School withholding snack as punishment?

As a teacher I was trained to never use food as an incentive or punishment 🤔 however this may have changed. I agree that he obviously won't starve but IMO that's not the point here, the punishment is losing break.

TBF I’d be raging!
Do not ever withhold food from a child!
Yes, deal with the fighting, kids fight, no big deal!
Yes, I’d be cross.
I’d ask the teacher the right way of it first tho….

I agree, I'm so surprised that people think it's acceptable. I'd be pretty strict in my parenting re behaviour but don't think missing a snack is appropriate punishment. Especially at 5. Poor boy.

He could have eaten his snack in the room. if they really withheld food it’s unacceptable

In the minority here but I really don’t agree with him not getting his snack and that being tied up with the punishment because I don’t think food should be linked to good behaviour. Missing out on playtime is enough. OP I would be upset by this too and would mention to the teacher, see what they say.

Going hungry for a few hours is not going to stunt any child's growth.

I really agree

I agree , withholding food is wrong. Kids get really hungry, it’s just wrong to deny the child his food. I also think wrong to take away a full playtime. Being kept back just 5 minutes while his friends went out to play would have seemed like an eternity.

Feeling hungry is hardly the end of the world. A kid should be able to put up with feeling hungry for a few hours. It won't hurt him.

Who is withholding food from adults as a punishment anyway? As far as I know time outside is only taken away from adults as a punishment for breaking the actual law and being sentence to prison. Taking away food and playtime teaches children fuck all but resentment.

It's the weirdest thing but I have managed so far to raise a pretty well behaved child without withholding food, play, affection and without raising my hands to her. Insane right.

We really have a strange generation of gentle parents who want children to be raised with the notion that even their negative behaviours should have no consequences. No wonder so many are ill equipped to deal with reality once they hit adulthood.

I agree, it’s not a good approach. He was probably mortified about having to stay in - it wasn’t necessary to add to that. My son’s school doesn’t do afternoon snacks, but you get used to food routines whatever they are. There’s no need to make a child feel hungry on top of the reasonable punishment of staying in.

He’s just learned that actions have consequences. You should support the school and tell him to behave himself in future

When Inwent to school we had breakfast at home, lunch at school, dinner at home.

He"ll be fine and no wonder children are obese.

The bigger issue is that age 5 he got into a fight. I'm glad the school gave him a punishment.

You may well be right…I think it more likely that snacks are sent in for the children by parents due to the fact there is an afternoon break and it’s become custom and practice to provide one: I am sure that not every kid has a snack.

My kids had an afternoon play and a snack wasn’t suggested to parents or provided by school in the afternoon (unlike morning break). It was more a 10 min chance to run about and let off steam.

Like I said, I couldn’t get upset about this but others clearly disagree. The question was asked in AIBU and my response was yes.

Presumably it's a deterrent to stop kids from fighting. When you say that, do you mean physical fighting? Hurting eachother?

That's out of order and he can wait an extra couple of hours for his snack. Why was he hungry when he's had lunch and another snack and breakfast?

We didn't get anything at school except lunch and if we didn't like what was offered we got nothing. Not ideal but we didn't starve.

It defeats me why children can't go two hours without food. We had three balanced meals a day. There was no need for snacks. No wonder this country has an obesity problem.

This was a teachable moment missed, he did something wrong tells you he missed something and is hungry …you say you pushed someone that’s not ok, so you lost your break time because you did something wrong…his picking up on any excuse from you undermines all the learning he might have done about his reaction ..this is important he needs to know you have expectations about his behaviour and won’t step in and make the events about something else…this sort of parental ‘not my boy’ never ends well…focus on the real issue

First world problem.

Get over it and focus on his behaviour. Will he starve if he misses a snack? Never heard of afternoon snacks anyway.

You won't get far with this @cjs99x - AIBU loves a child to be punished.

I agree with you - staying in at break time is one thing, the missing out on playtime is the point. It's not the school's authority to deliberately withhold food while others are eating, that's a massive overstep.

Never ever heard of food being denied as punishment at any school.And for a 5 year old - really?! And a sodding banana,not a cupcake.

If anything,if such a young child had shown unusual hyper/aggressive behaviour - wouldn't you WANT him to have a healthy snack?

You don't need to have a health condition to need to reset,or keep your energy levels up.

5 is so little.It already sounds like his apologies have been done to death IMO.

They weren't
Afternoon snack is served outside during a play session which OP's son did not have.