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?

Do you have a long walk home from school? If you are asking her to walk 15-20 minutes, I might consider bringing something healthy for the walk. Otherwise, if you are driving, I would expect her to wait until you get home. We do a snack after school (something healthy, fruit, veg, raw nuts, not crisps or biscuits) as we don't eat dinner until 6:30 or 7pm. I think 12-7 is a long time to go for most people without a snack and a drink. It's actually healthier and better for their metabolisms to eat healthy meals and snacks little and often. But I don't think it's unreasonable to ask her to wait until you get home. Just because other people are eating crisps at the school gate doesn't mean that's a good idea and she probably knows that already.

I eat six times a day all calorie/fat controlled and my daughter is the same I ensure she has snacks as her blood sugar drops too low and she becomes uncontrollable when hungry. Her dad and I are the same I don't see a problem with a snack after school and then tea when they get home.

I remember being RAVENOUS after school as a child, even though I had had a hot lunch at 1230ish and school finished at 330. I could eat for England at that age. I used to have a big bowl of cereal when I got in and then an evening meal about 630.

She can eat the fruit snack she didn't eat at break time!

Ragwort could you please amend your statement to read any healthy child. Thousands of children in the UK have cystic fibrosis, and are starving.

@coddiwomple you only quoted part of my post and took it out of context as I specifically said I know these people and know they go straight home.

My children are ravenous after school. They have a small fruit or vegetable snack at school, either fruit or dried fruit or slice carrots or cucumber or whatever. I reckon the lunches are small.

I have a problem with DD constantly asking for snacks & she refuses to eat fruit or veg ( most things anyway) so what she ends up with can be stodgy & she has quite a tum at the mo. I have given her a Go Ahead cereal bar at pick up time, especially if she has swimming or her dance class to go to. I would say it depends on your situation

If she hasn't eaten her fruit then she isn't hungry imo. Fair enough if she had eaten the fruit that you had given her for morning break.

Why don't you take a snack but a healthy one? An apple? Everyone's a winner.

coddiwomple a child who gets Pringles and chocolate after school is far more likely to put on weight and have rotten teeth than one who doesn't. (cystic fibrosis excluded, children with this condition need all the calories they can get).

Presumably as like me she doesn't want to be walking along eating and would rather wait until they're sat at home?

I used to get a piece of fruit or if lucky a small cake. I don't get the whole snacking thing either. Some kids almost get a second lunch.

If she's hungry, let her eat the fruit she didn't have for morning break.

Kids need to understand the difference between being hungry and fancying something nice to eat. So do many adults (me included).

I don't ever give a snack after School. Dirty grubby little unwashed hands- no.

Mine have something when they get in after washing hands and when we are indoors.

I don't see any need to be giving snacks at the School gates personally.

Ummmmgogo
true, but the point was that after snacks after school don't have to mean junk food and be unhealthy. It depends what the kids eat in general.

Even if someone is given a full sandwich in the afternoon but only a soup and a yogurt for diner after 1 or 2 hours of physical exercise, he's in no risk of obesity. It might be a bit too much bread for my liking, but you should look at food over an entire week, not over a 10 minutes window.

I used to be starving when I got home from school; had a banana/apple and maybe a cheese string, rarely crisps, and then had dinner at 5/5:30. Would then have a slice of toast/biscuit etc before bed. I was always very thin until about 17, but had a big appetite.

I always have a little titter to myself when I read these angst-ridden, judgey threads about primary school children snacking.
Honestly, save all your worrying for when they are at senior school, when they will be mainlining junk and it will all be outside your control.
Yes - your child has been brought up to know all about nutrition and prefers fruit to sweets etcetcetc. That will change.
Yes, your child is not used to snacks so - obviously - will not crave them when they are older. They will.
I distinctly remember walking home from infants with my daughter, and she threw a tantrum because she could not have cabbage for tea. This is the same child who will now, at 13, happily eat an entire tube of Pringles in one sitting, and look for more. It's called Peer Pressure, and there's not an awful lot you can do about it really.
You can be as controlling as you want when they are little, but really, the the grand scheme of things, it counts for nothing.

YANBU. I have never brought a snack to school for ds (9) despite him asking (because his friends do). He has a snack at home but he's usually only hungry on days when he's done something sporty or before swimming. Often he doesn't have snacks at all.

Thanks for the acknowledgement Ummmmgogo 😄

cathf when i was about 15 I spent my lunch money on a bag of chips and a packet of fags - pretty much every day. My mum never gave us snacks after school :)

Toots, maybe if your mum had brought you some carrot sticks and an apple for after school, you would have seen the error of your ways!

That may well be true cathf but the fact they'll eat crap when they are teenagers is hardly a reason to give it to them when they are primary age is it?

Mine are 'starving' when they get out of school. The portions at school dinners are apparently tiny and I'm pretty sure mine don't eat it all.

I bring rice cakes or cheese and apple or crackers and humanoid. Friday there is usually a cake sale so they get one of those.

It makes the walk home more bearable without them whinging the whole way.

crackers and humanoid 😂