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

hey, i don't care on jot what you put in your childs lunch box! though to be fair, a banana is the best source of an energy boost in that sort of situation

The battle lines were drawn re food pretty much as soon as DS1 started school. Because of his SN he won't eat wet foods (it's sensory and he's on the beige diet). I begged the school not to add gravy, beans etc to his plate but they said they had to as it was not considered a balanced meal with any component missing. Because he's not statemented (though going for another assessment finally soon) so no allowance could be made. So he wouldn't eat any of it because of what he perceived as contamination by sauce. When I asked them what was better a boy having no dinner at all or some food but no gravy or custard they couldn't answer. So I put him on pack up and challenged them to question it. They never did. Luckily his schools have never had a strict policy, just an advice leaflet that is written as though you have an IQ of 3 and comes out every September.

Hi - I'm a mid day supervisor (dinner lady at a school with no hot dinners just packed lunches)

Can I just say - we do not set the school policy, the governors do.

Our school has no fizzy, no sweets policy - if the kids have either we say to them quietly - "Could you please tell whoever does your lunch that XYZ is not allowed". We do not take it away.

We do not poke our noses through lunch boxes, we observe whilst wandering up and down opening packaging designed by evil people. Who thought stick yoghurts were a good idea???!!? 4/5/6 year olds invariably tear off half the tab, and when we do get them open (with school safety/craft scissors) the kids tend to wave them round when they talk - so if anyone's little one has yoghurt on their back you know why - :)

Pretty much all our parents (me included) stick to our few rules, but you should see the crap nutritious food in some boxes - one last term had a tube of pringles and a box of jaffa cakes - the poor child was not sure if they should eat all of them, his brother had a jumbo pepperami and a box of jaffa cakes .... mmmmmm yummy - not.

As I say policy is set by the governors, who are ultimately answerable to the parents - if you have a problem with your school's policy, put yourself up for election, or present a united front to the governors and get things changed.

Today was DS1's third day in reception. When he got home from school DH told me he had been in trouble for having a tantrum lying on the floor. This was because one of his teachers had decided that his coloured yoghurt covered raisins were sweets and he wasn't allowed to eat them.

rubygems - lord, how utterly ridiculous is that. A pot of 'school dinner' fruit yoghurt probably contains just as much sugar (fruit-derived and added) as a handful of yoghurt raisins.

Wow this is so patronizing of children. I think of myself, as I wrestle (often without success) not to have the delicious pret a manger chocolate brownie with my sandwich at my desk every lunchtime. Just the thought of somebody rifing through my lunch and taking away my delicious brownie as I am about to eat it makes me mad. Just because children are small, it really doesn't excuse pushing them around like this. Aargh!

School custard is apparently 'non-dairy' !! (Yuk) and school sponge puddings are sweetened with fruit juice acoording to our catering service

And the 'sweetened with fruit juice' thing is just healthy-sounding flannel of course. Fruit juice is tooth-rotting stuff - it's full of sugar. Which is why they add it as a sweetener , presumably.

I was on a school trip recently and saw a child eating a family sized cadbury's milk choc bar. I guess the rules are to stop that sort of thing.

Bytheway I didn't know that about the tube yoghurts oops!

It's an interesting question really, how much jurisdiction schools should have over what schoolchildren eat. Personally I would say they would be justified in tackling a parent who sends their child in with nothing but sweets and/or crisps every day. But the emphasis should be on tackling the problem cases rather than imposing ridiculous and unfair rules on the majority.

The trouble I have with one of my kids is that if I send a nice healthy packed lunch, she touches absolutely nothing.day after day.And I end up thinking it's pointless.just a complete waste of time and effort.So in the end I just send what i know she'll eat - white bread with chocolate spread or jam , packet of crisps and a bun or something = caron of juice..I think the same is probaly true of many parents who send their kids in with 'bad' packed lunches.

Apologies for my atrocious typing I seem to have some sticky keys!

madamarcati - I sympathise, DS is terrible with food, and has endless energy on hardly anything - but what you mentioned above is not "bad" compared to what I have seen over the years - a million years from it! So don't worry.
And yohurts are evil in school lunches- ESPECIALLY tube thingy ones!

Can I stick my head above the parapet again...... I don't get the "it's the only thing my kids will eat", or "if I send healthy stuff it all comes home" argument... are other parents really saying they feed crap to their kids all the time at home??? :(
Mine get roast meat left over from the weekend or chicken/cheese/tinned fish in a wrap with salad in a tub, veg sticks - carrot / cucumber/ whatever needs using up, a bit of fruit and flapjack/cake or some left over cold "pudding in a pot" if we have any. Most kids at our school do this.

You get the odd one with the pringles and Jaffa cakes, crisps or mars bar - and on one particular occasion a cold McD's cheesburger from the night before , but folks generally know how they should feed kids for their health and wellbeing.

Yes our school is in a nice area, but I really don't get the my kids will only eat crap thing - because it is up to us all to educate our kids in their choices.

If a child was underweight and starving with no food in their lunchbox we would be obliged to do something about it. I don't see why the obligation is not there on the artery clogging, tooth rotting side too. If you have to feed the crap - do it in the other 18 hours of the day - why do folks feel the need to "make a point" by doing it at school.

NO my child doesn't eat crap bytheway - he has no interest in cakes/biscuits chocolate occasionally if he fancies it. He has severe speech delay coupled with some sort of sensitivity issue (under paed) he will try ANYTHING. He loves fish, meat and fruit, yoghurts. He would eat a bowl of raspberries/strawberries/blackberries anyday over a piece of cake or chips. he does not eat a morsel of veg but tries them every week. He really struggles with textures, anything mixed up (say spag bol) would be a no no.

I didn't believe in fussy eaters until I had DS. he hardly ever ever asks for something to eat. He loves the idea of lots of foods (we grow our own veg which he helps with and always trys it all but does not "eat" it). As a baby he was weaned on EVERYTHING and the only thing he wouldn't eat as a baby was carrot - he could detect it in anything. I cook mostly each night and we always all sit and eat together.

But I suppose, although my son is fussy, what he does eat is actually quite healthy. Don't get me wrong, he also loves a macdonalds, but that is a treat. I could however send him inot nursery with a bowl full of mackeral

sorry bad spellings there

But madamarcati if that's what you send, that's what she'll eat. Will she really not even eat some grapes, banana or strawberries, or have in her sandwich cheese or tuna or ham or cream cheese or Marmite or anything with a bit more nutritional content than her current lunch?

She eats well at home, just not at school.The dinner ladies don't care if they eat nothing at all, whereas it is of course a different story at home!
I originally sent her with healthy packed luches for many months, but there is absolutely no point in sending in alunch that isn't touched.It is (a)wasting time, energy and money.Also Calories and fluids are her most immediate requirements to get through the day so I am not having her go all day with no food.
She will eat homemade bread which is a bit better than bought, and I do all our own baking so at least there are eggs and butter in the cake I send , which are good nutitionally.

If I had a child who ate well at home but only ate chocolate spread at acjool I think I would call her bluff. She's nor going to comet any harm missing lunch occasionally, but getting used toneating all those empty calories every say can't be good, surely?

I assume that these rules apply to staff at these schools too.

I sympathise, my son would be MORE than happy go without food if it was something he detested. Today he has had a cup of milk, a cup of apple juice, half a slice of toast and 3 mouthfuls of pie. Tiny mouthfuls at that!

And I bet he is doing well and has loads of energy? Children don't actually need anything like as much food as we think the do.

Maxybrown, sorry been out all day, but as for your disclaimer earlier my son is actually allergic to bananas (would love that he could eat them as an energy boost but a scene from the exorcist would ensue and a trip to A&E would follow straight after) his doctor said a plain chocolate biscuit would give him the best energy boost (due to his allergies to lots of different fruits). He does eat loads and mostly healthy I don't think school should be able to dictate what is in his lunch box if they are not going to have the same rules for their supposedly healthy school dinners. A little sin once in a while never did any of us that much harm did it

I do however admit that there are some lunchboxes that are full of rubbish, but since when did we become a society that punishes everyone because of the offending minority. Why not put a note in their lunchbox saying please tone down the junk food?

Seeker - We'll have to agree for disagree! I am not going to send in good food to be wasted every day!!
'Children don't actually need anything like as much food as we think the do.' that's wrong-they need far more calories than most.A dietician came to do a talk to parents recently and she said by far the most common problem in lunch boxes nowadays is that they contain too few calories.Children are sent to school having had a bowl of cereal for breakfast given say a meat and salad sandwich, yogurt and piece of fruit. By this pointof the day they should have had 1200 calories but have probably had half this, leading them to binge on unsuitable food at the slightest opportunity.