packed lunch police

[AuntiePickleBottom]

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

Fortunately, my kids' school seems to have a more logical approach.

No fizzy pop (due to mess)
No nuts (due to allergies)

other than that, anything goes. For snack, they have to bring in fruit, but the school newsletter said that contents of lunchboxes were completely up to the parents. So the kids' lunchboxes are usually healthy, except the last day of the summer term when I let them have absolute choice. And they chose...

hula hoops
iced gems
mini roll
mini strawberry-shaped nestle junk yoghurt
cheese strings
innocent kids smoothie
syrup and sprinkles sandwiches

:o

As was said up thread, it can be a form of bullying and, I think, a bit of a power trip for some.

So much of it is based on simplistic and inaccurate labelling of foods as 'good' and 'bad'. There is a particularly pernicious delusion which states that a 'hot meal' is inherrantly good. Total madness!

I dont have a problem with teaching children about healthy lifestyles but taking food off them is wrong.

My DCs all have packed lunches because I know what they have for breakfast and dinner so make sure that their lunch fits in with that. I dont tell teachers how to teach my kids, I dont expect them to tell me how to feed them.

rocketty that sounds like a sensible and enlightened school!

I can see us having problems if DD is still having digestive issues when she starts school, currently she has a strictly limited fruit and fiber intake with upped calories from fat percentages...

Pre-school are totally understanding and sensible on the plus side!

When my DS started Infants he refused to eat sandwiches (always had) so he used to get some veg/ fruit/ and bread sticks with soft cheese.
I had a note from the teacher suggesting I gave DS sandwiches as he may be 'bored' of having the same thing daily. BTW he didn't eat crisps either. I politely pointed out he chose his own lunch.

Year 1 he had sandwiches ad crisps one day (on the day they did damned healthy eating) and when they had to draw and label the contents of thei packed lunch (he also had grapes, cucumber and a banana) his was used as an example of one that could be healthier.

Shit hit the fan that day.

YANBU op

as its a legal requirement to educate your child and if you choose not to home educate i do not think a child can ultimately be expelled for eating cake,
I think you could legally say that my childs lunchbox is not to be touched or messed with or anything confiscated esp if said items can be served for school lunches because I know people you have scored through certain things in school handbook like homework in holidays etc. I am not advocating a new thread or that lunches should be unhealthy but rather that double standards by school are hypocritical and sending all children the wrong message which is we can make up any stupid rule we like and enforce it just because we can........ then they wonder why no respect

Interesting thread. DD had her first 'school dinner' today after having a packed lunch yesterday. Yesterday she came home with two small tomatoes having eaten her chicken slices, mini cheddars, grapes and salad, plus juice. Today she tried the school dinners and the teacher took me on one side to say 'she ate nothing at lunchtime, said it was all horrible and refused to eat anything at all. :(

Frankly I have a hard time getting her to eat generally so I was not surprised but if the food in unpalatable what do they expect? I won't be holding back on giving her a reasonably healthy lunchbox but it will contain snacks and if they don't like it, they can have that conversation with me in person.

Our school has a 'healthy eating' policy - which mean fruit only for snacks at break-time but a bar/snack can be had at lunchtime.

When I look at the dinner menu I am shocked at what they deem healthy eating.. eg: Chicken bites, sandwiches, pizza, swiss roll & custard was today's menu - in what world is that a balanced meal?

My childrens' lunch boxes had:

dd - 1 wrap with tuna & onion, a pear, a few slices of carrot, a tub of yoghurt and a choc chip cookie.

ds - 1 pancake smeared with flora, an apple, an orange, a kiwi & a packet of yoghurt covered raisins.

I don't think either lunch is particularly healthy but then again neither do I think they're loaded with junk!! dd (9) complained that all her friends are allowed crisps and fizzy juice, but I doubt if all her friends are allowed them!

Luckily DD2s primary school has a very sensible lunch box policy - the only rule is no fizzy drinks, sweets or chocolate (and no nuts as it's a nut-free school due to a severely allergic child).

I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with dinner ladies/teaching staff/support staff appointing themselves as Nutrition Assessors when most of them wouldn't know a healthy diet for a child if it bit them on the bum.

That aside I still don't think children need cakes, biscuits or chocolate "treats" in their lunchboxes every day. If you have them every day they're hardly a treat, and you have 18 other hours in the day to feed your children cakes and biscuits. Give them to them after dinner, or when you get home from school. They don't HAVE to go in the lunchbox. By the same token I think schools shouldn't offer puddings every day either but I know I'm probably a lone voice there.

My ds wasn't allowed an innocent smoothie in his packed lunch as it wasn't milk or water, poor kid takes so long to eat anything he never got round to the fruit, but he drinks like a fish, so 1 innocent smoothie is several of 5 a day done in about 10 seconds. They also complained about his jam sandwiches until I pointed out that eating nothing at lunch is far less healthy than jam and bread.
I also put my foot down about the no biscuit rule saying that when the pudding was removed from the school menu then I would stop sending biscuits in his packed lunch.
I think they got the message that I would put whatever I saw fit in his lunch and woe Betide anyone who commented about it.

So what do the dinner ladies do with all this confiscated cake and chocolate? Do they remember who to give it back to, or does it go to the staff room?

UKSky - it is then sold back to the parents at the school fete!

OMG your school allows ham !

I received a list of Holiday Club Packed Lunch Guidance, I keep it with me at all times to -laugh at and show others just how ridiculous and hypocritical it is- ensure I stick to the rules.

Cakes are included in the section of foods to be avoided and come under confectionary. Hmm, school lunch menu has cake and custard as a regular feature. Obviously school made cakes are far superior to anything homemade.

Sausages are also -highly dangerous- to be avoided at all costs.

I regularly slip in cake and sausages (more so since receiving the guidance) and have had not so much as a raised eyebrow from the packed lunch PCSOs.

I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with dinner ladies/teaching staff/support staff appointing themselves as Nutrition Assessors when most of them wouldn't know a healthy diet for a child if it bit them on the bum.

I totally agree with with the op but refute this statement made in reply.

I am a LP and an LSA. I am aware of what constitutes a balanced diet thankyou very much and have an allergic child (anaphylatic). Don't get personal against staff members who have to follow the same 'healthy eating guidelines' as you do - whether they agree with them or not.

Our school says no fizzy drinks, no nuts, and they have Treat Tuesday where kids are allowed one small treat. I agree with the OP about the sugar filled school dinner puds though!! How hypocritical. My kids have sandwiches/wrap/roll/pasta salad/rice salad, plus yogurt, mini muffin, apple, cucumber/raisins/carrots/pineapple or similar, and they're happy with that.

But the school certainly does not confiscate items from lunchboxes!!!! Would have stern words with them if they did.

SeniorWrangler absolutely. I was on my girl's board of governors a few years back when a missive came down from the government stating what would and wouldn't be allowed in lunchboxes. At the time we thought it was appalling - don't the government have anything better to spend our taxes on? - and was also ridiculous as to what was allowed and what was not allowed. So schools are following orders and I bet you some of them don't like it any more than parents.

I was particularly cross as DD2 was extremely small and underweight at the time; below the centile chart, and we had to get high calorie food into her wherever possible. What would have been a "healthy" lunch for another child would have been quite dangerous to her. I didn't feel it was down to the government to impose a "one size fits all" rule on children they had never met and knew nothing about.

She's been home educated for 4 years now and is finally heading towards the 9th centile. She can eat as many carbs as she likes :)

thanks for all the replys, i think i will do some of the suggestion by copying the school menu and building my case.

Our LA had free school meals for all primary kids until the end of last term. The main course had red meat as an option about 3 times a week, with pastry most days and pudding was almost always some form of "cake and custard" as DS1 put it.

DS2 never took the free lunches and, oddly, his dairylea sandwich and cereal bar (usually fruitus or frusli) packed lunch has never been challenged!!!!

When the free lunches were introduced, we were supposed to be issued with a list of allowed packed lunch snacks, but most of the kids that still took packed lunches did so because they were extremely faddy eaters (like DS2) and the head was good enough never to bother issuing the letter because she would rather these kids didn't spend the afternoon with an empty tummy (plus one of the parents of one of those kids was a school governor who wasn't afraid to speak up!)

youarekidding it's not personal. I know some staff are sensible and aware of what constitutes a balanced diet.

But it's clear from this thread, and from my own experience as a school nurse getting called by parents to liaise with over-zealous lunchtime staff, that many staff AREN'T following sensible healthy eating guidelines. If a school is removing items in lunchboxes because they consider them unhealthy based on their own perception of healthy (ie low fat no sugar) and not an LEA policy then that is unacceptable and should be challenged.

I smile at the idea of telling the dinner ladies at my school to police packed lunched. There would be warfare. Kids would strop, they'd be in the firing line and soon rant at me for asking it off them and refuse along the lines of 'we're not paid to do this, on what we're paid you're lucky lunchtimes run so well' etc. (Fair enough!)

Agree that attack is the best form of defence.

Make them explain why they allow and say that surely the children on dinners should not be allowed to eat ice cream or cake if the children on sandwiches can't have a biscuit or a bun.

And please report back because I would love to know how they justify that double standard.

Also from a school's perspective. There can be a lot of pressure from LEAs to have all their schools as 'Healthy Schools', which does include packed lunches too. Some schools take the directives very seriously. We are lucky because our parents on the whole have common sense so we butt out, but if you have wide-scale unhealthy lunches that can be spotted at 20 paces by OFSTED it can be tricky and policies spring up. They are overly simple things. You do have to be seen to tackle it, plus often the staff doing it have no conceptof training on healthy eating themselves and implement policies badly.

We're in the position where we can just catch xyz at the gate and explain that half a packet cake and a pack of cookies isn't good, and suggest bread/ fruit to be included (some people REALLY don't get it, the next day this child turned up with a whole bunch of bananas and 4 slices of dry bread so we had a much longer chat with Mum and really spelt it out).

I've worked with the teams planning school dinners, mostly it makes sense. E.g. they know the chocolate cake provides iron and enough calories for a young child when balanced with the rest of the menu. Obviously some schools are crap, but dieticians are involved in menu setting by LEAs. The stupid packed lunch policy, created my school staff with no training in healthy eating, normally does not mean the dietician created school lunches are awful. The problem is simply with a policy.

Can I point out why a school may want more children to have school dinners.

Schools get more funding if they have a higher proportion of children having free school meals. So if there are children who could be claiming but are not because they have packed lunch the school may not be getting as much money (to spend on the children, they are not being greedy) as they could. My last school used to have "themed' lunches on census days to attract the children. Disclaimer: I move to NZ 20 months ago so it may have all changed.

Anyway on the one hand the whole thing is bonkers, on the other hand you should see the total rubbish some children (who may not have had breakfast) are given.

ok not read every post apologies, but last school I worked at before I had DS, when these new policies came in - well,the cakes were vile, the custard was VILE (no sugar in it and as pale as pale could be) give me ham salad sandwich any day the deserts were honestly crap they tasted nothing like they should do - you know, to make it worthwhile having a desert! biscuits with no sugar in too I seem to remember. They were very strict on lunch boxes (allowed crisps though) but I think they had had lots of children being sent in with a lunch box FULL of crisps and chocolate bars and sweets but NOTHING else, seriously! But I thought a child who say had a penguin bar alongside a healthy lunch should have been allowed tbh, it was the 2 full size mars bars and 3 bags of crsips that were a but of a joke.

DS is about to start at a school nursery and I asked if they had restrictions on lunch boxes (he doesn't even like cake anyway lol) and she said no, whatever they will eat. That surprised me a little, as I at least expected a response of " we try to encourage healthy eating"