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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Fussy teen eater. Do you provide a different meal?

68 replies

C1nders · 27/03/2022 04:27

So my 14 year old ds is very vocal when he doesn’t like a meal. Drives me mad. Last night Dad cooked him fresh pasta and sauce as an alternative from the fridge. Didn’t even tell him how to do it. Perfectly nice Hello Fresh filo pie. Your reaction?

OP posts:
Riverlee · 27/03/2022 09:01

The basic meal is the same, but dc doesn’t eat fish, so I may cook him chicken instead. The rest of the meal (veg etc) is the same.

Howeverdoyouneedme · 27/03/2022 09:04

Encourage him to cook his own. I did that as I was vegetarian and it was the 90s and my parents couldn’t deal with it.

Perhaps he can then do enough for everyone.

ididntevennotice · 27/03/2022 09:07

Sometimes we all eat different meals here, usually DH and I will have the same but not always. 2 of the DC are adults now but even when they were all children we catered to their needs. It's usually the unpopular opinion but it's never bothered us to do it, so long as everyone ate a meal that they liked I was happy.

Karwomannghia · 27/03/2022 09:09

Yes I regularly adapt what I’m making to suit fussy children. It’s getting better though now she’s 15. She’s fussy about loads of things and has ocd tendencies. Ds will eat anything now (vegetarian). Dd 5 usually has much plainer food.

Iwonder08 · 27/03/2022 09:09

Nobody at any age should be forced to eat something they don't want. You can encourage your son to cook something he likes, but that's not the point. 'eat what is in front of you or go hungry' is abuse.

GahAndTheBear · 27/03/2022 09:13

I’d have told my son not to be rude and ungrateful.

It’s not abusive to teach a teenager that food costs money and people have made an effort to make it for you, so it’s unacceptable to be rude about the food.

Avocadobacardi · 27/03/2022 09:14

If they don’t like something I make I’ll usually know and make them an alternative. If they don’t fancy what I’ve made then no, there’s no alternative. If I make something new, they try it and don’t like it then they can have something else. However, I don’t accept them making alternatives just because they don’t fancy what I’ve made. That’s just rude especially when 99.9% of the time they know what I’m making as they’ve already asked “what’s for dinner?” At least 300 times since before they’ve eaten breakfast

Karwomannghia · 27/03/2022 09:18

@GahAndTheBear

I’d have told my son not to be rude and ungrateful.

It’s not abusive to teach a teenager that food costs money and people have made an effort to make it for you, so it’s unacceptable to be rude about the food.

You’d hope by the time they’re a teenager you know what they like and don’t like so why would you make something you know they don’t like in the first place? Would you like to be forced to eat something you didn’t like and be called ungrateful if you didn’t?
GahAndTheBear · 27/03/2022 09:23

My son would know to eat the bits he does like and not make a fuss about the bits he doesn’t.

That would be even more important if he were fussy because meals can’t be planned entirely around his desire not to have to look at broccoli.

GahAndTheBear · 27/03/2022 09:24

There a big difference between forcing someone to eat something and telling them not to be rude.

newuseronmonday · 27/03/2022 09:46

Depends. Something they have liked before or could be reasonably expected to like - I would expect them to try it and if they didn't like it they could sort themselves out with an alternative.
But equally as a one off cooking an alternative to be kind and make sure everyone is fed seems ok to me too.

We do have this with Gousto and Hello Fresh sometimes, where it sounds ok when we're choosing meals but turns out DC don't like it.

If I was making something I knew they might not like then I would prepare an alternative for them.

No one should be forced to eat food they don't like. I mean tuna pasta is 'perfectly nice' for lots of people. But I think its the devils work.

crocus776 · 27/03/2022 09:52

I often cook two different meals, I'm veggie. I have taught them to cook so they regularly make something if they don't want what I offer.

I was a fussy eater, so I understand.

converseandjeans · 27/03/2022 09:58

If he doesn’t like what you’ve cooked he goes hungry! No alternatives provided. He’ll soon eat it.

This isn't true. My DS would rather starve himself. So I make him something I know he will eat.

Food fussiness seems to be considered a crime on MN. Not all children are the same. DS is I think ARFID but is a really easy child in every other way - polite, kind, good fun. He's almost never ill & is a healthy height & weight.

motherofawhirlwind · 27/03/2022 10:17

Do you chose to cook things you don't like? If not, then why expect someone else to eat stuff they don't like??

Yes, I tweak meals to suit us all (raw carrots for DD, veg for OH / salad for us, veggie sausages for me etc.). Everyone tries a new recipe. And yes, they can go get a yogurt or toast if they didn't like it.

AlphaJura · 27/03/2022 10:23

My son is ASD, so his food choices can be a bit limited and repetitive. I don't cook him an alternative for every meal, but there's certain things he won't eat like spaghetti bolognaise or casseroles, for those occasions he can have a ready Mac cheese, pizza or freezer food. He's not massively keen on Sunday roast, but that's non negotiable, he has to try and eat a bit. Some family meals like curry or fajitas, he likes, so I try to break it up a bit across the week so he's not always eating something different.

EventuallyDelighted · 27/03/2022 10:40

I gave up on Sunday roasts years ago, it is non-negotiable as far as DS is concerned, there is not a single element of the meal that he likes, apart from maybe a little bit of the meat. So he has something completely different, even on Christmas Day. We only have roasts a couple of times a year anyway so its not a big deal and the grandparents, who are the only other people we might eat a roast with are fine about it too.

worriedaboutmoney2022 · 27/03/2022 10:52

My daughter is 7 and quite fussy so now I involve her in our menu planning and we choose what we're all having all week, but for the meals and she helps prepare it
Works much better and we have less wastage
We are having a gousto box this week it's coming tomorrow for a
Change. X

DalarnaHorses · 27/03/2022 11:03

To the people rolling their eyes at cooking different meals, it's invariably not a different meal. Often I do meals that you serve yourself like tacos or fajitas, so they leave out the bits they don't like. DD doesn't like mince, so when making spagbol I do a separate pan with all the same ingredients, but with beans instead of mince it takes seconds to do this, I usually freeze an extra portion too.
The upshot is DD also learned quite quickly to make herself foods she liked, so she could cook from young and she's taught me lots of new recipes that we all often have.

AccidentalMindFuck · 27/03/2022 11:16

I’ve two children who’ve gone through normal fussy stages. They don’t require any therapy because I refused to cook whatever they decided they wanted. They are thankfully healthy teenagers who eat what’s given - it’s not Oliver Twist.

JulieYS · 27/03/2022 11:19

I have a vegetarian husband, a carnivore son, and a daughter on a special diet - so mealtimes are a bit of a nightmare!

I agree that teaching your kids to cook for themselves is a great life skill. There are plenty of video recipes on YouTube, which make it much easier for them to learn.

gdlbn · 27/03/2022 11:20

Hard one. I usually buy things that we all eat but might be tweaked for each persons taste- I.e something slightly different or a different accompaniment.

DalarnaHorses · 27/03/2022 13:15

There are plenty of video recipes on YouTube, which make it much easier for them to learn.

For all the bashing that social media gets, cooking and recipes are something that it is really helpful for, especially for kids. Gordon Ramsey even got a book out of his YouTube 10min recipes.

Suprima · 27/03/2022 13:19

It’s fine to not like a meal and to have an alternative offered

It’s not fine for you to be cooking 2 separate meals every night regularly because they just want to eat chicken goujons or whatever

Ask for them to put some things on the meal plan they will eat- and offer toast or eggs or cereal or whatever on the days that they are refusing. At 14 they can prepare it if they refuse the family meal.

Punxsutawney · 27/03/2022 13:24

Ds is 17 and has a diagnosis of ARFID. So yes, he always eats something different to us. He is very underweight and the team that are currently treating him are happy for him to eat anything. At the moment, we have been told to get him a takeaway that he will eat, twice a week.
If we didn't offer him alternative food, he would become very unwell and probably end up hospitalised.

TibetanTerrah · 27/03/2022 13:28

There's a big difference between "dislike" and "dont really like". I wouldn't say I actively liked the vegetables I had with dinner last night (my bad cooking really) and as a child may have said "I don't like" them, but that's different to the physical response to really disliking something so as an adult I ate them anyway.

This is where the line gets blurred and the hard line "eat what you're given or go hungry" lot clash with the "i make multiple meals so that they eat something" camp.

Given the choice, most kids "like" beige junk over healthy vegetables. Some kids, especially at 14, should be able to "get over" the disappointment of not having their favourite foods and exactly what they fancy 100% of the time. With other children it's much more complicated. Only you as the parent knows which it is.