'AITA for letting my daughter be hungry and not ordering for her at a fast food place?'

"AITA for letting my daughter be hungry and not ordering for her at a fast food place?"

My daughter is 15 and she has social anxiety. She is in counseling for it and not meds (not needed). The rule in our household is that if you want fast food when we are out you pay for it with your own money. If you don't have McDonald's money you aren't going there. I also don't allow eating in the car, so we stop at places to eat.

We had to go out and do some errands. I told her to grab something to eat before hand but she said she wasn't hungry. We go on our errands and halfway through she wants to stop by Wendy's. I pull in and tell her to go order I will get a seat. She comes back a few minutes later and tells me she can't order.

She doesn't want to talk to the cashier at the front of the store. I told her she needs to order and we will head out. She asked me to order and I told her no. We sit for about 10 minutes when I tell her it's time to go. She in short is pissed and my wife is also upset I didn't order for her. That I let her go hungry ( I find this stupid I didn't starve her for days it was 4 hour outing). AITA?

Edit: for those asking yes, her counslor has told us she she needs to start doing this stuff on her own, this was low risk. She literally gave the example of ordering food without our help.

I also ran through a script with her at the table but she wouldn't do it.

The internet had plenty of thoughts.

Right_Count wrote:

Edit: NTA. You were on the right side of helping vs enabling, and helping vs doing it for her. In the ten minutes you sat there, did you do anything to try to help her? Not order for her, but try rehearsing a script, talking through the process, or offering to go up with her?

OP responded:

Yes, I ran though what she needs to say.

Did not offer to go up since her counselor told us she needs to start doing this on her own.

CuriousTsukihime wrote:

Against the grain here but NTA: According the edit and comments you left, your daughter needs to start doing minimal effort activities to help with her social anxiety and this was an example of one such activity. In addition, you tried to prep your child beforehand by reminding her to eat and she did not.

Part of raising kids in a healthy manner is teaching them the consequences of their actions in addition to preparing them for the real world. Her anxiety is manageable but she needs to learn how to manager on her own.

You cannot hold her hand her whole life and she will not be a functioning adult unless she learns how. That process is going to be hard, there is no two ways around it. So, it would stand to reason that the first few times she attempts to do something different than the norm she might fail and everyone is gonna be upset at the outcome.

To me, this seems like a step forward. Change is frustrating because it’s not an overnight thing, it’s more akin to moving the needle. Change isn’t harming or hurtful, it is a stretch. You offered her options, offered to role play, and she shut that down. She’s allowed to ask for your help, you’re allowed to say no.

You’re allowed to offer help, she’s allowed to say no. That’s all that happened here. You and your wife need to get on board together to figure out how to handle when your daughter pushes back support she doesn’t want. Work with the therapist to find tangible solutions. I see a parent who handled this reasonably.

Cassie0peia wrote:

Completely agree with all this. She’s 15! Our society supports too much coddling - I know because I subscribed to some of that over the years and see some of that detriment in my own kids.

In this specific scenario, he gave her a chance to work on her social anxiety, which she’s already getting help with, and they were just running errands for a few hours. He wasn’t starving her. NTA.

SaltyNut99 wrote:

NTA. I have anxiety, a panic disorder, and BPD. My job is actually a lot of calling people which is really unfortunate because I STRUGGLE with phone calls. That’s why I have a written out script for calling people. I totally understand her fear, but the longer she waits to start managing her distress and finding ways to cope with life the harder it will be as she gets older.

Bad days are inevitable, but she really needs these skills to not struggle in adulthood. She’s going to have to do her own insurance, find a rental, do her own grocery shopping, etc one day. The more coping skills she builds before then the better off she’s going to be. What does she think is going to happen when she needs a job.

She’s going to have to interact with strangers and learn to be okay with it. I totally understand and can relate to her distress but you’re not doing anything that will cause her any harm. You sound like a very loving and concerned dad. I used to get mad at mine for trying to help too because I didn’t register that he was trying to help, not be mean.

Heck, my dad was never mean about it but for an anxious teen even something small can feel like their world is ending. Hopefully with some more therapy and ongoing support from you she’ll develop the skills she needs and realize that everything you’re gently trying to push her to do is with her best interest at.

oooodle8458 wrote:

As a kid that suffered with social anxiety, to an adult who still suffers, my parents pushed me out of my comfort zone a lot like this. Low risk, low stakes talking to strangers. This ranged from my mum always giving me the credit card to pay for our grocery shopping so I only had to answer questions like “how are you?”

And “Cash or Card?” to coaching me through phone calls 15 minutes beforehand so I could book my own appointments.

I am so grateful for them because they now let me live like a normal(ish) adult.

And yeah, I still rehearse my script four times before I go in to any store and yeah, on really bad days I still make my boyfriend ask for no pickles and mustard on my McDonald’s burger. But I can function without someone holding my hand. I couldn’t have done that without my parents pushing me at times where I just wanted to clam up.

Anxiety is a b-h to all, but she does at this point need to know why you went about it the way you did and know that you are her support system. Every action needs to be justified when anxiety is involved, it’s awful but it’s true.

Overall, NTA. But still talk to her.