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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

packed lunch police

244 replies

AuntiePickleBottom · 08/09/2011 12:54

my son lunch today, is ham salad brown bread sandwich, yogurt, an apple with a carton of orange juice..he also take a bottle of water to have in the classroom.

due to policy no sweets, choclate and crisps are allowed.

just looked on the menu for school meals and today it is Sausages with
Mashed Potato Green Beans and Gravy with the dessert of Pineapple Up-side
Down Cake with Custard

on aibu to think that ds should be allowed to have a little treat in his packed lunch seeing as the other children has cake and custard

OP posts:
D0oinMeCleanin · 30/09/2014 09:50

I wonder if Brooke has asked her dd what she would like in her lunch.

I genuinely cannot understand why a parent would want their child to eat haribo if the child doesn't ask for it. I'm all for allowing sweets from time to time if that's what the child enjoys but to force them to take sweets for lunch when they don't want to?! The Fail made you put those in didn't they? It's not your child's actual lunch, is it?

Dd1 now packs her own lunch. I've seen her walk out with some questionable combinations but even she, at 10 years old, understands that haribo are not a suitable lunch food. They are not even food.

Haribo in the car on the way to a day out, yes. At the cinema, yes. A birthday party, its expected, but lunch?

The sausage roll and crisps I can get away with, even the chocolate bar (one or the other though, not all in one meal) but haribo Hmm For lunch? Hmm

melw74 · 30/09/2014 09:59

I really do not know who the school think they are telling parents what they should and should not put in their LO Lunch boxes.... I really do not think its down to the school what people give THEIR children for lunch... I think its down to the parent.

Nothing wrong with healthy eating, but nothing wrong with a treat now and again..... All this health Nonsense is way over the top.

ebwy · 30/09/2014 10:01

my 4 year old's school encourage the children (in reception and nursery at least, I don't know about further on) to take in lollies or sweets to give to the other children on their birthday... so far he's come home 3 times this year with a lolly or a small packet of haribo.

parents have been moaning that the new head teacher has changed friday tuck shop to only selling healthy snacks. "I'm not paying for fruit!"

(the reception ones are at least saying "I don't see why we should pay for fruit on a friday when the school is supposed to give our little ones it for free for snacks every day anyway" which makes sense)

Sirzy · 30/09/2014 10:01

But in a lot of cases it's not now and then. Children are having these things every day as part of their lunch. Schools have a. Duty of care to the children so are right to question things if these things are being sent in daily as part of the lunch box

D0oinMeCleanin · 30/09/2014 10:17

I don't like schools healthy eating policies at the best of times. Much of what they teach is bollocks, ime. Dd2 must be doing healthy eating atm. She planned our evening meal to include her 5 a day.

We should have salad wraps (she did not request a protien but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she means chicken salad) which is fine, though the wraps could be questionable (she didn't specify wholewheat) followed by fruit wraps (and she does mean fruit wrapped up in a tortilla, I checked) I suggested a fruit salad and whipped cream instead, but apparently cream is not a healthy food Hmm

We should also use margarine on our wraps because butter is "fat and fat is unhealthy" not that I use butter on wraps, but that's what she's planned for dinner tonight.

But I can sort of understand why they need "lunch box police" if those are the kinds of lunches children are being sent to school with everyday.

Hairtodaygonetomorrow · 30/09/2014 10:29

You are lucky your school allows a carton of fruit juice! Ours doesn't, even though it serves giant stodgy puddings every single day.

I took my dd2 off school dinners as she only ever ate the carbs (white rice, chips) and the pudding. She is looking much leaner and fitter now (also upped the exercise).

School dinners are in most places bad food, nothing anyone has said on this thread or the school dinner thread has convinced me otherwise. My dd1 eats them though but she has all the veg and fruit for pudding so there's a chance of some vitamins in there somewhere.

soverylucky · 30/09/2014 10:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

youareallbonkers · 30/09/2014 11:20

I think it is more concerning that you are encouraging the child to think of unhealthy food as treats.

MERLYPUSSEDOFF · 30/09/2014 13:15

Harrison Catering that do our school lunch always offer a sweet pudding (sometimes frozen yogurt, ice cream to my kids, and fruit) or fresh fruit.
We dont have desert unless on a Sunday. At least we never used to. Now they ask for sweet stuff after every meal.

Purplepoodle · 30/09/2014 13:40

Soreen do nice lunch box bars that the school find expectable

dollfin · 30/09/2014 13:57

I only had this thought this morning! I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. In fact, my little boy's key worker came and spoke to me the other day and said, DS seems very hungry lately so I have been giving him extra pudding. Not that I mind, I don't but when I pack his snack, the rules are very clear - no chocolate. no sweets, no crisps!

deakymom · 30/09/2014 13:57

all schools should have a fuck it friday when they can bring in a chocolate bar or sweets

D0oinMeCleanin · 30/09/2014 14:09

My daughters school does have fuck it Friday, of sorts.

On a Friday afternoon they have a tuck shop in the yard. They are allowed to spend upto 50p each. Haribo and Freddos are available Grin Although Dd1 tells me the fruit is cheap but the sweets are expensive. She saves her 50p for the shop on the way home Hmm

SquirrelWearingATrilby · 30/09/2014 15:00

all schools should have a fuck it friday when they can bring in a chocolate bar or sweets

LOL around here it seems all the pupils have fuck it friday where they just hang around the town centre rather than go to school!

monsterfaery · 30/09/2014 16:40

This is one thing I love at my kids school, there are no rules about what they can and can't have in their lunch box. I think schools need to realise there is a line between educating the children and parenting the children. teaching them about a balanced diet is education, deciding what they can and can't eat is parenting. Schools need to stay on their side of the line.

TattyDevine · 30/09/2014 18:49

Its mostly been said but I just thought I'd add some of my experiences.

I worked as a "dinnerlady" at my children's school for just under a year.

Whilst the school has an "healthy eating" status, they don't seem quite as stringent as some, which makes me wonder if the schools who state healthy eating are knee jerking a little, unless perhaps it differs from area to area, which is plain stupid.

Dinnerladies or Midday Assistants are generally only food police in that it is part of their role to filter down the guidelines or restrictions by way of supervision. No idea how it works in a high school but in our small-ish primary, they walk up and down breaking up arguments, opening fucking frubes, and generally making sure that at least half a sandwich is eaten before the fucking frube gets eaten, and in hot dinner case that only 2 items of a main course are left on the plate before moving on to pudding.

The puddings are pretty pudding-ish, however our school doesn't ban home made cake, flapjacks, cereal bars, or biscuits, but does "ban" chocolate bars (so a penguin is okay yet a couple of squares of Green & Blacks isn't), which is silly in my book. Sweets and fizzy is banned, but generally its not crazy like no white bread ham cheese etc, that would be considered OTT.

There are some inconsistencies regarding Dinnerladies interpreting what they consider to be "healthy eating" policies - some of them are not nutritional experts nor are they terribly academic, others are. I observed a colleague giving my own son a healthy eating sticker one day when he had a sizeable slab of Hello Kitty birthday cake of my daughters of which I was attempting to get rid, yet the child opposite him didn't get one on the basis that he had a penguin. Silly really, as the sugar in the icing alone would top that of the penguin. It wasn't even homemade cake. I would have picked her up on it and it wasn't because it was my own son that I didn't, simply I was not her boss and she had enough issues with me anyway I let it slide and just made a mental note to try and even up the score with the stupid chuffing stickers at some point in the future to poor penguin-boy.

Apparently our school no longer do apple and orange juice for hot dinner people at lunchtime due to the government (don't know if its interpretation or blanket rule) yet a packed lunch can have a carton of juice. You can't, however, send your child in with a bottle of sugar free squash to drink outside of lunchtimes on a hot day for instance.

Because we can send in cake and custard etc it doesn't seem too much of a difference between hot dinners and packed lunches, but if they were to remove this category of foods from packed lunches things would be very different indeed and that's where the healthy eating policy can seem very hypocritical indeed.

Tingatingatale · 30/09/2014 18:50

My sons lunch today was ham sandwich in brown bread, carton of orange juice, pot of blueberries and grapes and a dairylea. I then put in a tiny pot of crisps (salt and shake with no salt added). He was told off about the crisps and also the plain pop corn yesterday he just told me. Monday in school dinners he had pizza, beans and then ice cream for desert

Mrsstarlord · 30/09/2014 19:09

Does anyone raise this with the school governors? Its precisely the sort of thing that school governors need to be aware of so that they can challenge the principal.

Ticklemonster897 · 30/09/2014 19:33

I don't think there should be cake , sweets, crisps, processed proteins or pastry in lunch boxes or school dinners. I think kids get enough treats outside of school hours without having them during school hours. Banning the crap would really make a difference to the lunchtime habits of children and a proper food education could help the nations health. After all it's a ticking time bomb.

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