to think that children pestering adults for food is bad manners?

[vladthedisorganised]

Have posted about this on another thread but it is annoying me a bit.
DD and I walk home from school past a local park. It's a reasonable walk (we don't have a car) so when I go to collect her from school, I usually bring her something to eat on the way back.

There's a fair amount of children that come up to other parents asking for a snack, as well as their own. This gets awkward when we then see them again in the local park - many have been driven there while we've walked - and I'll be ambushed again by more children as we go past. The parents appear to bring something for their own children to eat, but this doesn't seem sufficient - particularly when other DCs are mooching the food in question.

What gets me is that I'm very firm with DD that she shouldn't be bugging other parents for food; but it is getting hard when she can see that no other parent seems to object to their DCs doing this. (Swapping is OK, though I'm considering curtailing this too) Other parents might possibly insist that their DC says thank you for the unreciprocated snack, but most tell their DCs to 'see if minivlad will share'.

AIBU to think that it's bad manners to pester for food? If I gave every child a snack that asked for one (or two or three or four) then I'd spend a bloody fortune - playdates are already really expensive with DCs demanding snacks all the time during the walk home!

I think many parents are confusing hunger with greed.

Couldn't agree more. DS isn't a natural snacker- he takes after me. We prefer 3 big meals a day. I have tried offering him snacks after school, just in case he needs them, but he declines when it's boring stuff like fruit or oatcakes, although mysteriously develops a hunger if he knows there are sweets or biscuits in the house .

The problem is when we have playdates with other families, who come laden down with bags of more exciting stuff, which they then press on him. "Come off it DS, you're not hungry!". "Oh, it's OK, let him have some..." and then I'm the tight arse for never bringing snacks!

The consequence of this is that he has developed an embarrassing habit of going to other peoples' houses and loudly announcing "I'm huuungry!" in the hopes that there might be juice or biscuits on offer. Bad enough when it's other parents, but I'm self employed and sometimes have to take him with me when I meet clients .

3 and a half hours later, 40 mins of which is PE and 45 mins of which is netball or hockey she is starving mum.

Slight massaging of the figures, maybe? Lunch break at 12, the reality is that children sit down to lunch around 12.15ish and finish 12.45ish - possibly later if they're eating a proper lunch. Home time 3-3.30 pm. That's more like 3 hours absolute maximum. And how many schools do both PE and netball or hockey every afternoon?

Children will claim to be starving when the reality is that they are mildly hungry and won't expire before they get home.

Maybe read my posts ici, I've said it all above.

She has lunch at 1230
She has PE twice a week for 40 mins each and swimming once a week.
She also has 3 afterschool sports clubs per week.
She finishes school at 3:15, or between 4 and 4:15 if it's a sports club day.

No massaging (except for DDs calf muscles) needed.

stubborn
You eat "three big meals a day"
Couldn't that be construed as greedy too?
No wonder you don't need to snack...
We don't all work like that.
It really is okay to graze.

I'm not a fan of snacking, used to bring an apple when DC was 4, no longer. I have always stopped the food begging, it only ever happened when some parents brought bags of chocolate or crisps and I do think it is rude. I actually get annoyed at the parents who bring huge amounts of junk food and hand them out to other children.

My kids were starving and thirsty after school. I'd usually bring a snack and drink. We never got pestered by other kids though. If she gets pestered for her snack in the park and you have to walk to the park then I'd get her to munch her snack a bit more rapidly so she's eaten it by then if the park is far enough away for some parents to drive to, or give her a banana or something or just say no.
Kids don't "need" a snack on the way home but if they'd like one and it doesn't stop them eating their dinner and they aren't obese I don't see the problem.
If it regularly led to cadging behaviour from other kids I'd give them something nonsharing or tell them to eat it before or after the park.

In thinking this over some more, I never had a snack on the way home from school. The walk was about a mile. Very occasionally in the early years my mother would buy us an ice cream (and she bought them for our friends as well, because she was like that). But otherwise? No. And as far as I remember, absolutely no one else did either. By the time I was six, I was walking home by myself so the snack issue was moot. I expect nowadays my mother would be seen as a terribly lax parent for allowing me to walk home alone.

Snacking has most definitely increased in the intervening years. I don't think that is even a question. Increased snacking and a sedentary lifestyle are probably factors in the obesity problem. That doesn't mean that everyone who gives snacks to their child on the way home from school is setting up that child for a life of obesity, of course. But eating habits have certainly changed in recent decades.

Does anybody else have the 'Finger of Fudge' ad from the 70s in their head now?

Mrs D, I guess it may have sounded patronising, so sorry. But to use the words Hunger or Starving do sound pretty extreme and offensive to me.
The DC in people's posts are craving snacks.

It is up to each parent to make a choice, but to want to justify it with the reasoning that they must have it because of their "hunger" just feels odd to me. Walking along eating everyday just feels weird, occasional treats not a problem but I just can't understand why it is necessary to go armed with snacks every day because of a perception that the DC need it.

Yes! I had forgotten that.

& a Mars a day helps you work rest and play!

The people who think that no eating of crap went on in previous generations - I went to school in late 70s / early 80s and it was all sweeties and chocolate bars and sodastreams and cans of fizzy drink and just shedloads of shit. My dad used to put sugar in our coke and we would all admire the "extra fizz"!!!!

If anything many people - with money and inclination - have better diets than in the 70s / 80s - what has definitely changed is the amount of exercise everyone has as standard in their normal day. There used to be much more stuff you just had to do - far less escalators, at work I used to have to lug great files of paperwork around which is now all computerised, many more people have cars & etc. Things are easier, lighter than they used to be.

A 4yo having an apple after school is not what is fuelling the obesity epidemic in the UK is it. It's a toxic combination of less unavoidable exercise built into our daily lives, highly successful and to my mind extremely dubious practices from the food & drink industry, less families with someone who has X hours to cook every day to make a cheap cut of meat palatable for dinner, and a fair amount of poverty.

What word would you like to see people in the UK use, to mean that their tummy is rumbling / telling them that it's time for some food, Silverbirch?

Instead of "hungry"?

feminine

Yes, I am DEFINITELY greedy! (and unfeminine too, obviously-should definitely have an appetite like a bird, shouldn't I?)- especially at the moment, being heavily pregnant.

However, DS isn't. He stops when he's full. And the point that I was making is that the assumption of other adults that he needs to snack is turning him into a bit of a food scrounger. I also find it irritating because "normal" meals are generally more nutritionally varied than snacks- ie, if a child is full of crackers, then they are less likely to finish their dinner, which has more chance of containing vegetables, protein etc.

I can also see your point stubborn

I have a friend who silencesher kids with food.
I have seen that works until they are around eight.
All the delayed parenting she should have thought about comes to a head.

But, for her, that is a coping mechanism.
I'm sure l do other 'wrong' things too.

I just wouldn't use food.

particularly baguettes

whirlpool they did - earlier on

Hungry is fine, Hunger is a different term. Fancying a snack is actually the correct description; if their tummy's are empty and rumbling at 3.15, their lunches were insufficient.

Don't forget MilkyWay Whirlpool "the sweet you CAN eat between meals, without ruining your appetite" .

I agree with everything else you said too. I was pleasantly surprised when DD went to her new school - a dedicated PE TA, sports teams, weekly swimming and a MASSIVE playing field to run around in. Such a difference to her previous school.

Sports/fitness is very important to our family and I'm overjoyed that DD can grow up with it 'normalised'. That's why I couldn't give a shiny shite if she snacks. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it continues next year once she gets to high school...

Got 3 kids and never had this, if kids are playing with friends i will normally give them all a pack of crisps, an icepop or some fruit each or a punnet of fruit and tell them to share it but the kids have never knocked and asked for food, other parents do the same, if there are 3 kids, 3 snacks/treats are given out.

If anyone of the kids asked me for food without it being offered i would be a bit

But a quick search tells me that no-one has said "they need it to get them home" apart from Toby

And 2 people have used the word "hunger" on the thread, and the one that seemed to prompt silver's comments (as it came just before it) was someong saying that children who like a snack after school are greedy bastards, so on the same side of the conversation. The only other one was a person who posted about 15 hours before that, so I assume it can't have been a bealted response, if so a quote would have been useful.

I think it far more likely that people are thinking they've read things they haven't read, in order to fuel their indignation.

i always called into the shop every night on the way back from primary school and got a mix up, a quarter of sweets or a bag of cinder toffee, then went home and ate all my tea then had an ice cream when the van came round, never been overweight because i was always playing out as a kid for hours, straight out after tea and She-Ra then in when the street lamps came on. Work in a takeaway and eat crap every other night, kebab butties, chip butties etc but i walk the kids to the park and don't drive so must burn it off

Our school unfortunately has no grounds at all, just a small playground, but for the ones who can walk it is all lovely walks home. I think we're very lucky. My main criteria when looking at primaries was that I wanted one they could walk to, that was what I did and it felt like something I wanted for them too. Part of this idea of non-avoidable exercise being a great thing really.

She-ra!

Nice one :D

The other thing that has changed is that children's tv at the weekend, you used to get a couple of hours in the morning and then it'd be all sodding horse racing or something for hours. I seem to remember grand prix type racing being on all the time as well. And snooker. And really crap old war films.

Anyway so we would go out and do something less boring instead

kids tv is 24/7 now and with a range of choices. That must have made a difference.

DS1 is often "starving" after school. He is offered fruit or bread and butter - if he's actually hungry, then he'll take those. If he's after sweets or chocolate or biscuits, then tough turkey.

I think it far more likely that people are thinking they've read things they haven't read, in order to fuel their indignation.

Possibly, but I think "other" people may also be guilty of this eh Whirl?