aibu to think the school can get fucked telling me what i can and can't put in packups

[InTheWhiteRoom]

ds is 8

he came home with a letter saying his pack up today was inappropriate. it was a very patronising letter "we promote healthy eating" and all that shit.... i can only assume this is because as I put a marshmallow in his pack up. a SINGLE marshmallow. along with his sandwich (cheese salad on granary) 2 bits of fruit and a yoghurt.

aibu to think I am the parent and I decide what goes in lunches?

jeez anyone would think his pack up was a can of coke and a packet of biscuits.

I'd send a letter in stating that you feel a healthy attitude to eating (ie sweet things in moderation) should be part of the 'healthy eating' they promote.

NICE guidelines released today say parents should NEVER give their kids sweets - moderation is not a word they have used.

gives the schools much more "ammunition" with it being a health expert recommendation

Duchess would you not consider the effects of too much sugar to be hurting kids? Just look at that junk food kids programme where the poor children were having their teeth pulled out.
For what it's worth I didn't take your post to mean you give your kids sweets everyday, I got that you were making a general statement. I meant to convey that parents decisions aren't always the right ones just based on the virtue of them being parents.

What? That's insane. Parenting is becoming ever more ridiculously regulated ffs. What NICE guidance is this?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11467745/Parents-should-ban-sweets-even-on-holidays.html

the thing is, if a school has the resources to weed out a stray marshmallow, they also have the resources to assess whether a student is being fed a massively unhealthy diet (e.g mars bar and jaffa cakes) which could indicate a serious problem/neglect.

It is perfectly possible to promote healthy eating without being so heavy handed, and to keep an eye on children who are possibly at risk.

Even when I was at school about a hundred years ago, it was against the rules to have sweets in school.
Yabu.
And when did it start being called a "pack up" Rather than "packed lunch"?

"pack-up" is a local term for packed lunch. Well it is round these parts.

"Packing up" is your packed lunch or tea. I remember my Nan doing this for my uncles when they were on shift work - using the waxed bread wrappers to put the sandwiches in. You can also use it as a verb, as in "Can you pack me up?"

I do think the school has a bit of a cheek considering some of the crap they serve up for school dinners (the same goes for the NHS actually. They go on about an obesity crisis but I'm shocked by some of the dinners they serve up - starch ridden, stodgy jam puddings and custard, the lot. None of their meals look particularly healthy but that's another topic).

I am so glad schools didn't police lunch boxes when I was a child otherwise I would have gone hungry. I used to have sandwiches (occasionally marmalade sandwiches, terrible I know ), a packet of crisps, jaffa cakes and biscuits. My lunch was incredibly unhealthy but I was the world's fussiest eater. I honestly don't know what I would have eaten if I was going to school now. Most of the kids had some form of treat in their lunch - yeah there were a few overweight kids but the majority were a normal weight. I wasn't anywhere near obese, I was very underweight and I was such a fussy eater I'd have probably gone without which wouldn't have helped my weight issue. So I do feel sorry for fussy eaters now who are having their lunch policed.

I do think it sends out the wrong message that treats are bad. Treats are fine in moderation and I think it's better to teach children this. I've known people who as teenagers and young adults never had treats in moderation and ended up binging on them because they've never been able to moderate their intake properly, if that makes sense. Bit of an extreme reaction but it does happen.

It does seem like an over-reaction, but you know how these things happen. The school has a rule of no sweets to stop kids bringing in bags of sweets in their lunch bags, but there are always people who think the rules don't apply to them or their children, and unfortunately, it might have been just the one marshmallow, but how would the dinner lady know that your DC hadn't scoffed the rest of the bag and they've just seen the last one.

Just pick your battles with the school and don't over-react yourself on this occasion. If the school has a no sweets policy, then respect it. Should have sent in a Tunnock's Teacake instead.

I do feel sorry for fussy eaters who are having their lunch box policed
Yes. I do agree.

trouble is moderation for sweets means every so often

not every single day...

a marshmallow every day, a chocolate Freddo every day, a bag of haribo every day - why? It is not a "treat" then - it is being used as a foodstuff, a pudding, a sweet end to a meal - why?

I think it sends out the right message myself - the message that sweets are not for lunch, keep "treats" for home...

what do you treat your kids with if they get stuff all the time?

Mmmm... marshmallows

I'm so glad we don't live in the UK.

DD has sensory issues, including a very limited diet and reduced appetite (because of meds). If I didn't give her sweet things to eat, she would eat literally nothing all day. When she gets stressed/upset, she doesn't eat anything at all, (sometimes for several days) so even a mouthful of chocolate would be a good thing.

I know that she is relatively unusual, but making a big fuss over food would just make her life even harder.

Oh dear my two always have a penguin/kit kat/club in their lunch bags, just as I did as a kid. The school don't allow sweets or fizzy drinks, which is fair enough. I asked my two if the dinner ladies check what they have in their lunch bags, they just looked at me like so that will be a no then

That article about nice (the most inappropriate acronym ever) saying kids should never have sweets ever, even as treats just shows how mad things are getting. A bag of sweets at the weekend is not going to do any harm and the children will really enjoy them. I am not against cutting back on sugar and junk food but we dont have to ban it. The obesity crisis is not caused by kids having a sensibly sized weekly treat.

I spend a lot of time on here thankful I don't send my kids to UK schools.

What i find depressing is two things. One, that schools must design rules that apply to the lowest common denominator to make them easy to enforce, meaning you end up with ridiculous and unnecessary rules. Second, that a school can unilaterally create and apply a rule with no input from parents or students, then ignore any feedback about that rule, and that parents should just suck it up or send their kids elsewhere.

Education systems don't have to work that way, and I'm glad I'm in an area where the education system doesn't.

When you say 'one marshmallow' do you mean 'one flump' cos those fuckers are big marshmallows.

Do they still do Flumps?

I LOVE the word flump. So satisfying to say.

If every post I ever saw from now on had the word 'flump' in it that would be just fine.

lertgush- not all UK schools are this way I can assure you. Perhaps your experience of UK schools is little limited.

They say pack up in Hull, where I used to live. Lovely Hull, sigh...
...

lertgush - I don't think anyone's said schools can or should ignore feedback about rules? Obviously they shouldn't.

Lunchbox guidelines are generally quietly supported by most parents - 'no sweets' = 'OK, fine, I'd rather save the Colin Caterpillars for bribes OUT of school anyway'.

If a critical mass of parents were waving pitchforks at the school re: their inalienable right to flump up their kids' packed lunches with essential marshmallowy goodness, then it would be reasonable to expect change.

But whilst telling schools to get fucked for disallowing confectionary in pack ups remains a fairly niche POV, they are going to continue with an easy to apply policy that the majority of parents cheerfully support.

About 15 years ago I did a week's work experience in a primary school in London to see if I wanted to train as a primary teacher. Nice school, but an area with lots of poverty and some pockets of drug abuse.Was put in with a very experienced and extremely capable reception teacher and her lovely TA.

They ran an after school cookery club out of their own money so that some of the kids would get a decent meal sometimes and also grow up knowing how to cook/what nutrition was.

Some of the mums in the class used to take in extra lunch for some of the other kids because kids would turn up with either no lunch or something totally unsuitable. Things like rice with a home-made tomato sauce with some oily fish broken up through it. These mums were just scraping by themselves financially but where trying to share nutritious food with other people's kids. they would also chip in ingredients for the after school cooking club, or come along to help.

I was a bit mystified til the teacher showed me one totally adorable little girl's lunch box. Half a honey and white bread sandwich with a carton of strawberry ribena. And she was one of the ones who actually had a lunch box with a couple of things in it. Heartbreaking, really heartbreaking. But what an amazing bunch of women doing their best to offset it too.

School eating policies and help should be about this kind of thing, not one fucking marshmallow ffs.