Unreasonable 14 year old - or is it me ?

[TAMumof3]

My 14 year old son has just swanned in from Tae kwon do practice, ignored the steak bake I've warmed for him for lunch and started cooking bacon and eggs for himself without asking.

He regularly does this - just help himself to whatever food he likes.

I'm particularly pissed off today as I'm just back from a trip from hell to Lidl and have shopped, unpack and written menu and stuck it on the fridge for the week.

Have had a go at him but he refused to stop cooking, left the kitchen in a mess and has now stropped off to bedroom to play computer games .... I have no idea how to parent this.

God this thread has a load of very extreme and quite frankly insane responses in both directions. It's perfectly normal, in most houses, even without a tight budget that only certain food is up for grabs. I'd be annoyed if I'd meal planned and been to the shops then DH decided to cook up all the chicken breasts I'd bought for dinner to put in a sandwich for lunch. On the other hand it's a bit controlling for a teenager to have no control over what they can eat or no ability to make something for themselves. I would either give him his own food budget for lunches or just have own cupboard that you stock up each week with cheap stuff - pasta, rice, chopped tomatoes etc he can cook himself something from that and when he's used it up it's gone and he has to make do with what you've planned.

I think it's normal to have a few staples for people to make their own lunches or supper- we always have baked beans, cheese, ham, eggs, crackers, etc. if one of us wants extra between meals. DD is a teen now and doesn't have to ask for every little thing, but she still checks before eating some things and we still eat a family meal every night so she rarely needs to cook her own meals. She never had free access to food as a young child though (except for fruit)- and friends kids who did ate crap all day like crisps and fun-size chocolate bars and ice-creams and lollies from the freezer. They were limited to treats in my house which had to be asked for and were allowed occasionally.

Helping yourself to food in our house includes toast, cereal, fruit. Junk food is always asked for. Otherwise they might eat 6 packs of crisps. Sadly my teens are bone idle so wouldn't cook but I would be pissed off if they whipped up an alternative meal.

SS want to see enough suitable food in the house to feed children regularly. They don't look for food that children can cook themselves when they want to