eat. Everyone should be able to manage sharing and being able to take their own share when it suits. The oldest one knew exactly what was expected and had promised to do it. Instead of taking her share and leaving the rest, she just ate and ate. It wasn’t about hunger. It was selfishness and she is plenty old enough to one exactly what she did so all the people saying she apologised straight away so that’s enough… it isn’t. Apologised mean nothing for deliberate mean behaviour. She was sorry she got caught. Not sorry she did it, again. So she needs consequences - I’d have ordered another take away a couple of days later and given her 2 edamame and her sister the rest. Your older child can make herself more food from stuff in the house, but she doesn’t get to have the treat side this time.

Whilst I totally understand the selfish element and agree with you, I do think children can easily misinterpret messages so please be very careful and mindful with what message you’re giving your daughter around this and how she may interpret it.

Dont make her out to be greedy, overeating etc. just hone in on the dishonesty - you said you’d share and you didn’t, that’s unkind on DD11.

Eating disorders are horrible and many sufferers can refer back to comments etc that triggered it that I’m sure weren’t usually meant in the way they interpreted them.

No. They’re 1 year apart in age, and OP has said repeatedly that the younger one wanted her share but just eats her in a different order. She has also been very clear that there was plenty of other food and the older girl could have had another side dish made from food in the house. This is not an issue of a lack of food and a hungry kid. This was treat food, which is always split evenly. If anyone is still
hungry, they can go and eat anything else but they cannot eat someone else’s share of the treat.

This is an utterly insane thread. No wonder so many kids are so selfish because their being raised by the nutters on here who cannot wrap their heads about splitting things fairly when it’s a treat, and eating something else if you’re still hungry. And all the people
who think a 12 year old cannot possibly be expected to only take her half of a dish?… it’s idiocy. Just a completely bonkers thread which really shows why teachers are leaving in droves because nowadays have such terrible behaviours.

How is it so complicated to understand that when a treat is bought, you say to you kids “take half each.” No one is being starved. No one is being treated badly. The only one who failed here is a 12 year old who took 28 pieces and left her sister 2. It is completely unacceptable for a 12 year old to be unable to share, to be unable to look at a serving and take her half and leave the other half for the other person to take whenever they want. It is completely unacceptable behaviour, and at that age is the totally inappropriate. She is old enough to understand and be conscious is others and only taking her share.

I’ve been reading this thread open mouthed at some of the replies. My kids are 14 and 12. Both boys. We always serve food in the middle of the table so everyone takes their share. I have never ever had this issue. It so basic. It’s like, one of the most basic social things a kid learns.

Do people here not take their kids for tapas or meze? Do you not even sometimes make your dinner with lots of sides and put them all on the table for everyone to take their share? No sharing breads, or cheesy fondue? Even afternoon tea - scones, sandwiches, cakes all put out on the table for the kids to have a nice treat? Even when we go to the beach, we put all the pic Nic food out on the table on Tupperware and everyone serves themselves and no one ever takes more than their portion until everyone has eaten, and then they’ll ask if they can have the last of X. That’s been my kid’s their whole lives because it’s a totally normal way to eat, with family and friends.

But I guess you lot really are just eating a slab of meat and a pile of potatoes on your own wee plate every night.

I am not sure why you think everything should be split 50:50. The eldest is a hungrier child so would it not be better anyway to split the food into thirds in favour of the eldest getting more.

The number of people on here who have never heard of having a Friday night movie night with a takeaway, on top of the people who think it’s impossible to eat enough sushi to fill you up… I swear this place is like a different planet sometimes 😂

I think you've answered your own original question here. You tried it. It didnt work. You've learned that DD12 has not yet developed the ability/skill to share fairly in this kind of situation. So why would you want to punish a child for their lack of development in a particular area? What you do is work on it with her, while you, the adult, guides and supports to ensure her sister doesn't lose out. So you support the sharing, backing off as consideration develops in DD12, and confidence to challenge develops in DD11.

It sounds like you're projecting on to your older DD. Shes a different individual in her own right in a completely different family dynamic and life experiences. A 12 year old girl that has a lifetime of mistakes and learning ahead of her. Some common negative traits you've noticed will be simply because she's young. Lots of kids are selfish and most learn as they grow. Its doesn't mean you can't try and parent according but I would be careful of your personal 'triggers' and whether you are over reading some situations.

With 11 and 12 year olds I do think there comes a point where you need to stop intervening and let them sort things out between themselves. The fact dd11 'burst into tears' about this suggests she is:

1. not very resilient at all (need to be worked on)
2. not able to stand up for herself (needs to be worked on)
3. used to you punishing dd12 when she does something 'mean'

Out of everything, dd12 eating all the edamame is selfish yes, but its not really the end of the world and its 100% something that dd11 could have prevented happening / can prevent happening again.

I wouldn't be punishing dd12 here, I would instead be talking to dd11about how she could have prevented this.

She presumably knows her sister is not good at sharing - she could have taken her fair share of the edamame at the beginning. When she noticed her sister had eaten all the edamame, instead of bursting into tears and looking for you to help - she could have stood up for herself and made it clear to her sister that was unacceptable. She could have said something like 'okay this means that all the some other treat you have in the house is mine now you can't have any of it'. You would back this up, but the solution doesn't need to, and shouldn't IMO, come from you.

You need to teach her you wont be there to sort out disagreements all the time.

If the issue was that she didn't want them to order pizza because she doesn't like it - unfortunately a lot of kids do like it and it's unfair that she was left out but it's not an unsurprising choice for kids who are working on something together

If her mates had a pizza and they all had multiple pieces - why didn't she just take more? It must have been a huge pizza - because any pizza I have had from a takeaway tends to be cut into 8 pieces - how could they have multiple pieces unless the pizza was huge or cut into into lots of pieces?

Also. If she doesn't like pizza - what's the issue. She's upset at coming home hungry when she doesn't like it anyway. She could have bought something else or taken something she did like with her.

Is this just an example to show that 12 year olds are thoughtless? If there was a pizza sitting in front of me and I wanted more than one piece - I would take it as long as everyone got their fair share

@ValleyoftheShadow

Yes - if OP is correct in her interpretation of their dynamic, then it would suggest that there is a problem with how DD1 (generally) treats DD2 and the roots of that would need to be explored. It could be that there is some internal pain or a sympathetic reason as to why DD1 behaves as she does.

The overall issue here isn't about food, it's about the girls' relationship.

OMG. You just don't get it do you? You are being horrible about your DD1, and treating your children so differently to each other. You are damaging them BOTH by the way you are behaving and playing favourites.

I'm out now. Mostly because I need to sleep, but also becsuse I'm getting really upset on your poor DD1's behalf.

Either way OP, you're in for a rough next 6-8 years by the sound of it, so brace yourself.

This is the easiest solution. Just avoid the problem and divide it up. I maybe wouldn't focus too much on this single issue. It's just a symptom of a much broader problem with the sisters.

Perhaps she's mean to her sister (if indeed she is) because she's jealous and upset that her Mum favours and priotitises her sister. Perhaps she's got a bit selfish (if indeed she has), because she's realised that if she doesn't put herself first, then no-one else will as Mum always takes her sisters side...

Maybe my peers held each other to a higher standard but I know anyone who was unfair would definitely have been undesirable socially. Completely understandable. I did see that in practice in some groups. It is rather a tumultuous time for girls socially really.