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 think they need generalised rules, not for people like you, but for those who do only send in packs of crisps and sweets.

It makes my blood boil however when the teacher then gives out a bag of chocolate coins to the best table of the week. Or the school dinner involves pizza and chocolate pudding.

I got told off once by a TA for not giving my pre-school dc a "treat" in her lunchbox. Everyone else got a treat apparently. I didn't because mine could live off dust and one small treat would be all she ate.

I'm in full agreement that school meals are shit, & it's possible to offer a far healthier pack up. It's why my elder two have pack ups (Yorkshire - common parlance here ) & dh & I have argued bitterly about the youngest having the Cleggslop.

However.

Sheep or no sheep, you can decide all you like about what goes into the lunchbox. School can then, if they decide to, check the lunchbox, remove items that they don't agree should be eaten at school, & return them to you, to feed to your dc outside of school hours.

There are solid reasons for this, & if you choose to send your child to school, you need to understand that school can & will exercise their right to take things off your child if they feel it necessary.

You can decide to HE, you can engage the school with argument that their policies are unreasonable, but you can't just tell them to fuck off.

They'll just make a quiet judgment that Johnny in 1R's mum is clearly a live one, disseminate that unofficially amongst the staff so that they know to watch out for your next kickoff, & continue to enforce their policy of sticking your dc's marshmallow in a bag for you to collect until you get bored with giving them grief over it.

I think I'd be the reasonable one in this case. I think one marshmallow in a lunchbox with the other foods you described is reasonable and I'd be happy to instruct the school to stay out of my child's lunchbox. If they had a problem they could take it up with me.

You can't 'instruct the school to stay out of my child's lunchbox'.

well, you can, but they don't have to take any notice.

It is crackers ( pardon the pun!) I can't see how it is the business of the school to police lunch boxes! My kids sometimes have pack up and, shock horror!!!, I occasionally put in a small cake bar. Fortunately their school are obviously more relaxed about this and the only policy I've seen regarding pack up is no nuts. This sound like 1984!!!

I'd be interested to know what the legal position is on this.

My friend teaches in a school where they're delighted if a child arrives with a jam sandwich because they actually have some lunch. Poverty stricken area with not all parents qualifying quite for fsm or understanding how to claim (lack of read English inspire of first language) so at 8 (juniors?) when the standard fam for all ends they have children without food past the milk and fruit
She takes in rice cakes and passes them around
The school she used to work at had lunch box police and the contrast is stark

Sheep or no sheep, you can decide all you like about what goes into the lunchbox. School can then, if they decide to, check the lunchbox, remove items that they don't agree should be eaten at school, & return them to you, to feed to your dc outside of school hours

Actually where I live the school cannot and does not remove food from a child's lunchbox.

Oh, I can.

And I can't see anyone deciding one marshmallow from time to time (among other perfectly healthy food) is worth the hassle. And if they do, then their priorities are way off. And I'd be happy to have that conversation. Every time.

Cant believe that, its actually crazy! Fair enough if you were sending them in with pizza chips and crisps every single day, but one marsh mellow? Id write a letter of complaint stating that a 'balanced diet' is considered a healthy diet, and one marshmellow amoungst an otherwise healthy pack up constitutes a balanced diet. What arseholes!

Plus what if your child was diabetic or a celiac etc, would they then decide to tell you what they can and cant eat, are they bloody qualified nutritionalists now??

YANBU. Food fascism in school really pisses me off. It is indeed patronising and probably ineffectual.

I chose not to send one of my dds to a school, partly because they are not allowed to have cakes ever. Not for birthdays, no cake sales. Apparently they have a plastic fucking birthday cake. I wonder whose job it was to sit down and work out how best to suck the joy and fun out of life?! It's pathetic.

I have another child at a boarding school and once a week they have 'bun day'. I don't think I've ever seen an overweight child at that school. Children are overweight because of how they are parented generally and ridiculous school policies will never change it...

Sorry this is a pet hate of mine, you can probably tell.

It's all a bit bizarre. Ours are allowed chocolate muffins but not chocolate biscuits. They can take in biscuits with no chocolate. School dinners however, can serve chocolate biscuits and teachers can hand out chocolates whenever they like. But it would be a crime for a dc to take in a chocolate. Unless it were there birthday and then it's ok to take in 30 packets of sweets to hand out.

School dinners are a hot topic for me at the moment-I'm a school governor and we're looking at alternative suppliers to try to improve the standard in our school, which is not good (my children have packed lunches because the hot dinners are so unhealthy and unappetising).

I do agree, however, that on this issue schools can't apply common sense and have to have a 'one size fits all' policy (in the absence of doctor/dietician advice for individuals with issues).

This post is full of indignant folk with apparently 'skinny' kids. Good for you if this is the case. I guess the moms of fat kids or those who've had teeth filled or pulled aren't on Mumsnet these days. My experience in the school I work in and the other one my children go to is that lots of parents are in denial about weight/dental problems, and these are often the most defensive and least likely to listen to any advice without feeling attacked and wanting to man the barricades for it.

I get that some of you are passionate about what your children eat, but channel it in a more useful way. Instead of encouraging one another to tell teachers and heads (the very professionals you trust with educating and safeguarding your children) what they can do with their (well intentioned if at times misguided) advice, how about joining with other parents to raise the standard of the alternative on offer. Just because a crap school dinner includes a piece of chocolate cake, don't stoop to that level as tit-for-tat. Raise the standard for everyone, don't sink to the lowest common denominator.

Incidentally, sibling, while you're here, is it a condition at the school you teach at that students and parents must acquiesce to teachers inspecting and confiscating or refusing to allow certain foods? How enforceable is it?

Not a condition at my schools, no. I also couldn't tell you the legal position (although our midday supervisors have this week been told that they are not allowed to with old pudding for children they feel haven't eaten enough, as this can cause issues and a parent/the council have paid for it, so that may infer that schools can't confiscate permanently).

What schools can do, however, is ask you to collect your child after morning session and return them for afternoon, as they don't have to provide you with somewhere to eat lunch, so they might force this issue if parents didn't comply with a reasonable request (and no sweets in a lunch box is a reasonable request IMO). This would be if communication was completely broken down though and no compromise could be reached.

Marshmallow is just pure refined sugar. I don't think refined sugar has any place in a healthy diet tbh. I'd send in a date or dried fig.

Pure white and deadly. If the sugar / proccesed foods industry wasn't so powerful health advice would be very different.

Id send a note back explaining what healthy eating is - everything in moderation.

I think it's absolutely fine (in fact, it's lovely) that sweets/chocolate/cake is given out by teachers as a thank you for good behaviour, or it's someone's birthday. This reinforces that these things are a treat, and there's an element of celebration about it.

The problem that my generation has is we have been led to believe that we shouldn't let out children view any food as a treat, in case they crave it all the time (the poor kid who goes mad at the party because they're never allowed sweets). This has backfired in that we don't deny ourselves or our children anything anymore, and believe everything in moderation is fine. Lunch should be tasty, filling & nutritious but shouldn't involve sweets (or pudding). Sandwich/veg or salad or fruit/piece of cheese for example. Not crisps, not sweets, not biscuits.

This then allows sweets to be given at a more considered time, when they can be appreciated rather than wolfed down before going out to play.

What's 'moderation' though? Do we really know and apply this with our kids?

If the OP's child has a marshmallow at lunch, would she really stop him anything else as a treat for the rest if that day? No little pack of haribo for friends birthday, no pudding after tea, or sweet biscuit coming back from school? This is what enforcing moderation would be. But I suspect a mom who likes to give a treat in the lunchbox is the kind of caring mom who would also like to treat them later, with a biscuit/cake/ice cream etc. when the child is with her. Therefore, we no longer do moderation if sweets form part of a lunch on some random day, for no reason.

Yanbu I thought you were going to say you'd but in a Mars bar and a can of coke.

Whats with all the aggro about he use of the words 'pack up'. I'm in Yorkshire and thats what they call it here too. Never occured to me to be annoyed about a regional variation in language. Weird.

Op YANBU to be annoyed abou being lectured for putting in a marshmallow. YABU to get so angry about it you say school can 'get fucked'.

I'm pretty much at the school lunches on offer at dd school. She would never eat such unhealthy food at home. And cooks sugary puddings on offer everyday....

I think a marshmallow in comparison to some of the menus I've seen is pretty harmless.