To hate my pre-teen (12yo) right now?

[t33jay]

Having checked Parent Pay Transaction History we've realised he has been stealing money (sums approx £500) from us, then using the money to top up his cashless account in school via the machine. Sometimes in cornershops to buy sweets, but mostly to buy school dinners.

He is on packed lunch as we have told the school that he is on organic diet only to find out that he has been given a 'canteen access card' in school and this is what he has been using to buy ridiculous amount of food. He does not have the fingerprint access, hence the access card.

So gets his meals at home + snacks & pudding + packed lunch AND gets sweets + at least £10 worth of food from the canteen ON MOST DAYS!!!

Surely the schools should put a limit on the amount a child can spend on a day!?!!!!!!!

I have a meeting with the headmaster tomorrow. Give me more ammos, am going there all guns blazing!!!!

To say that I am livid is an understatement.

Thinkbefore - it may be that the OP has allowed lots of junk food, or it may be that, like my mother, she has allowed almost none, and controlled what was allowed - both could cause the sort of junk food bingeing that her son is showing at the moment. For me, it was having stuff so tightly controlled that made me lose all control when I finally did start deciding my own diet.

I don't understand how this works - surely children are not able to run up any amount of credit on lunches with pre-approval from a parent? Aren't you expected to put some money up front or set a limit or something?

My DCs went to a private school and the lunch was just included in the fees so I have no idea about this.

You have two different DSs
One possibly takes after DF, the elder, you married DH so, naturally we can assume, you like and accept that temperament.
Second one takes after you - stubborn? short fatter build? perhaps he has traits you dislike in yourself?

Give him a break. You need to find some things in his character or looks to love and admire.

My mother tried endlessly to control my diet because she is short and very overweight as was terrified that I'd go the same way. Guess what? I did. I was a size 22 binge eater by the time I was 17 and I've struggled with bulimia, self harming and instrusive, self loathing thoughts my whole life.

My brother is also overweight.

It sounds like on top of your controlling ways, you actually don't like him very much and if you've written him off as a troublemaker already, it's likely to be a self fulfilling prophecy.

My kids dinner cards can be topped up online using a debit/credit card or via a machine in the school using cash. They need a credit on the card so they can then spend it in the canteen. Sounds like OPs son has taken cash and then topped his card up in school using the machine and then has been spending it

LordoftheTits - my heart goes out to you - every word you wrote resonated with me - the only difference being that my mum didn't control food because she was worried about my weight (indeed, when I asked if I could go on a diet, because I knew I needed to lose some weight, she refused).

But I know the damage you are suffering, and if I can help, please PM me.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the organic lunches seem, to me, to be an example of pointless meddling

^^ This weight is about calories in and out - though it's massively more complex that that in RL obviously. Looking at sugar empty calories would make sense - looking at fats in the diet would in an adult diet be first step.

At 12 surely you need to be empowering the child to make good choices not imposing odd restrictions.

The stealing is very worrying - and I would be very concerned and worried the behaviour and the child doing it.

Surely unless you son has particular dietary issues he of course should be able to have the same lunches as his brother? Maybe he's being made fun of for his organic packed lunches (exactly the kind of thing kids will pick on)?

Obviously it needs to be addressed but I agree with the posters saying that you should find out where that much money is going and why - there could well be an underlying problem of bullying/friend buying/food issues. Also why he is stealing? It's all very well disciplining him for it (which doesn't seem to be working anyway) but there will be a reason he's doing it. To get your attention? A call for help of some sort? I'm sorry, I don't mean to cast aspersions on your family. It just sounds to me that he could be troubled.

And really - you "hate him right now"? Angry - of course. Worried - yes. Hate seems rather disturbing, IMHO. Sorry.

How can you get picked on for "organic packed lunches"?! Organic just denotes quality, so a ham sandwich and an apple could fit the bill, but the ham will not be pumped full of hormones and antibiotics,,and the bread and apple would just be pesticide free.

You cannot really "spot an organic lunch" as such?

What do people think eating organic means? Joining some kind of cult?!

If everyone else has a school meal then of course he will stand out however high quality his 'organic' packed lunch is!

I read recently probably on mumsnet! that 'organic' isn't necessarily the kindest way for animals to be reared. Because of strict guidelines they can't receive sometimes necessary medications (such as antibiotics) and so animals can suffer needlessly.

Please, please don't treat your children differently about food. My mother did this, I was chunky and constantly encouraged to diet, while my skinny little sis was fed special full fat milk and encouraged to build herself up. Left me with lifelong eating disorder. For gods sake think about what you are doing to your children psychologically.

At secondary I wasn't allowed school lunches - which I did understand money tight for my parents.

However all my friends had school lunches - or were in an earlier sitting. I couldn't swap sittings so was left alone in the line which got me badly picked on by a few bullies rest of time I rarely encountered - was really hard to find somewhere to sit and hated eating and feeling alone if I ended up on table by myself all ways at risk of attracting trouble. Some of that was things being spilt over me, hard accidental knocks name calling or just making a loud and huge point I was by myself. I wasn't very confident but even if I had been I think it would have impacted on me.

Lunchtime eating became an unpleasant experience and I stopped - threw the food away most days which would have really upset my parents if they had found out.

I did try again when one of my old friends started a club and swapped sitting but she had new friends and had became a rabid vegetarian and she couldn't stop lecturing me about having meat in my sandwiches and finding fault with an process sweets my mother packed - I had no input or control on what was in the lunches.

Later on another friend had food issues and wouldn't eat lunch and my option was to go in by myself and find her later and deal with her upset at being left. Usually I didn't eat.

So IME can make lunches but actually ensuring the food and only that food is eaten is beyond most parents power.

When my children have asked for lunches it hasn't always been possible to accommodate - been lucky that they can pick certain days of the weeks - so would try and offer a few days when couldn't do whole week so they were with friends some of the time.

So if the organic lunches are separating him form his friends - that wouldn't be an excuse for the stealing but could point to an explanation and a wider problem.

The organic thing has already been discussed. It's not lower in calories. It is not pumped with hormones/pesticides. Extra weight causes our bodies to create an excess of the female hormone oestrogen anyway and eating organic may then potentially help to offset this but I would have thought only little. Processed food is often unhealthy because of the high content of sugar, poor quality salt and poor quality fats. It is not necessary to eat organic food to be pretty healthy and have a safe bmi. I think the most important thing is to eat a lot of fresh veg and yes, organic is decidedly best for certain veg and all meat. Op I do think you could do with some dietary advice. I said up thread certain medical doctors think Paleo is best. Someone advised seeing a dietician.

bread and apple would just be pesticide free.

Hmm organic farmers do use pesticides - just a more restricted list.

www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-great-organic-myths-why-organic-foods-are-an-indulgence-the-world-cant-afford-818585.html

Myth three: Organic farming doesn't use pesticides

Food scares are always good news for the organic food industry. The Soil Association and other organic farming trade groups say conventional food must be unhealthy because farmers use pesticides. Actually, organic farmers also use pesticides. The difference is that "organic" pesticides are so dangerous that they have been "grandfathered" with current regulations and do not have to pass stringent modern safety tests.

For example, organic farmers can treat fungal diseases with copper solutions. Unlike modern, biodegradable, pesticides copper stays toxic in the soil for ever. The organic insecticide rotenone (in derris) is highly neurotoxic to humans – exposure can cause Parkinson's disease. But none of these "natural" chemicals is a reason not to buy organic food; nor are the man-made chemicals used in conventional farming.

www.organicfarmers.org.uk/about-organics/faqs/
Q. Can organic farmers use pesticides and other chemicals?

A. Only a limited list of carefully selected pesticides are approved for use in organic farming, where there are no natural or system-based alternatives, and then as a last resort. Organic farmers do not use herbicides, instead they rely on crop rotation, well-timed cultivation, hand or mechanical weeding and carefully selecting crop varieties.

There are studies showing organic food is better and others showing no difference - though personally I suspect it's often fresher having shorter supply chains that supermarkets which can be ridiculously long for some products.

I think you have to research your products with organic if you have the money rather than assume organic is always superior.

Gryla cross posted. I've learnt something about copper hadn't come across it. Will look into it. Thx for the info.

dementedpixie Ah, i understand now, thanks. I didn't realise you could put cash in a machine to top the card up, I'd have thought if you were using cash you'd just pay for the food directly with cash. Confusing!

So he's actually been taking money from the parents' wallets to put credit on the card.

I get the sense here that OP has some rather paranoid views of the world - non- organic food being toxic, the refusal to allow her son to be fingerprinted, the accusations that the school has deliberately ignored her instructions - and these are marking out the poor kid as "weird" at school. I wonder if he is allowed to watch TV at home?

The OP's sums don't add up, as ForTheSakeOfFuck spotted a while ago.

£500 over 7 months - just counting the school days - is well below a fiver a day, not the well over £10 that the OP claims.

I am so dissapointed op wasnt a trol and that people who treat their children well one child in this case, with such disdain.

I was and still am treated very differently by my mother. All attempts to be treated equally to my sibling have been met with disdain, disgust and disbelief "I always treated you kids exactly the same" being the mildest comment (I'm mid 40's but still a kid mmmm).
The difference with op and my mother is that she has listened. She did realise what she said was out of order. I suspect she is too scared to come back and talk and maybe is just reading the threads. It is a real shame because I would really like to talk to her and help. If I can spare just one child the misery I went through and still am, my life will have meant so much.

Re the diet I think there are a couple of things to remember here:

when people say organic diet is "better" they mean in terms of fewer additives, less pesticides/antiobiotics, environmental and (to some extent animal welfare factors): it has nothing at all to do with weight loss and therefore would be no reason to make the overweight boy stick to this diet and let his older brother off- unless the OP cares less about the general health of her older ds and doesn't mind what he does to the environment! From this pov keeping the younger boy on an organic diet seems merely punitive

things like paleo diets are generally designed with a view to middle aged (and possibly middle class) people whose digestions struggle to cope with a sedentary lifestyle. But at his age, this boy should not be having a sedentary lifestyle: he should be physically active and able to burn off school dinners and still need massive amounts of refuelling in the afternoon and evening.

also, while "paleo diet" or "organic diet" or the like may convey a certain amount of cache in the office or at a meeting of middle aged mums, it is hardly going to add to his street cred at school: his friends will ask what he is eating and why, and it will be difficult for him to explain.

cory you do have a point there. I doubt that ops son would agree to do all Paleo anyway. I was also assuming he isn't a very active person and quite sedentary and having a "middle aged" lifestyle. Carb unless burnt off makes you feel very sluggish but I get your point about street Cred when he is with his mates. I wouldn't have suggested it if op had indicated he was doing all sorts of sports and I wasn't expecting him to adhere to it at school for example - more of a thing at home but I get I wasn't clear on that one. I do think that he may benefit from joining some sort of group if he doesn't already maybe martial arts perhaps if he would agree - a self confidence thing.... op are you reading this?