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, massively unreasonable.

It's not unreasonable to find it frustrating and ridiculous but it very much is to force her to eat it.

You should never force anyone to eat anything.

Talk about picking your battles with a teenager, tho 🫪

You should apologise.

You sound deranged. Who cares if a 15-year-old eats a slice of fucking courgette or not? Why are you infantilising a teenager like this? God almighty. You’ll be telling us you put her on the naughty step in a minute.

i don’t think I would have got into a stand off with my DD at that age, but by god I would not be pandering to such nonsense. She can cook for herself (and clean up to my standard in my house) if she wants to be so ridiculous.

I think the other posters - and possibly you - are missing the point. It’s not about food. It’s about asserting herself as a putative adult. Which is fine and as it should be, but not if it means another person doing stupid shit to accommodate them. Wouldn’t have tolerated it as a toddler or a teen or in any grown adult!

If the reason is that they had to eat a bit of courgette once, then the reasons will be utterly ridiculous.

Yes you were being unreasonable. If she doesn't like the food you are cooking, encourage her to make her own.

I remember my stupid friend with no kids trying to force my son to eat courgettes at her house where we were staying. Saying he could not leave the table. I no longer speak to her.

wtaf is wrong with you. Look up ARFID - please don’t force her

If it was my 7 year old I'd stand firm.... because she doesn't yet have developed tastes or the capacity to make her own healthy eating decisions. By 15 however I would assume that she does so I think you're being ridiculous. If she went to the doctors she'd be assumed to be able to weigh up the pros and cons of accepting treatment or taking contraception which are decisions significantly more complicated and more important than what vegetables to eat. By all means refuse to cook an alternative meal but there really is nothing you can do to force her to eat anything at this age... mental!

I’m all for standing my ground with children (especially teenagers) but this does seem a bit ridiculous.

OP reading that it makes me think of my issues with foods. I know it sounds crazy, it’s not about the food it’s the texture. I can’t stand wet textures. I hate most fruit other than apples but a smoothie is fine. I can eat grated vegetables like you describe but a chopped courgette i start gagging. I can eat small roast potatoes but not mash or large potatoes as I hate the texture.

Forcing me to eat food makes it worse and gave me so much anxiety. I understand you are frustrated but it’s worth trying to understand why and if it’s a texture thing

I grew up like this. It was hell. (Sibling was the fussy eater, not me. I was the one who would desperately try to scoff down the offending article off their plate to avoid the fallout, which often involved gagging and/or vomiting).

I genuinely don't understand this attitude other than as a petty power play. You confirm this by saying "I won".

It's fair enough to say you're not going to cook anything separate, and she either eats with you or sorts herself out. But I find the concept of grinding a child down/forcing them to eat genuinely chilling.

Good look with that therapy bill coming your way in a few years time x

My ‘D’M used to make me eat food I hated as a teenager. It was a control thing, with consequences for not complying.

It was so awful I there was no way I was doing that to my own DC.

I get this OP.

DS is ND and would quite easily decide he 'doesn't like' something because it's not one of his very favourite foods when he was a child. He'd happily cut down and cut down food until he was only eating a few beige things if he'd been left to his own devices.

Even as a baby/toddler i had to force him sometimes to eat the first spoonful of food - knowing that once I'd got that into him he'd happily eat the rest. He'd be screaming, I'd get the first mouthful in when he opened his mouth - and then he'd stop crying and happily eat it all up. As he got older he was allowed to drop a food he decided he didn't like - but only if he would replace it with something from the same category, ie another vegetable or a different fruit.

I often had to fight him to try something new, well anything new really. He's a pretty good eater now though and better at trying a small bit of things.

I have to say though - steamed courgette must be completely tasteless. If you want her to eat courgette then at least stir fry it. I couldn't really blame anyone for not wanting to eat steamed courgette - could you get anything more bland?

Sometimes my mind boggles at how other people live, who has time to keep track of who eats what and what's in the top 5?

How can you possibly know what effect it had? At a stretch maybe with identical twins you could have done a proper controlled experiment but to conclude anything is bonkers

I had no food rules at all and my children eat most veg too, what are we concluding from that? Absolutely nothing.

Courgette, you forced your dd to eat one of the most🤑vegetables? You are a cruel woman.
I spoonfed the 7yr old the last 2 florets of broccoli tonight to get it down their neck,though

That's gross and I hope you're joking. Forcing people to eat a courgette when they already like plenty of other vegetables is pointless and cruel. Even if they don't like other veg it's horrible and bullying behaviour.

And yeah the middle slimy seedy bit in cucumber and tomatoes is the work of satan.

Forcing food onto a 15 year old is pointless. Fair enough to give the dish you've made, but if she wants to pick out bits that should be her choice. I can understand extra encouragement for toddlers to try new foods and eat their vegetables but at 15 they're old enough to understand nutrition and make their own decisions.

I don't think I've ever steamed courgette, but it doesn't sound very nice.

DS1 is very fussy, especially when it comes to veg. I've always just cooked something he likes. Doing some extra veg is hardly a chore.

You tend to find these are not isolated incidents it's a pattern reflecting control in the relationship.

You're abusive

Not sure what you think you have "won" OP.

Your parenting style is odd and sounds like you have food issues yourself. Your DD's diet is fine and more than varied enough. She's allowed to have preferences.

I mean if she was 7 ok. But talking to a teen about “getting down” is odd. I wouldn’t bother forcing a teen to eat a piece of courgette, yet nor would I bother scraping pips out of veg - she can modify her own.