To have made my teenager eat a piece of courgette?

[NotWinstonChurchill]

To have made my teenager eat a piece of courgette?

15! year old daughter (NT) has become increasingly fussy with regards to vegetables. And it's got to the point where she will eat some things in some dishes, but not in others. For example:

Cucumbers - these have to have the centers removed, but has no problem eating them grated in tzatiki, or sliced and prepared (without being deseeded) in fancy Japanese dishes.
Tomatoes - will eat with seeds removed, or will eat whole when cooked down to nothing. Cherry toms will not eat, unless on pizzas or bruschetta, but will not eat in roasted vegetable melee.
Mushrooms - eats large Portobello mushrooms, or chopped up very small but has started picking out bits of mushroom from dishes. But will eat on pizza.
Peppers - will only eat green peppers, unless it's on a pizza or in chilli. But that can change at the drop of a hat as the other day decided that cooked green peppers were no longer the acceptable.
Courgettes - will eat grated in pasta dishes, or cooked with feta as fritters, but will not eat sliced and cooked.

I could go on. You get the idea.

I believe that everyone has some 'get out of jail free' cards when it comes to foods. I don't like forcing foods on people if they genuinely don't like them (I hated mushrooms and parsnips as a child). But this chopping and changing depending on a whim has pissed me right off. It fucks up my meal planning, makes extra work, wastes money and is just ridiculous.

Today I stood my ground. We've had tears, we've had tantrums, we've had threats of pocket money withdrawal permanently. I put one piece of steamed courgette on the plate and insisted she could not get down until it was eaten.

I won. It took half a hour, but by God I won.

Was I unreasonable?

Yes. Completely. I have some weird issues with food. I can eat carrot raw but not cooked. Unless it's in soup. I hate celery. Makes me unwell. Took me decades before I could eat a tomato - can cope with them raw and cooked now but used to struggle eating them raw. Mushrooms I can eat cooked but struggle with raw. I hate butter beans. Also water chestnuts that you get in curries (urgh).

I didn't choose these weird issues around veg

With my mum it's jam. Custard. Mustard - she can't tolerate. My brother hates baked beans.

I think that is not appropriate for a 15 year old. They are on the cusp of adulthood. You arent supposed to dominate adults.

Just serve whatever you want to serve and let them pick bits out. It js frustrating

Lots of 15 year old cook a family meal onve a week so perhaps get her doing that.

Why does it matter to you, courgette is hardly the most nutritional of veg! Sounds like she eats a good range of fruit and veg in various forms and different styles of food. Maybe be happy about that. Making it confrontational is more about you than her.

Yes and cruel.
Your poor daughter

“…but by God I won.” Good grief - there are times to be firm as a parent and exercising power and control over a slice of courgette (or any food) is not it.

My father used to force feed me food i didn't like, I had many a misrable meal time as a child been forced to eat meat with fat on it, I literally used to baulk and heave, not allowed to leave the table till I'd eaten it, iam now 53 no with my bully of a father ands sill hate roast beef, steak and milk.
So please don't do this to your daughter, iam living proof you are achieving nothing , forcing her

Like iam with my father, for this very reason

Shes 15 though, not 5! It's too late to start that now for OP. If shes a fussy eater then forcing her to eat stuff isn't going to change that at 15 years of age!!

I can't even imagine this situation happening with a normal 15 year old. Surely she would just say "No Mum, I'm not eating it" and leave the table and that would be that. A 15 year old staying at the table long enough for "tears and tantrums" is so bizarre unless she was too scared to leave, and it leaves me wondering what environment you all live in.

Raw mushrooms are rank - who even eats them raw? Cooked and raw carrot are completely different tastes and textures so I’m totally with you there.

Yes. You were a mean bully. At 15, she should have stood her ground, poor girl.

I much prefer cooked carrots to raw ones.

Why is the type of food relevant?

My mum probably has done to be fair :) but then she loves a stick of celery with salad cream on the end (urgh).

Because the OPs daughter doesn't like cooked sliced courgette and was forced to eat it

The OPs daughter sounds a lot better than I was when I was 16. I love certain veg now but didn't for a long time. I blame 1970s school dinners :)

My brother isn't the best at eating veg either. When he cooks a meal he tends to have broccoli with it - but he's not that fussed on it

I really think you need to pick your battles. If someone tried to force me to eat celery I couldn't do it. It's not as if she's refusing to eat veg at all

Forcing someone with food issues to eat food they don't like isn't a good idea.

Sounds like this was more about your ego and less about helping your daughter to make healthy choices.
Honestly what were you trying to prove?
By your own admission she will eat these vegetables, who cares if she has preferences with how they are presented.
If it’s getting frustrating for you to always know her rules around foods (which I do empathise with) then it will be up to you to work with her to find a solution.
What you did was petty and cruel, bullying behaviour.
I hope this is the only area of her life where you act like this.
You did not “win” - you damaged your relationship with your daughter.

This is madness. Food, especially vegetables taste differently depending on how it’s cooked or prepared. I don’t like raw tomatoes, or plain cooked tomatoes but happily eat them flavoured like in a pasta sauce or on the base of a pizza. Cougettes are weird. Their texture is what I struggle with so grated I could managed but steamed I wouldn’t enjoy at all.

let her get on with it, if she wants to pick out veg from meals you make, let her get on with it.

That's controlling behaviour, to force someone to eat something they don't want to is cruel & could be damaging. Your DD is 15 not 5. Old enough to eat what she choses not what you want her to eat. I get it's frustrating for you but to literally blackmail, threaten & force her to eat something is very wrong. You're creating battles that don't need to be had.

How to give your child an ED

I won. It took half a hour, but by God I won.

Bravo, well done OP, what a famous victory.... over your crying 15 yo daughter. You must be so proud.

My Dad used to be like this, neither me nor my Brother saw him very much after we left home, funnily enough.

Yes you were very unreasonable. You turned the food into a stand off battle needlessly
What did you expect to achieve from it? Even if in normal circumstances she would like courgette there is no way anyone forced to eat it would like it or be in a rush to try it again.

Um... there's no winner here

Why do you feel the need to control her?

I’m not going to jump in the debate was you right or wrong. I think we have all threatened our children with no afters til they’ve eaten dinner, my husband used to threaten our children that his mother served him cheese crackers, he didn’t like them, and thus went on for a week. Now he loves blue Stilton cos blue Stilton starts off as cheddar apparently - and yes his own mother backed up his story!

My mother in law has always being very supportive of this sort of thing. I had a few marrows growing in the garden and I tried to make stuffed marrow. My parents in law were there, and it wasn’t inedible but it was abit grim. I was gutted. My mother in law said it’s not the worst she’s had, thst was when she ate it at my mothers, let’s make some chips eat this all up, and we will try again tomorrow night, as we weren’t going to waste good quality food.

She made the best one the following night I’d tasted ever, the children were happy, but she always praised how well I grew food in the garden, that she never in all her years could grow cress let alone veg, and its taken her years to perfect cooking.

I can sort of see why you flew though, especially if your daughter is going through “the stage”