Lunchbox suspension..

[JunoMacGuff]

here

It's from a DM article apparently though I refuse to investigate that.

A school have really suspended a child based on his parents actions? And those actions were to give him mini cheddars?

Fucking lunacy.

They'd hate me. Dd has crisps every day!

I read about this. It sounds as if the child isn't having very healthy packed lunches at all - no fruit, for starters - but ultimately it's just more of the Lunchbox Police and it has to stop. By all accounts the school was placed in SM not so long ago and I suspect they are now getting draconian about everything just for the hell of it.

Yep, me too.......DS's lunch box would get us expelled for good. God forbid he sometimes has cheddars and crisps!

Have you seen the lunchbox? Dairylea processed rubbish, mini cheddars, a choob and a banana. The school have a point.

If they have a healthy eating policy they probably want to enforce it. Poor kid.

I bet there's a whole lot more to that story to be honest.

But I do agree that the policing of lunch boxes is ridiculous and aside from flagging up any obvious concerns, like a child being sent with two mars bars and a red bull, schools should just keep well out of what parents choose to feed their own children.

Sometimes I pack fruit. Sometimes I don't. She has a very healthy overall diet and eats plenty of fruit and veg at other times, including a piece of fruit at break time. So I pack a lunch that's enjoyable and easy for her to eat (she struggles to eat as fast as her friends) and luckily she attends a school that doesn't get all get up over lunches. Only rule is no chocolate bars or fizzy drinks, but they're fine with the choc chip oat bars I pack.

That is so not the full story.

I don't like fruit. Never have, never will. I don't like a lot of vegetables either. There were lots of things I wouldn't eat (some of which made me physically sick, like cooked cheese or eggs) so I couldn't have school dinners. My lunchbox would have got me expelled, let along suspended. But guess what? My last medical says I am very healthy, I am not and never have been overweight.

Am sorry, I don't believe the state has any right to tell parents what their children can and can't eat. I'd have starved if these stupid rules were in place when I was little.

That's probably a staged picture for the story so I'm afraid I wonder just how bad it really is.

I always out fruit, a yoghurt, etc etc in DS;s lunch box and every day he brings it home with the apple and yogurt still intact. Why do I persist in putting it in???? To stop people having to hoik their judgy pants up too high.

I read the story in the paper - the health authorities said the kid in question was getting a healthy balanced diet. It's a total over-reaction, another example of our ever growing nanny state!

In my early days on MN I got a mention in the Roundup, for suggesting using plastic fruit in lunch boxes - it would keep the casual lunch box police observer happy, and unlike real fruit, won't get bruised and manly after a few days of travelling to and from school in the lunch box - so it is economically sensible too!

Ooh, get you with your manly fruit, SDTG...

Agree Betty, my son has fresh fruit and chopped veg (carrots, pepper, cucumber etc.) as part of his packed lunch and everyday they come home uneaten because basically he wants to go out and play rather than eat. Not once has the school made him sit and eat them.

Last year I let him take a piece of birthday cake in on his birthday alongside his normal lunch and they stopped him having it saying 'you can eat that at home'. I was more than a little cross at the hypocrisy.

I also put fruit and carrot sticks in everyday knowing my ds won't eat them but I don't want the school to judge! He eats these things at home because I am there to nag him to!

Exactly - DS eats fruit, chopped veg, yoghurt etc etc at home because he isn't on a time limit...at school he just wants to eat the "good" stuff and then go and play with his mates - they only get 30 mins for lunch as it is. If I leave the crisps out it makes no difference and he still doesn't eat his fruit.

load of old bollocks. schools are there to provide an excellent education not nosing into lunch boxes, or not to this extent anyway.

mind you think there is more to this than meets the eye.

Actually, in one article I read about this there was a letter from the school to the parents outlining the suspension. That letter alluded to rudeness and aggression on the father's part.

I fear there is much much more to that story...

Ds loves bananas but I've given up putting them in his lunch box as they always come back as mush, mainly due to the fact he's in a rush or get outside and play. Having said that I doubt very much this child has been suspended purely on the basis of a pack of mini cheddars.

I give DS dairylea Dunkers, yoghurt tubes, babybel, etc. it's not bad food.

Schools should not be policing lunch boxes that are made up of what is marketed as kids lunchbox food.

Fair enough if it's two mars bars and a red bull like remote said, but this is standard kids fayre.

Yep, I put fruit in every day too to avoid the judging, never gets eaten - I send in raisins now so fresh stuff doesn't get wasted - the same box goes back and forth every day but I've ticked the fruit box so that seems to be fine. Doesn't matter that DD isn't eating it, it's presence seems to be enough

Fortunately though, our school is a bit more relaxed. Just chocolate bars and fizzy drinks are actually banned outright

Oh yes and I will agree that he doesn't eat the fruit we give him, ever (unless it's grapes, then sometimes).

It comes home mushed. So instead, he gets the same bit of fruit I didn't bother putting in the lunch box when he gets home.

None of the schools business.

Ohhh buggerlumps - I didn't spot that autocorrect. . Manly should have been manky. Bloody picky iPad!

I love the hypocrisy of some folks-when the government (via health professionals) tells us that breastfeeding is best/weaning before 6 months could be harmful/don't smoke in cars/children shouldn't eat crap etc, we tell them to butt out, we don't want a nanny state etc..

Yet, when we're not allowed to take our kids out of school we want the government to suddenly become involved in getting holiday companies to drop their prices. Can't have it both ways.

Unfortunately some parents aren't the best judge on what's best for their kids, and the kid in the article needs someone to intervene to stop his parents feeding him processed shit.

It's not the lunchbox contents, it's the subsequent behaviour of the parents.

Anyone find it strange that school dinners in 'Healthy Schools' have puddings when lunch boxes can't!

sibling first of all, the holidays nonsense is one of the most ludicrous campaigns I've seen in a while. Total idiotic bullshit.

There's nothing wrong with being fed 'processed shit' now and again. Mini cheddars, whilst not exactly a broccoli floret, aren't crack. They are perfectly fine for a lunchbox.