To not plate my 10 year old's pizza?

[Mastmw7g]

DH does most of the cooking and tends to cater to DD. I've become concerned that she will not eat when hungry unless he puts food in front of her. He was out and we had pizza. She told me she didn't see her plate. I said to then grab a plate and join me. She said no and went to her room without eating. DH came home and became upset that she hadn't eaten and said I should have put her pizza on a plate for her.

I don’t understand why everyone had to get out their own plate?

Just put 4 plates on the table, pizza in the middle and sit down together. Bizarre.

OP she’s ten, mother her!

If the kid's ten years old and can't pick up her own plate when asked, I'd think there was something wrong with the child. In the real world, if a child isn't capable of picking up a dinner plate when asked then either they're a spoilt brat who wants waiting on, lazy as hell, playing silly whatsits or they have a problem of some kind.

She's only asking her daughter to pick up a plate, not re-plumb the kitchen sink.

I think some posters are being wilfully obtuse here - it's not about physical capability, it's about why any parent would willingly let their child go to bed hungry over such a minor issue.

Sounds like you would prefer to be “ right” and your DD go without food rather than put food on a plate so that your 10 year old child doesn’t miss a meal. Your priorities are all wrong IMO.
My DS struggled with eating when he was younger he has ADHD and would just not bother eating if left to his own devices, he was already under weight and weight fell off him easily. I accommodated his quirks to get him to eat his meals cause otherwise he would have got extremely unwell. The saying they will eat when they are hungry enough just doesn’t apply to some kids.

Er, not what happened. Maybe read the OP again.

Why didn't you just put plates out though for everyone or someone else put them out for everyone?? Did you sit at the table for the pizza?
You sound either like you are trying to make a point about something or are incredibly stubborn!!

I automatically put plates out when I'm serving dinner. Yes she should be able to do it, but equally it's not odd for you to just do it. I would put the plates out for dinner, and if she wants a snack but is refusing to do any of the legwork, then leave her to it and make this point.

Also it's polite to put plates on the table, she can help herself to the pizza onto the plate though.

The first line of the op says DH does most of the cooking 🤣 how did ypu manage to miss that!

I find this really odd. As others have said, when you're serving a meal it's normal to lay the table. Who expects other members of the family to get their own plates?

What makes it worse is that it then turned into a needless confrontation. Not everything has to be an argument. The child is 10. Just give her a plate and let her eat her dinner.

I had a similar situation with my 9 year old son and cutting up his food. He would always want me to do it. I started refusing as he is perfectly capable of doing it himself and I didn't feel I should have to because of his age.
He would cry and refuse to eat at all.
After talking to someone about it, it became clear that it was nothing to do with laziness or being precious. His twin is disabled, and so I have to do most things for him. Including cutting up his food.
He sees cutting up his food as an act of love and care. He's otherwise fairly independent and capable. It's just this one thing. I decided this wasn't the hill I wanted to die on. It seemed silly to me, but it was important to him. So I cut up his food when he asks.
He is on the pathway to a diagnosis of autism and/or ADHD.
If your daughter needs to you to serve her food to her on a plate, just do it.

Do you want her to eat from a box with no plate?? Or just get her own plate out and serve herself?? If you are dinner provider then you dish it up, surely. If my teen and I are having a pizza night he might offer to be the one dishing up or get his own seconds or I might. But if I was first to the cupboard for plates then I wouldn’t just get mine 🤷‍♀️

Sounds like maybe you were making a point about this particular issue. I personally would be confused if DH made a pizza and wouldn’t put it on a plate for me. Maybe she was annoyed at your delivery of this message.

Of course she should learn to do it on her own eventually but she’s 10!

Most adults plate up each others food for each other.

You’re not making her spoilt or putting her at a disadvantage by not putting it on a plate for her.

OP does need to get to the bottom of this and it will take time to reach her these things but in the meantime plate it up for her.

I can’t believe there are people who think that it’s plate it up yourself or go hungry.

Does she prefer a homemade meal? My son does he's not so bad now (autism) but loves fruit and veg so no issues there. But we think he used to get tummy ache if he eat processed food.

Does she help at all with cooking? It's amazing how kids are keen to eat if they have made it themselves. My DD loves to help.

She sounds like she has sensory issues / autism tbh. You can quite easily drive yourself nuts becoming an even better and better parent before you realise so many standard techniques do not work.

Not the hill to die on were the exact words that came to my mind. With a 10 year old, the higher priority is for her to be eating appropriately rather than some weird kind of point scoring which is at risk of happening

What a strange thread. Of course an NT 10 year should be willing and able to plate up her own slice of pizza. It's perfectly normal to say to the dc, pizza's ready, grab a plate and help yourselves.

But why was she allowed to leave the table and refuse to eat? That's odd.

And why would she refuse to eat in the first place? Disordered eating? Entitlement (someone needs to serve me)? She's not NT and something's going on?

Dd has a problem and the OP is trying to see if it's just entitlement.

Yabu. She's old enough to get her own plate, assuming she can reach wherever you keep them but you know that she has issues around food. Getting her plate for her is a small action you could have done that would have ensured she ate.

It does seem a bit strange. I'd just put the pizza on the plate and have a word about this with her after she'd eaten. Try to explain that she's getting a bit older now and the expectation is that she needs to pitch in more. If your dh is 'babying' her though she's got inconsistency which might cause problems.

When I read this I was immediately put in mind of my own autistic son who was somehow similar - and that was before you mentioned that there is neurodiversity in the family.

However, neurodiverse or not, your dd needs to learn to feed herself. With my son this took a lot of support, encouragement and downright insistence (and at 15 he still sometimes gets into a spiral where he is hangry but refusing to make an effort to grab something).

I'd suggest you tackle it one meal at a time and in general get her heavily involved in food preparation and serving, not just for herself but for others. With ds, there was a lot of anxiety around how much food to take, or to give people, but he's getting there in the end.

We started with breakfast and pouring himself a bowl of cereal and even that was tough to begin with - which is hard to understand when he's so bright and capable in other ways.

It sounds like she is just lacking the skills and knowledge, so instead of doing it 'wrong' would rather just not do it.

I think you need to guide her a bit more, explain to her 'ok we are having pizza now, why do you fetch yourself a plate and grab some' or when she says she's hungry instead of saying 'well eat then' why not say 'ok lets see what we have in the kitchen for you' and offer up some choices?

Why would you put your dinner on a plate and not your daughter’s. Surely whoever is cooking does that?

Quite,we're not talking about a toddler.

I have 3 children all brought up the same in relation to food but one cannot seem to make decisions about food no matter how hungry he is. I put his food in front of him even if he says (repeatedly) he’s not hungry and the majority of the time it gets eaten completely. I think the fact he is hungry gets in the way of him making rational decisions about eating. he is totally capable of preparing food and saying he’s hungry at times but if he’s gone beyond this it’s best to put something in front of him.

at 10 I personally would be putting food in front of my child even if they wandered off saying they weren’t hungry. This should help with both getting food into them and getting them in to the habit of eating regularly.