Not to give DC a snack on way home from school?

[chainedtothedesk]

Quite happy to let them snack once we are home but my DD (9) has asked that I arrive at school gates to collect her with a snack. She's noticed other parents arrive with a snack and says she's hungry too at the end of the school day (often doesn't eat the fruit I give her for morning break though!) And doesnt want to wait the 15-20 min it takes to get her home. I suspect hunger doesn't come into it , she's just hoping she is more likely to get a bag of crisps or similar, rather than toast, if they eat on the way home rather than once we get there.
Today we saw a family eating a chocolate bar and small pother of Pringles on the way home which prompted the question (though not for the first time)
AIBU to make my DC just wait a little until they get home and suggest that they have something a bit healthier than chocolate and crisps?

Just get a healthy snack, no biggie! I tend to take a snack for mine when I pick her up but it is usually healthy enough and it's also because we may not go straight home! But if I forget she goes without until we get home! No stress :)
As for ppl saying constant snacking is bad, actually it is probably closer to the 'natural way' of eating: small but frequent meals are believed to be healthier! As long as the snacks/meals are healthy of course but same to big meals/no snacks!

If she hasn't eaten the fruit from her morning snack, that can be her afternoon snack!

I think there is a lot of peer pressure re certain brands or types of snack, and they aren't very healthy. We do sometimes have Nakd bars if DD is hungry on her way home from nursery but I'm trying to stick with fruit (not dried fruit, which has a much higher sugar content) and veg for the most part.

Sometimes I do bring dried apricots as we are vegetarian and they are a good source of iron.

But we pass lots of other kids having branded snacks and there are always 'mummy, mummy, please can I have xxxx' requests.

Carrot sticks in a jar of water (so they stay crunchy) are quite a good one. Cherry tomatoes also a hit here.

DS had school lunches and by the time he was 8/9, the portions were only just adequate to get him from 12-3! Especially if he'd played football or something in PE straight after lunch. He rarely ate the puddings either unless they were cheese and biscuits. He also gets unbearable if hungry, has done since tiny (same as his father) so everyone's life is much nicer if he was met with a snack - cheese, sometimes peperami, grapes, oatcakes, etc. I don't get the angst.

Snacking per se isn't bad - it's what you snack on that makes it unhealthy!

There is plenty of research to suggest that for many people a healthy grazing approach is better than 3 meals a day. DS seems to be one of those people, DD isn't! Both are tall, heathy weights and fit, with perfect teeth. Works for them.

My DC can't wait the 45 minutes it takes to walk home. One has a tuna sandwich, the other has snack size sausage rolls and strawberries. What's the problem?

School lunches are too big for nursery age and too small for year 4, ime.

For me it depends on what we do after school on the days DD is not at the childminder. Saying that, we eat dinner together as a family at 7pm, so a decent snack is vital for her. I never saw the reason behind cooking at 4pm for a child, feeding her a snack at bedtime and cooking again for DH and me. Far too complicated and time consuming.

Normally I don't take a snack with me if I drive as it just takes 10 minutes and she sits in the car. If we walk I bring her something but then she eats a healthy snack at home like a slice of bread with fruit.

If she goes anywhere directly after school (tutor or club) I bring a packed snack with sandwich, fruit, a treat and a drink. Basically what she would get a home as well.

At her childminder she gets cooked tea but only a small portion as she gets full dinner with us.

I find a school cooked lunch ridiculous. The portions are tiny, especially for the upper KS2 children like DD. Also DD never is/was a big lunch eater, regardless what or where, she will not eat enough to last for 5-6 hours. So not each child is the same when it comes to the fact how hungry they are when leaving the school.

Junk on a regular basis is a big no for me. Our school has cake sales virtually every Friday plus in Summer ice cream sale. Luckily DD comes out 30 minutes later as she attends orchestra so misses it most times and I am never that early to buy her something. I do it once in a while as a treat but not every week.

I bring my two snacks after school- they're both very slim/small boned. They have to walk two miles home, we often go to the park before the walk home for 40 minutes - an hour where Ds will play football and DD will do lots of tree climbing, running around. DS would've also played football at lunchtime. We often walk to school and so some days they walk 4 miles a day. They aren't allowed any snacks at school except carrots, apples etc. My 6 year old DD is quite petite in stature and does not have a big appetite, like my Mum she prefers to eat little and often. She therefore in theory has eaten at 12pm - a tuna wrap, oat bar, crackers or bag of breadsticks but in reality is a slow eater and has only eaten the wrap and crackers. She will sometimes eat the oatbar on the way home as it's left over from lunch but also something I've brought - homemade cheese scone for example.

As children we used to have snacks and were thin. As with my children though we had to walk alot and played outside in our garden even in the winter. Snacks are not causing the obesity problem it's sedentary lifestyles of children. A PP said that they were unnecessary after school but they also later alluded to the fact they are in the car as they can't get them to speak about their school day. Well no you don't need a snack if your children are driven home. Incidentally, the odd times I have gone in the car for my children they never speak to me about their day, when we walk home for 2 miles they completely open up.

The amount of exercise is key to anybody maintaining their insulin sensitivity and staying slim, if you or your children live a sedentary life and to me that includes just playing on a screen when you get in from school, (my children play all over the house with their toys or practice their guitar, they basically move alot) then your body will have more problems dealing with the insulin levels and you will be overweight. Going to active groups is often not enough- my children do sport groups on top of their 4 mile daily walking and all the other stuff.

Oh we have this snacking thing at our school gates but it's of the seriously competitive parenting type - trendy looking pots of perfectly sliced raw vegetables and the like 🙄

Tell her to eat the snack she doesn't eat on her break

I was passing a group of children on their way to school this morning and was amazed at how big most of them were. It isn't even about being overweight, when I was a kid, back in the 70's/80's - most children were skinny - not unhealthily so, just normal for growing children. I had sweets and crisps once a week - parents had plenty of money but were educated about nutrition. No snacking every day of the week as seems to be the case these days.

No-one seems to be worried about the prediction that the obesity crisis is going to result in children having a lower life-expectancy than their parents.

yes you will look like the mean mum now. when she is an adult she will be grateful you didn't make her obese with rotten teeth. stick to your guns!

How on earth did we survive in the 70's. Bowl of frosties for breakfast, (warm, curdled) milk at 10.30, mostly inedible very small school dinner at 12.30, tea/dinner at 5pm, bed at 7pm.
That was it. Snacks simply didn't exist.
I really think most kids won't faint from hunger in the 20 mjns from leaving the schoolgate to getting home. I can't ever imagine taking a sandwich to the school gates for my non starving child when she'd easily last 20 minutes.

How on earth did we survive in the 70's. I remember being hungry most of the time and stealing biscuits. We were comfortably off.

Not got to the schoolgates yet, but I'm always trying to find a toddler group which doesn't just sit down and have a 'picnic' snack for half the session. Sessions are usually 10-12 so snack offered just before lunch. I dont get it.

Well I grew up in the 80's, early 90's and we did all snack and our parents did provide snacks- mostly homemade stuff when we got home from school but like I said in PP we were very active! Just like my children. The bigger children are quite rare at my children's school but one of I can think of in DD'S class is met with a lollipop every day and was in a pushchair for reception and she only lives a street away from the school.

YANBU, this really annoys me! DDs class mates are all handed various (mostly) unhealthy snacks as soon as they leave the school door, I have told her she won't be getting one until she comes home, mainly as I am a hygiene freak and I like her to wash hands before she has one.

Obviously if we are heading off somewhere after school I take her a snack and often the ice cream van is there on a Friday so sometimes we do that but even then I am a mean mummy who says she can wait until we get home and have one from the freezer.

I guess if you are walking 15-20 mins that changes things a bit, we are about a 7 minute walk away so DD doesn't wait long but it's rare she complains, she eats really well at her meal times and I have tried not to encourage too much snacking tbh, we don't snack much as a family and she has sort of just gone along with that. I do of course allow a snack after school though (usually toast, fruit, popcorn or something) because the gap between 12 o'clock lunch and 6pm tea is long. DD is almost 6.

when she is an adult she will be grateful you didn't make her obese with rotten teeth. stick to your guns!

or be careful about giving her a healthy diet at home and she does plenty of exercise all her life. Some anti-snacks parents give squash or fruit juice, unhealthy ready-meals, cereals full of sugar in the morning. An afternoon snack after school is not going to hurt your child in the slightest, it's what you are giving them that is important.

If you are one of these parents who don't give snacks, but just go home where the kid watch tv until diner time (ready meal or greasy food) whilst my kids go to various clubs before having hand cook diners .. I can't see how healthy that can be.

I have had afternoon snacks (called tea since I am an adult) all my life, and I can hardly be described as obese. Having a healthy diet doesn't make you fat or rot your teeth. Chill out, it's only food.

You say she often doesn't eat the fruit you give her for morning break, can she not eat that after school?

Take a snack but make it fruit or veg, as many pp have now said. No child is going to become obese simply from an extra piece of fruit a day. Plus for the parents who are worried about hand hygiene, make it a banana and child won't have to handle the bit they're eating.

Look, everyone does what works for them. Ideally, I do agree it is better to have kids have a snack at the table. That was one of my favourite things to do with my kids is talk about their days. However, if your kids are grazers and starving after school, do what works for you.

Although, if some days they are particularly hungry, there is nothing wrong with handing them a piece of fruit/babybel etc for the walk home.

But I do have to say I am always amazed at kids that say they are absolutely famished and desperately need any food when the crisps come out but then are suddenly full when they see that an apple is the only option.

I can't take the comment my child is starving after school seriously, really, have you seen the images of starving children on the TV - I doubt any child in the UK is really starving (and yes, I volunteer at a Food Bank). I am pretty sure that all the children whose parents are on Mumsnet come from homes where they get a decent breakfast, mid morning snack at school and either a school lunch or a packed meal - how can you be starving after that? .

Far too many of us (myself included) are obsessed with snacking and can't really recognise genuine hunger because we are constantly eating.

Some of the 'snacks' described on this thread are actually meals!
A baguette was mentioned, someone else mentioned a full on packed lunch (sandwich, fruit, treat etc) sandwiches, sausage rolls...
The mind boggles

if she hasn't got a weight problem, why not?

I would just put an extra bit of fruit or plain crackers or something in her lunchbox if it was me. Then she can either eat more at lunch in which case she will be less hungry at pick up or eat it after school. Her choice. And no extra work for you, really.