Kids can be cruel

[confusedofengland]

DS1 is 12 & in Year 8 at a state international secondary school. He takes packed lunches to school as when I put £10 (minimum top-up amount) on his dinner money account, he spends £6-7 in one day on pizza, hot dog, flavoured water etc. We cannot sustain that level of spending & I also think it's unhealthy.

His packed lunch usually consists of: sandwiches (hm in foil), salad in a Tupperware, apple/banana, cheese in a Tupperware, Aldi crisps & Aldi choc biscuit or couple from the biscuit tin in foil if I've run out of wrapped biscuits. He always eats it all. He is slim & very active, so I'm not worried about the amount of food.

He came home from school today saying that 3 kids on his lunch table were laughing at him for having non-branded crisps & anything at all.

I feel awful for him. We could stretch to branded items but it would be a stretch & also mean going to a different shop. I tend to get everything at Aldi because it is quicker & cheaper too.

What should I do? He said he likes the food but doesn't like being laughed at. His 2 younger brothers take similar lunches, but smaller & I take packed lunch to work once a fortnight, so need to buy lots of packed lunch items.

Forgot to say in my last update 🙈 I have bought Hula Hoops, McVitie's Gold bars & mini Babybel for him for tomorrow. While the others (and I) are happy with the original offering, they will get that & I won't tell them, to keep costs down. We were eligible for FSM before but didn't apply, partly because we were worried about teasing for DS1 & I'm so glad we didn't.

We were eligible for FSM before but didn't apply, partly because we were worried about teasing for DS1 & I'm so glad we didn't.

Are you sure the other kids would know? At the secondary school my daughter attends, an amount is just preloaded onto a computerised system, the kids would have know idea if this money had come from parents or as part of getting free school meals. Apologies if it’s different that you know of at your sons school, just thought it worth mentioning in case. It’s awful that kids pick on this sort of thing though. 😔

If you are eligible for fsm, please dont worry, go for it. If kids even know, which they don't as a rule, it's one of the few things that kids don't tease for, and that's true for the 5 different schools I have worked in. Probably because some of the kids that would say something are often also those on fsm themselves. Loads of kids have fsm.

Why would they know he's FSM?

His card would just get loaded with the cash.

Things is though it's about £2/3 a day and that won't work if he's been using £6/7.

He could however use the £2/3 to buy a sandwich or something and you can use the money you save to buy they other stuff.

Just be aware if you change crisps etc next it could be his shoes, bag, coat or haircut.

Where are you willing to draw the line because you don't want your son upset when you can't do this for him anymore because the cost outweighs the benefits.

I think this is so sad

What nasty kids

I would buy branded so it became a non issue but only for my child not to be unhappy

tbh, knowing what kids are like, id make everything like sandwiches non branded, and then get branded crisps, as youre still saving a lot of money, and if you go to home bargains or b&m or cash and carry you can get big bags or boxes of branded crisps for cheaper. My middle son is funny about stuff like this too, and since I personally have experience of being picked on for all sorts of things at school, I know its a hill not worth dying on as kids have always been dickheads a bit. A few branded items, with the majority unbranded

Id be tempted to give him a couple of quid and send him to a cheap shop for some crisps and snacks. That way you dont have to travel about to multiple supermarkets and he can pick what he likes. One packet a day between cheap and branded is probably only a few pence if you get the crisps cheap enough.