To think that pre-school should not be giving ds (3)...

[lecce]

a fucking stick of rock .

I have been flamed on here before about not wanting sweets given out at school so I am interested to see whether people think this is a step too far.

It was only his second session today and he came out with a stick of rock - the ones that are about the size of a biro. Surely they might as well just knock his teeth out for him?

I am prepared to admit the odd Freddo here and there is not the end of the world but this is not something I would ever give to such a young child. We were not told whether it was given by a teacher as a reward or whether a child brought it in - it was just in his bag. Tbh, if a teacher has given it to him I wonder about her judgement.

Oh, and dh (sahd) broke off a small bit for him and when I got home I put the rest in the bin. Dh plans to buy him a small chocolate bar as a replacement tomorrow if he asks for it.

AWBU?

Funny, this is turning out just like before. I am obviously one of a tiny number of parents whose dc are excited when they know there is a sweet in their bag. The only reason why there is any difficulty whatsoever in refusing to let them eat said sweet is that I am incapable of saying no to my child. Simple, apparantly .

My parents just came back from holiday and brought my 3.5yo and 18mo DDs a BIG stick of rock each. We let them chew on them after tea at the table for 10 minutes. Very happy girls. Once in a blue moon won't do any harm IMO, and may give your DS some unexpected pleasure.

was it organic?

seriously no one dies - get they to ye olde grip shoppe

died and The - tired, very very tired

No I don't see the point in bloody jam sandwiches, either!

Why don't you let your kids eat rock?! Dd doesn't have a sweet tooth and hates chocolate but she absolutely loves rock. We don't buy often at all, probably two or three times a year. Having a stick of rock once isn't going to make you a sugar addict.

I'm with you OP. rock is particularly bad for kid's teeth given the length of time it takes to eat it ie a long time for the sugar to be in direct contact with the child's teeth.

Chocolate, whilst obviously bad as it contains sugar, is consumed far more quickly and has less time to do damage.

FWIW I have no concerns re the calorific content of the rock as most normal 3 year olds will burn this off in a flash; high calories definitely required for them!

However, Even as a one off, I think it is a terrible snack to give a 3 year old. I'd be interested to hear what any dentists thought?

lecce - why do you think your child gets so excited though?

Mine are allowed all things, some of the time. So a cake, a bag of sweets, a stick of rock or whatever hold no particular excitement for them - they are just as likely to reject something like that in favour of an apple or a cheese sandwich as eat it.

Growing up my Mum was a bit hysterical about sugar, things were very limited, and so they acquired a mythical status. I am still fighting those demons in my mid-30s.

I think it's quite shocking actually Lecce

I don't have a problem at all with cake, chocolate crisps or sweets(soft)
But a hard chewy thing like rock is really not good

I wouldn't give it to my 5 year old

I think dentists would say:

"You can have it occasionally but make sure you don't prolong contact with teeth. Brush teeth thoroughly after eating."

A Biro sized piece of rock isn't going to last 10 hours is it? It can be eaten quickly and not sucked for hours on end.
Such a mountain out of a molehill.

Alibaba He wasn't that excited - just pleased to have it and not going to give it up without a fight . He has cake and chocolate fairly often - not all the time as we just don't keep it in the house and never have but it is certainly not a ridiculously rare treat. If someone says to him, "Look lecceboy, here is a sweet for you to show Daddy..."of course he is going to be excited. It doesn't necessarily follow that he is sadly deprived of sweets normally.

It'll be from another child's birthday. There will be tonnes of occurrences of this sort of thing throughout school. You can, however, tell the teacher that YOUR child isn't allowed sweets. Then they won't give your child any when it's being handed out. You do have to say something though - they're not psychic!!!

It must be exhausting worrying about such minor things all the time.

And it's not a snack - to some it's a treat!

I used to love rock - especially Edinburgh rock, which really is pure soft sugar.

And I still have all my own teeth.

Sweets should read treats - we don't buy sweets ever, though they do have them from party bags etc.

The children that have a problem with sweets are the ones that have strictly controlling mothers - they learn to be devious as they get older.

The ones who are good at it have mothers who never know!

And I would be rich if I had a pound for every child that I know like that!

OP my dd is 3yo and I wouldn't allow her to have rock (choking hazard, hate boiled sweet type things for that reason) but dd is allowed sweets/choc/cake. As for jam sandwiches, dd won't eat them at nursery as they are disgusting apparently!

In amongst all the "get a grip" posts was the good point that this will happen time and time again with birthdays throughout school, so you need to think about how you handle it.

Personally I wouldn't tell school / nursery they aren't allowed any sweets, as that blanket statement takes away any choice you would otherwise have (would you be happy with a Cadburys mini roll, for eg?). Plus not a fan of things that mark kids out as Different at school (don't care what the teachers think, but kids can be cruel to other kids).

We have a sweets tin where things like this go, to be consumed at a later date. I find if things like rock, refresher bars, sherbet linger in there long enough, either DS forgets them or they go a bit manky and they can thrown out anyway...

Yes but I really don't think I am too controlling and I have lightened up a lot since becoming a parent . I don't really think that hard sweets and lollies are at all appropriate for this age of child though.

I would never tell the teacher that the dc were not to have sweets as this would obviously lead to their being left out and that would be horrible. I do think it is a good idea to put stuff away for 'later' and hope that it will be forgotten - we do do this. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I found a strangely stained white chocolate sheep in the fridge left over from Easter . I would have been happy for ds to have this but it had clearly been forgotten.

See I don't have a problem with sweets/cakes/chocolate but the idea of walking around sucking on a stick of sugar I'm not keen on especially not at 3.

Why do they need to walk around sucking it?

Just to be clear, lecce, I don't think you're too controlling and I'm with you on not letting 3yo eat rock.

Mind you, I don't understand how there are still Easter eggs in our house - if I'd remembered them I'd have scoffed them myself.....

If you don't want your DCs to eat sweets you have to keep off them yourself! It simply won't work if you ban them and you eat them when they are not around. DCs do as you do and not as you say.