Done to death, I know! Dinner Lady AIBU

[GingerWrath]

Apologies in advance.

5 yo DD takes packed lunches to school everyday. I try to vary the contents so she doesn't get bored.

DD is a fairly normal height and weight, if anything she is a bit on the skinny side. Once a month or so I pack her half a small pizza, knowing that pizza sometimes features on the school dinner menu.

The other day her pack up consisted of:

Half a ham and cheese pizza cut into 3 slices
A small bag of slightly salted popcorn
Mixed berries (eaten at play time)
Cucumber sticks
Yoghurt
2 squares of chocolate

As soon as I picked her up at home time she was telling me she was hungry. Her pizza and popcorn were still in her lunch bag and I assumed that she was in a hurry to go out to play and rushed her lunch. No.

Later in the evening she informed me that the dinner lady told her that popcorn and pizza weren't allowed in packed lunches and she couldn't eat them. So basically DD had cucumber, yoghurt and 2 bits of chocolate for her lunch.

Here is the AIBU bit.

a. AIBU to be annoyed that DD was made to go hungry?
b. AIBU to think that popcorn isn't that bad for you?
c. AIBU to think that DD should have been allowed to eat her pack up and that I should be contacted if there is a problem with the contents?

Query it, obviously. But check the facts first! 5 year olds are not good witnesses.

YANBU. It's none of their business. The lunch-box police really piss me off. Send her with a kebab and a can of Red Bull tomorrow

a. yanbu
b. popcorn is not very nutritious, not very bad either, so yanbu
c. yanbu, there should at least be a note with the reason why she was not allowed to eat the food

I would check first. One of my children told me once that they wasn't allowed to eat something in their packed lunch, but I later found out that they just didn't want to eat it.

I can't believe there's a dinner lady in the land that would stop a child eating the bulk of their lunch, but let them have the chocolate.

I would mention it at the school, but working on the assumption that your daughter didn't want to eat the pizza. Tell them to check she's been eating what you've given, and mention in passing that she'd said the dinner lady had stopped her eating her lunch.

pizza is actually healthy really isn't it just like a sandwich really and popcorn better than choc bar so how come she was allowed to eat the choc ??OMG how dare she say to a child she not allowed to eat lunch such hypocrisy as staff rooms always full of tins of choc and cakes

There are double standards at work here, but, tbh, I don't think pizza or popcorn are suitable for lunch boxes. Can't you put a sandwich and carrot sticks in instead? That would draw less attention and be healthier for her.

I would talk to your dd's teacher or the head. Sounds like an over officious dinner lady making her own rules. of course your dd shouldn't be going hungry and should have been able to eat her lunch. My dd was having to stay in at playtimes for eight weeks following an operation and one of the teaching assistants/ dinner lady sent her friend out. I went in to see the teacher and told her it was unfair that my child shouldn't have a friend to stay in with her as it wasn't supposed to be a punishment. Eight weeks is a long time to spend every lunch time and break in on your own. The teacher agreed. Also had the situation when year 6 children were checking lunches and one of them told my year one child to eat her freezer pack as the year six child thought it was an ice pack!!

lol @ Treblesallround

hidden she had cucumber sticks and sandwiches get very boring, pizza once a month will not tip a child into obesity, especially when it is offered regularly as part of hot lunches.

DD would not willingly leave pizza as she considers it a treat.

but hiddenhome, she had cucmber and mixed berries so not like there was nothing healthy in there!

Ahh the year 6 thought it was a ice pop not an ice pack!

I don't really get this lunchbox thing, if a child has hot dinners they have a sweet pudding every day, (cake and custard for example) they also have pizza or something like that usually each week!

but pizza is basically bread cheese and tomato is a cheese tomato sandwich any different I always get confused about the pizza being unhealthy mine occasionally have school dinners and yes they have pizza sometimes and choc cake etc for pudding pure hypocrisy

YANBU I do wish dinner ladies would keep their noses out of things Ok though let's say for some reason it's banned, jobsworth could have let her eat it but said in future it wasn't allowed.

I know there are healthy bits in there, but it should all be healthy really. I know it's annoying, but it's better for them in the long run. I used to make packed lunches up and the worst thing I'd include was cheese (salt and fat) and a cereal bar (sugar).

If it's shop bought pizza imnotmymum then it will have a lot of fat and salt in.

mojito exactly, and maybe it isn't best practice to rely on a 5 yo to tell their parents this? Possibly a note to me would be better?

I plan on packing a pizza by stealth; tomato purée, pepperoni, olives and cheese disguised cunningly between two tortillas, a pizza quesadilla!

just pointing out shop bought bread, cheese all in a sandwich pretty much the same. My kids eat all sorts of food and are happy and healthy and normal weight/height some pizza once in a while will not kill them dinner lady totally overreacting bah humbug I hate Jamie Oliver do not know how the human race has survived without someone telling us how to feed our children

Good idea Ginger, very inventive

A shop bought pizza doesn't necessarily have lots of salt or fat in it. I'm with the posters who can't really see the difference between a cheese sandwich (especially if it's on white bread with butter) and a slice or two of pizza.

And children need fat- they're growing and if they're anything like mine, run round like mad things.

The food police in schools drive me mad, especially when most school dinners aren't exactly exemplary either.

Hiddenhome How is a sandwich healthier than pizza?

Cheese and ham pizza versus cheese and and ham sandwich. At least the pizza will have tomato on it.

I am amazed they stopped the pizza but allowed the chocolate!

DD's school does stop them from eating chocolate (happened to DD, so not hearsay. Went into school to clarify and had it confirmed).

I used to send DS in with homemade pizza - nothing fancy, used ciabatta as the base and never had a problem with that.

Popcorn can be a healthy snack hiddenhome - unless it's half a bag of butterkist. Not everything has to be 'nutritious' as long as it is a 'balanced' meal.

I get really annoyed with all this healthy lunch box stuff.

I'm a teacher and I have seen all the horror stories of 2 packets of crisps and a Yorkie (for a reception child), left over take away and cans of coke... They're not just urban myths!

But as long as a meal is balanced there isn't a problem. We need a little bit of everything in our diet.

My DD is on her second half term of school dinners. She reports back every day on what she has had. Yesterday she had pepperoni pizza, bread roll, sweetcorn, carrots and sponge cake. The pizza and sponge cake won't be homemade and therefore additive free and pizza and a bread roll is a lot of carbs! This is not healthier than the lunches she had when I was making her packed lunches for her.

I have a 5 year old who has in the passed got confused with what hes been told, definitely check with the adult who delt with it.

FWIW I wouldnt have put in popcorn and chocolate, one or the other. But Im only a couple of weeks into the whole pack lunch thing so I might be wrong.

YANBU, the amount of things that can't go into a lunchbox at our school is NUTS

cake, pizza and biscuits to name a few

On the school dinners menu, cake features at LEAST twice a week, milkshake and biscuit once a week and pizza once a fortnight (Fish and chips the other fortnight)

bloody ridiculous