School lunchbox police

[gertyglossop]

My 4 year old daughter came home from school today and informed me that Miss X, her teacher, doesn't like it when children have chocolate in their lunchbox. She was visibly worried about it.

I have been packing her a fun sized (2 inch) Milky Way bar every day this week (last week it was mini ginger bread men, and some other small treat the week before). She also takes a wholemeal sandwich, small packet of savoury snacks and a piece of fruit. She knows that she must eat the sandwich and fruit before she eats the treat.

AIBU to resent:

A. The implication that I, as the parent, am unable to make suitable food choices for my child?

B. The complaint being made to my 4 year old child, rather than to me?

Given what my daughter is coming home claiming she has eaten every day (also in Reception), I'm thinking of changing quickly to packed lunches.

On that basis alone OP, YANBU.

She seems to be having potatoes, bread, cake and the odd piece of cucumber.

YANBU I resent the implication that it's worse to offend the parents who pack lunchboxes with only crisps and sweets by sending them a letter or two or speaking to them victimising them with the scarlet letter M for moron, than it is to effectively state all parents are too irresponsible to make the choice to give their children a treat in their lunchbox. Regardless of whether a chocolate bar a day is ideal or not, schools should be educating, not doing the thinking for us.

gertyglossop - totally agree with you that treats should be part of a balanced diet. Doesn't necessarily have to mean a packet of haribo or chocolate buttons. My two often take in home made cake in their lunch box. My two take a mixture of school lunches and packed lunches depending on what is on the menu at school. However the school menu (although always having fruit and yoghurt as an option for pudding) nearly always has some form of cake/custard/cookie/ice cream for pudding.

Their packed lunch always consists of one of the following: sandwich, oatcakes, breadsticks with hummous/dip, some form for fruit, raw veg (peppers, cucumber, carrots, sugar snap peas, yoghurt and yes, a small treat. Not claiming to be the healthiest diet but I think we have a fairly balanced diet.

I think if you ban sweets etc for special occasions like the OP who only allowed them at Easter/Halloween then kids become so obsessed that they will gorge on them. I knew a mum once who never allowed her kids sweets so at parties they would stand, gorge themselves and invariably be sick afterwards.

They don't police lunchboxes at dds school. Dd went through a period of complaining that X has a jam sandwich, a packet of crisps, a medium sized chocolate bar and a sugary yogurt and Y has something similar. TBH I wish they did police the content. A bit. In moderation. Because it would be a lot less hard as I only let dd have one carb e.g. savoury biscuits, a packet of crisps, a cake or bread for the sandwich. She has far too much carb when she's at the childminder and she has regular treats at home, a sweetie allowance and plenty of carbs when we eat out. So this approach balances it all out.

She seems to be having potatoes, bread, cake and the odd piece of cucumber

Our school lunch menu is actually great and seems very healthy. I've seen and tried the meals myself (been in helping a couple of times) and it's actually decent food and tasty.

However, they have the typical food groups laid out - so some sort of meat or fish, a few carb options and a few veg options. And I quickly discovered that the dc could choose three things, but with no limit on what groups they came from.

Both of mine are good eaters but ds2 is a carb fiend and will choose carbs over anything else if given the chance. He started coming home from school telling me he'd had mashed potato, a spoonful of rice and plain pasta for lunch. Or a jacket potato, a handful of fries and some pasta. Bloody ridiculous that they allowed a 4 year old to choose that IMO. That's when we moved to packed lunches.

I think the biggest issue is that the teacher (assuming the child didn't get wires crossed) has seen fit to tell a class of four-year-olds that she doesn't like it when they have chocolate in their lunchboxes. That seems pretty irresponsible.

I also agree with the hypocrisy of schools giving a pudding every day but throwing up their hands in horror at a parent giving a mini chocolate bar.

Those of you judging the OP need to wind your necks in.

YANBU, OP.

I am going to use the mumsnet sigh...........There are no school lunchbox police, that is ridiculous emotive language that undermines what happens in a school and what middays do which is a pisspoor paid job which parents like you think is so bloody easy I am not a perfect parent and my DC's lunches aren't perfect but the years I have spent as a midday I have seen all kinds of crap in lunchboxes. They don't need it, school would be remiss to say they did as most schools have a specific policy to promote healthy eating. Save the treats for home and follow the school policy and support your school. As an aside, the puddings supplied with school dinners have very, very strict rules about sugar content in local authority schools. Many kids won't eat them as they don't find them sweet enough.

Just curious, how come she has a lunchbox aged 4 - are you not in the UK? Why would she not have the free school dinners misses point of thread entirely? Or do some schools allow people to bring food despite food being provided for free?

moomoo free school meals are in England only, not the UK.

I am utterly stunned that a Deputy Head has seen fit to start this thread. Why OP? Don't you deal with parents like you at work?

We have lunch box police at our school because of allergies.

No Nuts or Strawberrys allowed. I did apparently send strawberry blueberry actually jam sandwiches in by mistake, which they did remove and give DS a dinner instead.

I cant make our usual flapjacks because they have nuts in and no chocolate unless the factory is guaranteed nut free (never have found one yet). No strawberry muffins/sponge cakes or strawberry yo-yos/peelers or strawberry smoothies/cartons.

I'm suspicious that the school are saying its 'allergies' so parents don't complain about diet restrictions. If its a genuine nut allergy then the head needs to chuck her almond hand cream in the bin surely? That's happily sat on her desk

I don't know which bit of the strawberry is the allergen though. wanders off to google

Try a school meal moo

Then come back and ask why we have lunchboxes

I'd be interested to see the body shapes of all the people on here who are saying it's not healthy to have a small chocolate bar every day.

Having looked at cereal bars, they tend to have more calories in them than something like a Breakaway bar. And it's difficult to find a cereal bar without any nuts.

I don't think YABU. Teachers do not, for the most part, have nutritional training. They have as much or as little idea about what's healthy as most parents do. Some parents give their kids a can of coke and a bag of crisps for lunch. Because some parents have no idea, or don't care, every parent is treated as an idiot with no idea. In fact, parents are routinely treated like children themselves.

And you are also not YABU for the very good reason that kids who have school dinners have pudding!

School dinners are actually very nice in our county. We were invited in to try them. The quality and taste was good.

The portions sizes on the other hand...no worries about obese children with those...

There are no school lunchbox police, that is ridiculous emotive language that undermines what happens in a school and what middays dowhich is a pisspoor paid job which parents like you think is so bloody easy

I don't think anyone has commented on its easiness, and the pay has got nothing whatsoever to do with whether the policy is sound or not. That was an emotive comment.

As an aside, the puddings supplied with school dinners have very, very strict rules about sugar content in local authority school

Not in the schools my dc have attended. I went to a tasting for parents when a new caterer was brought in. Delicious 'sugar free' flapjacks. I was astonished at how nice they were and asked what they used instead of sugar. "Golden syrup", the woman announced proudly. The food at my ds' current primary is provided by the local pub. It's pretty nice but I wouldn't call it healthy...

Not read full thread but as a school gov and parent involved in testing school meals, the puddings are very low sugar, they don't even taste that sweet, and usually have a fruit element. It's not the same as a chocolate bar or other sugar laden unnecessary sweet. It's controlled very carefully and has to follow strict rules about sugar content.

We have a massive obesity issue in the UK, we have children of 6/7/8 having several teeth removed (yes, even in a middle class area with educate interested parents who don't realise how bad sugar is for kids), and a school which limits crap in lunch boxes is doing the next generation a huge favour. Take it on the chin as education yourself - Milky Way is a not a healthy option and plays no part in a healthy lunch.

How can any favour be being done?

So chocolate and sweets aren't allowed. There's still a shit ton of other stuff that is that's as bad if not worse that is allowed.

gertyglossop - I am very much with you.

We work on the basis there is no such thing as "treat food" and "good food". We eat everything in moderation, have a healthy diet but more importantly I have taught DD portion control. So if she's full she will stop eating whether it is sandwiches, vegetables, fruit or chocolate cake.

Packed lunches aren't allowed at my DD's school and I'm actually very pleased with their lunchtime menus.

When they do have packed lunches for special events/trips etc the only rule is "no nuts" which again I fully understand and support.

We have a massive obesity issue in the UK, we have children of 6/7/8 having several teeth removed (yes, even in a middle class area with educate interested parents who don't realise how bad sugar is for kids), and a school which limits crap in lunch boxes is doing the next generation a huge favour. Take it on the chin as education yourself - Milky Way is a not a healthy option and plays no part in a healthy lunch.

Wholeheartedly agree with this. It is very worrying. I can see my DC friends (7 yo) becoming overweight already, they are the ones we see given lots of chocolate/sugary crap when they come out of school. What chance do they have to fight obesity starting so young and becoming so accustomed to daily (or more) "treats".

Eolian, yes I see what you did there. Turned it around back on to me. Have you ever been a midday? Because when you get parents coming in complaining about things which haven't actually happened or a parent complaining about the fact that their four year old has been advised to leave their milky way alone and eat their sandwich that I middays don't get emotional or upset about that? Because at the end of the day you don't do it for the money.

www.gov.uk/school-meals-healthy-eating-standards. Schools should be supplying meals to these standards. I don't know about the ladies who supply golden syrup flapjack but there will be a recipe she has to stick to and a bollocking if she doesn't. Don't lecture me about what's in school dinners because i know what the standards are. And this is government policy. Free schools are different and Scotland has its own policies.

Strawberry is from the same allergy family as nuts, also kiwi.

Coconut however is usually not.

I bloody hate lunchboxes with a passion. At the school I work at, they have all these rules about what you can and can't have, and it does my head in. I wouldn't mind if this was a primary school, but the kids I'm teaching are 14/15/16 and I find it really patronising when the lunchbox monitors treat them like kids who don't know any better.

Spoiler alert: a biscuit each day as part of a balanced diet is not going to kill anyone.

Maybe schools should be supplying meals to those standards, but maybe lots of them aren't actually doing so. I wouldn't lecture anyone about the standards because I haven't the faintest idea what they are but will certainly look at your link. I know that the meals at my dd's secondary are excellent and the ones at my ds' primary aren't.
I don't envy anyone the job of midday supervisor - I expect it's a pretty thankless task. I don't have an issue with the midday supervisors or the teachers (I am one). I have an issue with the policies.

I just looked at the link, and clicked on the further link to the more detailed page about school food standards. Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see anything which limits the amount of sugar in cakes and puddings etc. It says they are only allowed to be served at lunch time and that they are not allowed to be chocolate-coated or contain 'confectionery' (like smarties or whatever, I presume). That doesn't prevent them from having shedloads of sugar in them though. Maybe some schools choose to go beyond those standards and really do cut out the sugary stuff, but I doubt they all do.