to think ds's school should take a harder line over these issues?

[lecce]

Although we are reasonably happy with what seems to be going on in the classroom of ds1's school (he is in YR) there are a couple of issues that are really starting to grate - especially on dh, who does the school runs. He wants to raise them at a forthcoming parent forum so AWBU?

1. Smoking directly outside the school. Our local council recently introduced a voluntary ban on smoking outside schools (on the pavement) and in play areas. Posters were sent to all schools bt ours has not displayed any. There are always countless parents smoking right outside the door and it seems to us it is not setting a good example to the children. Dh is particularly depressed by the handful of women who turn up in the mornings smoking in their pyjamas. Dh is a typical ex-smoker I suppose but he is angry more with the school for not publicising the issue, than the parents themselves. Of course the head cannot stop the parents outright but displaying the posters would be a start.

1. At least once a week ds comes out with some rubbishy snack given because of someone's birthday. Today it was a bag of total crap - lollies, those candy stick things, rock hard sweets I would never give him. Monday it was a bag of Walkers. We really don't want him to have all this stuff - yes dh can (and does) take it off him but he could do without the 5 minutes of whinging that ensues and it does seem unfair to ds when others from his class are walking alongside him eating theirs. I read about schools on here policing lunch boxes and ours seems to the complete opposite.

The school is in a pretty deprived area and it just seems that there is a fatalistic and patronising attitude from the head - "Oh, these parents are working class, they can't be expected not to stand right next to the entrance smoking..." etc Shouldn't the school take more of an active role in promoting a healthy lifestyle?

Has anyone read any of my posts? I know they can't ban smoking outside - I am annoyed that they haven't put up posters provided by the council encouraging people not to do so. Other schools in the locality have done so. I also feel they could accompany it with a newsletter or something. I am not suggesting they storm out of the school with water pistols aimed at the offenders or anything like that.

Have you approached the governors? Are you on the PTA to bring it up? Have you any support in the playground? Does the school have healthy school meals? Could you persuade the Head to arrange cookery courses for parents. A great idea is to get a chef in to do cooking. I taught in a school that did that and he had the DCs tasting all sorts of things.
I sympathise but the important thing is that your DC's relationship with food comes directlly from you and what you do-the rest is unimportant.

Sorry-do cooking with a class?

You sent your DS in with chocolate buttons so YRBU to complain about the sweet thing.
With the smoking, why can't your DH speak to them?

Do you really think a poster will do anything? If so I think that is rather naieve of you!

As for the comments by pp about the fact parents feed their children crap 2 things sprang to my mind firstly the school allowing the occasional treat doesn't mean that schools aren't promoting healthy eating and attitudes towards food and secondly you actually highlighted how the work schools are doing already has a positive impact on the eating habits of families, instead of berating that mother for not knowing surely it should be seen as a good thing that the mother was trying to find out and carry on encoraging him to eat foods he had tried at school.

In my opinion you've come across as sounding like a twat, lecce.

I'm not working class but I smoke? Not at the school grounds.
& if I'm being really honest I probably would do the nursery pick up in my joggers & hoodie! I'd have a Chanel handbag with me? Does that make a difference?

No? See class has nothing to do with it.

Kate please read my posts. I have made exactly that point in several of my posts.

I posted on this thread yesterday and no one seems to have said anything new since. You must be really peed off OP. Could you tell us if you are going to follow any of the constructive suggestions.

Dd1 came home from GB last night with a little Easter egg. She was told she'd have to wait until she came home from school next day, as it was too late for problem. All fine. Dd2 came out of nursery this morning with an Easter nest, she wanted to keep it til she got home but I said it would be better to eat it there and then in case we dropped it on the way home. It really is not hard to explain to children that they will have to save something for later. If you don't let them have it at all then I'm not surprised that your child would feel hard done by.

And honestly, eating sweets only after meals with a drink of water? I'm sure that's the ideal but as a child did you never walk up to the corner shop and get a little bag of cola bottles and drumsticks and white mice and eat them as soon as you got home?

As for the parents doing the school run in pyjamas, a school in Belfast sent out a letter asking the Pyjama wearing parents to wear proper clothes. Don't know if it had much effect. Somehow I can't imagine the sort of parent that goes to school in their pjs paying much attention to letters from school, but you never know.

Well, birthdays once a week is possible. The school year is less than 45 weeks, so they are only getting through the first two thirds. In some schools, the comsumption of sweets inside is banned because of allergies - they don't want children opening up their bags and either sharing or leaving out sweets that another child might be allergic to, and some schools insist on it for health/dental reasons.

Perhaps you could say to your DS that one sweet or just one crisp after you get home is ok and no eating while walking or waiting? Who eats the sweets/crisps eventually - do you bin them or do the adults eat them? If the adults eat them, it's probably hypocritical not to let your son have one if he does want one. If they get binned, you should be aware that you can't shield him from them forever - he'll soon buy his own, or more likely his mates will pass them to him in exchange for something else. It isn't reasonable to expect other parents to provide books or carrot sticks in goody bags - everyone gives out sweets or something fun which unfortunately is usually junk. But he doesn't have to eat the whole thing (mine never does but that's his choice - in fact he hardly touches the sweets).

If the council has a voluntary ban, perhaps you could ask your DH once again to suggest to the head if they can put up some posters. And maybe you can ask one or two non-smoking parents you know well enough what they think - if they agree, a joint request (eg via email, with several names at the bottom) might sound better. This also happens outside hospitals (clearly, there is a strict ban inside!) and whether or not for health reasons, it is totally unpleasant for the rest of us to have to walk in and out of the entrances through a thick fog of cigarette smoke. But I agree smoking in the immediate vicinity of a school, especially in a group, shows very bad behaviour and self centred thinking - it isn't a class thing, I can assure you. A sign of "I can behave badly because technically it isn't against the law, so I can do it with scant regard for anyone else".

I dont think an odd birthday treat is an issue

I remember the days when your mum baked a tray bake and brought it in to school on your birthday, they've stopped that now, children are allowed some fun.

I'm not sure why class has anything to do with it?

I am confused why there being 5 m/c (which I am assuming means middle class) parents at the school has anything to do with this non-issue?

Also if there is a group of parents who the school has a problem with, should they use up all of their trust/authority on the relatively minor problems of smoking outside off school property and the distribution of sweets by children? Then they are already at loggerheads when trying to find solutions to more serious problems to do with lateness or bullying.

The school has no real authority on what happens beyond its gates, and parents being onside with the school can make a real difference to disipline problems inside the school.

Or they could spend all their time and energy arguing with parents and have the children see that posters put up with "rules" (like don't smoke outside the school gates) are ignored, which will make it harder to get the children to follow other rules.

This sounds very much like DD's school (not sure about the smoking bit as I use breakfast and after-school clubs so not normally around with the rest of the parents) and I also get a bit frustrated with the policy on sweets.

My big bugbear is the teacher giving out sweets as a reward. I really don't want DD associating crisps and sweets with rewards when there are so many other options available to incentivise children that don't involve food treats. I do appreciate that she is providing this herself and other 'gifts' would be too expensive but the school has about a million different reward things going on already (golden time, smily face stickers, gold stickers from the headteacher, housepoints etc) so I don't think sweets etc are at all necessary.

I have changed my view on birthday sweets though. That used to annoy me too as it seemed to be so often (30 kids, 2 teachers + all the after-school club kids), but then I realised that - unlike every other primary I know of - nobody has birthday parties. I presume it's mainly a cost thing (school is in quite a deprived area) and so the 'party bag' handed out at school is their way of sharing their birthday with the other children. When compared to friends who seem to spend virtually every weekend ferrying their DC to parties, buying presents and the DC eating far more crap than would fit in a party bag, I realise it's actually not a bad result!

Lecce I posted a few pages ago, asking a question which seems to have been ignored, but I believe is valid.

What about the children at school who have diabetes? How do they feel about sweets being handed out? Are they also given sweets? If not, what do they get instead?

I ask all the posters who are bashing you how they would feel if they :

a) had a diabetic child who constantly couldn't join in with this.

b) Had a diabetic child who decided they were sick of being the odd one out, ate something they shouldn't and became hyperglycemic?

IME parents of diabetic children leave a bag of suitable treats with the teacher who gives the child one of these when the sweet-fest happens.

ds2 is diabetic. I'd be pretty pissed off if they were handing out sweets at hometime and told him he couldn't have any. Diabetics can eat sugar just as much as the next child, they just have to inject insulin to cover it. He takes the cake/sweet/treat along with everyone else, brings it home and has it with his tea.

I don't know what "suitable treats" the teacher could have - cheesestrings maybe? It would have to be something with no carbohydrate in it, otherwise they might as well have the sweets. Fruit, crackers etc affect the blood sugar just as much as chocolate.

I checked with the teacher before bringing in chocolate for the children in ds1's class. If there had been a child who had diabetes or allergies I would have brought something that everyone could have.

Well chocolate buttons and cakes (and cheese strings ) would have been unsuitable when DS was on a dairy and wheat free diet. But even at 4 he had no problem with saying he couldn't have hem without getting upset. Most sweets were fine.

It really is a non issue because you as a parent have control over the fact whether or not to let you child eat it.

I have found that parents with DCs with diabetes or allergies leave something with the teacher to hand out on birthdays. I t isn't a problem.

I've managed children with diabetes in class, as Bertha pointed out, it is wrong to assume that they must not eat chocolate or sweeties. In fact, I had chocolate, biscuits and ribena in the cupboard specifically for low blood sugar incidents.
The sweets are given out at hometime by the birthday child, each child has the choice whether to accept one or not and they take them out to their carer before eating them. So the carer of a child with diabetes has control.
Likewise if I ever did anything in class which involved eating, I informed the parent in advance and modified if necessary.

lou3231, i said it 'would' piss me off... conditional tense. i don't experience this, it's not done at our school. they do cake after lunch, before toothbrushing, for the birthday kids, and they have biscuits set aside for the nut allergic.

how you have got from that to me being too scared to say no to my children is rather amazing. (but as an aside, if dd, aged 6, was given sweets leaving the classroom there's no way they would survive the school bus for her to ask me if she could eat them. i doubt they'd make it out of the main door before being eaten, tbh.) you must be a remarkable parent to exert such control.

They brush their teeth in school?

On the odd occasion, when they all come out with something in their hand, they have clearly been told not to eat until they get out do parents can decide. So nobody eats it before thy get out the main door.

I've only read the first and last. Not even going to comment about the smoking because it has nothing to do with the school.

The point that seems to have been missed is that of graciousness. Nobody has to give a gift or a token at all; if they do it is polite to say thank you and to smile and to receive it in the spirit it was given. It's just simple good manners. If you don't like the sweets OP, on your ds's birthday give fruit flakes, or fresh fruit and hope it catches on but it is extremely impolite to dictate what other people should give.

FWIW our dc had a small sweet ration every day. Something they looked forward to and something that could be withdrawn for minor misdemeanours. And, at a party they were never the children who shoved their hands into the bowl of sweets or biscuits and pulled out far more than their fair share - because those things weren't a big deal. As teenagers I don't think they've bought themselves a packet of sweets for months