AIBU to be downright p*ssed off at unhealthy parents?

[hannahopes]

I sent my six year old DD off to school this morning with a packed lunch filled with two ham sandwiches, an apple, yoghurtised fruit pieces and a bottle of orange juice. She came home with the remnants of the apple, an empty packet of space invaders and the wrapper of a chocolate bar. I've spoken to DD about and she says another friend 'gave it to her'. I'm partly annoyed at the dinner ladies for not stopping kids from swapping food at lunch (for allergy reasons, if anything) but also at this kid's parents; if I send my child into school with a healthy lunch, I do not expect her to come home with an unhealthy one. It's not the first time this has happened, I've been through the same thing with my older children and although I've ranted to a couple of people about it, I've come to mumsnet to vent my anger a little further. AIBU or just missing something?

Really?!

You need to find some bigger things to worry about if you have time to go round judging and worrying about what other people choose to feed their own kids.

Some people take pack ups far too seriously.

Standard pack up : ham sandwich, crisps, chocolate biscuit, fruit, juice.

Both healthy kids. All gets eaten.

Ample typical cheese strings provide 5% of the RDA of salt in 6% of the RDA of calories for a 6 year old. Which is pretty much the same as bread. Rather odd reaction you had?

Tell your daughter not to take other people's lunch when she's offered it

haha love all the "perfect parents" on here, never fails to make me laugh

Just call me judgey pants on those two issues .

In another thread the OP was rabting about a dinner lady that stoppped her DC from eating a seemingly unheathy packed lunched.

Sounds like a a fecked if you do, fecked if you don't situation. :)

Parking yes but I am not endangering anyone else's child with what I feed my kids - tell your kid to keep its sticky mitts out of my kids lunch ;)

I am a dinner lady too, we are really hot on not swapping food - the way around it is by not having a separate packed lunch table - anyone is allowed to sit wherever they want

The main problem we have is with the children throwing decent food away - the reason normally given (as yet again we tell them, if they haven't eaten it to put it back in so their adult knows what they are eating) is that they don't want mummy or whoever to know that they are not eating it

Also we ask them to tidy up after themselves, so often in the hurry to get everything binned or put back in the bag (desperate to go out to play) they may pick up someone elses rubbish to take home.

We ask that they are only provided crisps or crisp type products on a Friday as that is when the hot dinners have Fishfingers and chips. But we won't confiscate, just yet again the school will for the 247,000th time put it in the newsletter along with a helpful hints with links to other sites sheet listing what makes a healthy packed lunch not that those that arn't going to take any notice, do anyway

Why do the dinner ladies refuse to allow swapping of food? I can understand parents not wanting their child to eat certain things, but is it really an issue the school have to involve themselves in?

If you don't want your child to swop food, then tell her not to. You can't be blaming everybody else, if you haven't done that.

I also don't think that your food sounds that much better than the other kid's. That yoghurt covered fruit is no better than the chocolate bar.

DS is given chocolates, crisps and mayonnaise with ham on white bread. He keeps swapping it for celery and cucumber sticks!

YABU have a packet of these and don't worry about it.

OP, I had to have a tooth removed when I was 7 mostly because of yogurts and orange juice!

YANBU in regards to the chocolate but the crisps are probably a bit better than the orange juice and yogurt covered fruit pieces.

But... YABU if you think parents are unhealthy simply because they allow their kids to have chocolate and crisps. Maybe they eat really healthy when at home and you don't know what else was in their lunches.

Do you know that the crisps and the chocolate came from the same child's lunch? Daughter could be doing multiple swaps....

Or buying from the tuck shop if they still have them? I remember lots of kids in school used to buy chocolate and crisps and then say they had swapped in case their parents decided to stop giving them money.

Because of the above situation Flogging some parents do tend to get a bit miffed and as we are on the front line so to speak with regards to food, it falls to us.

I remember one child who swapped all his lovingly packed so-called healthy packed lunch for a Penguin then the teachers had to deal with his adults complaining that he was hungry when he got home from school.

Or maybe she took them the packets from to stop some obviously neglected child, emptied the contents in the school compost, and took the litter home knowing that the school has to pay for the garbage collection. Saving a kid from certain disaster over eating the crisps, the envrioment with the composting, and the school money.

Maybe if you put treats into your DDs packed lunch box, she wouldnt need to swap her superhealthy food for it. You know kids should be eating some fats and sugars, right?

Is chocolate actually much less healthy than the yoghurty fruit pieces?

flogginmolly --

parents like the OP are one reason dinnerladies are strict on the "no swaps " rule.
another is that children in junior school are often a bit careless on the food intolerances / permissions front. if X is dairy intolerant we can't let Y decide they wish to swap biscuits with X. If W has strict veggie parents they can't trade crisps with V. Q is allergic to vinegar, F can't tolerate citrus fruit... All their parents know their own child and have provided a lunch suitable for that child.

And yes, we do send all waste home in lunchboxes so parents can see what their child has or has not eaten.

Space Raiders are food of the GODS!
Beef flavour natch.

Yabu.

Erm, can I just ask, as an 'it's all about me', aside, can someone give me their opinion of DS's (5) lunch? Reading this, I'm thinking he's not having enough. He has a cheese wrap and a homemade pudding, usually apple crumble and a carton of juice of a beaker of squash. And. er, that's it. This seems fine to me but reading this it seems not much? He is in Reception and they have a bowl of fruit they have access to in his classroom.

Tufty depends when his other meals are really, and if he eats fruit snacks etc. Is he absolutely starving when he arrives home from school? Ask him if he's hungry, tired, cranky, lethargic etc. near the end of school? Just make sure he knows to tell you if he needs more because he's hungry, and you should be okay. Unless he's already overweight, but even then you're probably better off increasing his activity rather than decreasing his calories.

That sounds like the sort of lunch I'd give my kids - a sweet but healthy-ish treat plus fruit etc. I'd be peed off if they took to swapping for trashy crisps etc. Glad they have a no swaps rule at our school. Can you talk to the dinner ladies, your kid or the head?