AIBU to force my son to eat school dinners?

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Hi all, I apologise if this gets long.

Backstory, my DS (5) is a very fussy eater. Having started on home made Annabel Karmel recipes from weaning, he will now only eat Birdseye chicken fingers and potato waffles for dinner, cheese, strawberries, grapes, banana at a push. No other meats, no veg, no pasta. He will eat chocolate and haribo of course!

We met a child dietician 6 months ago and we have a follow up booked for 18th October but not much has improved in that time, he will now try a new food, albeit the tiniest little mouthful, without making himself throw up but will very quickly decide that he doesn't like and sticks firm with that decision.

He started Reception two weeks ago and we decided that we would try to encourage him to eat food available at school (not have a packed lunch as he did in pre school) and would review this at half term having got feedback from the school and the dietician. We thought that at 5 he is old enough to understand that there are lots of different foods out there to try and that he could try to do with new friends eating theirs. This hasn't gone particularly well but not poorly enough for me to consider packed lunches earlier than half term. However, due to a very early hospital appointment, my DM took my DS to school yesterday and when it came to choosing lunch, he threw himself on the floor and a proper tantrum (for info, he is not this kind of child and has never done this with me). The school have mentioned that they don't think he is eating enough during the day (although he is eating crackers at afternoon break so there are some carbs going in), he has breakfast before school everyday and then his delightful chicken and waffle in the evenings.

I feel that the school are going to try to push us into switching to packed lunches asap but DH and I feel that this would be giving into DS' fussy eating and letting him regain control. I feel trapped in the middle because DH feels very strongly about this and I suspect he will think I've given in if I start to make packed lunches. However, I don't know if the school are right instead.

Would I be unreasonable to ask the school to continue supporting our decision on this until half term when we will review the situation? Funnily enough we had a huge breakthrough this week when DS sat with DH and ate an impressive amount of plain pasta so perhaps that's making this decision harder as there is a glimmer of progress.

If you made it to this point, thank you for reading! AIBU and what would you do?

The thing is OP- you are feeding your child one very specific meal every single evening, but expecting the school to be able to feed him from a wide range of sandwiches and meals every day. This is just not realistic from where he is at right now.

Plus- really, why not do the hard work, tears and tantrums of expanding his food choices at home, not leave the dinner ladies to it! It's clearly more than just a few fussy issues, and I don't think sitting with his friends will help when he's literally eating two kernals of sweetcorn.

I would immediately switch to packed lunch and stop this nightmare of lunchtime meals for him, and be honest with his dad- say, you are expecting the school to work some magic but it can't and isn't and it's not realistic to expect them to do so when we can only get him to eat one meal at home, possibly two with the plain pasta. Let him have that great sounding packed lunch, and work on expanding his meal choices in the evenings- he's eating pasta now, and I bet he'll be ready to try new things with that soon, cheese, tomatoes perhaps.

I think it's a bit cheeky to expect the school to engineer the success here which you can't manage at home, I get the theory if they all eat together, but I think that works where they are just a tiny bit fussy and need social encouragement, he's way beyond that as his lack of eating the last week or two has shown. It's not defeat, it's a strategic withdrawal so you can make food less of an issue, and work on expanding choices at home (and he'll be less starving as well).

My son was like this when he was that age, and still is like that with most foods, although he has retried foods that he wouldn't previously and he loves them now ,my son is 9 now.
At my children's schools if there is a meal they don't like we can request a sandwich.
I would have a word with the senco at your child's school and tell them the things that he does and doesn't like to eat. My son hated any thing sauce wise and it wasn't allowed to be on his plate at all. He hated the texture of mash so mash was a no no and for this they do pasta as an alternative. And he would cry and scream like it was a phobia. I think our school recognises the foods most children struggle with so have a choice.
I agree with you too keep on school dinners but you need to speak with the school and try and get a plan set up to help your son, As food shouldn't be something he fears.i think if your child has something on his plate you know he will eat. As he gets older and sees his friends eating different foods he will try these in time.
I used to worry because i knew how my school dinner ladies used to treat us if we didn't like the food. We were made to eat it or shouted at. I didn't want that for my son as in my eyes it wouldn't help with the food problem just make it worse.
Does he appear to be hungry when he gets home ?.

Give your child a packed lunch, OP.

In the nicest possible way, it sounds a bit like you are hoping the school will 'sort out' your child's eating issues, but a) it probably won't, and b) many children only eat a limited range of food at that age - it's not a massive deal.

Adults sometimes forget how powerless children are about food - as a kid you are told what to eat, when to eat it and are frequently demanded to eat food that you find unpleasant. The quantities that you have to consume are even dictated - you have to eat until the person standing over you is satisfied, not until you are.

Just say you had a canteen where you worked, but you didn't like the food they served (do it properly and imagine something you really don't like - boiled tripe, fish-head pie, very spicy curries, etc) Would you force yourself to eat that food in the hope that you might eventually "learn to like it" or would you bring in your own food from home?

I may be biased because I was forced to have school meals as a child, could never bring myself to eat any of it, and to this day I hate "institution" food - anything served from a big metal tray turns my stomach.

my daughter's motivation to not eat is mainly motivated by the hope that pudding and milk before bed will fill her up in a more tasty way imo.

now I have minimise junk food in the house and stopped milk before bed she eats a lot better. we still have chicken nuggets and waffles more often than I'd like though!

Me and siblings had packed lunch. We didn't like the school dinners. I was quite a fussy child and my mum was told by a HCP (I saw them for various things) to keep me on school dinners as it was 'the only way I'd learn'
There is one day that has always stayed with me. I don't like cheese. I never have. Anyway, my school dinner was macaroni cheese. I was told by a dinner lady to 'stop being so ridiculous and eat it' - the smell made me want to throw up. I couldn't physically eat it. She didn't let me have pudding either. I was only 4 and starved all day because I couldn't tolerate cheese
If I were given a food I didn't like, I would gladly starve. I remember feeling so hungry that day.

I am an adult that eats almost everything! The main foods I don't like are anything containing cheese (so pizza etc) and fish/seafood - can't tolerate smell.

Don't forget too school halls can be very daunting places for children, especially when they are new to school settings. That can add to the stress to the already stressful situation for a child. Another reason to keep the bits you can control as controlled as possible.

I think it's different for all kids. but to me a nt 5 year old who can eat things in one place and not another is being naughty. I can understand that a 5 year old with additional needs might think differently.

also for some nt kids ridding the house of beige Iceland food does work to cure their fussy eating. again different for addition needs.

At 5 you may not yet know if there are any additional needs anyway....

Even if they are extreme "fussiness" isn't limited to those with SN

It's difficult isn't it - some people with children who eat everything think thats to their credit and they must be doing everything right, but those of us with several children who eat anything and one with a very limited range give the lie to that!

We tried dc3 on cooked meals at preschool when I started working and he started full days, and he went from loving preschool to crying about having to go. They also become obsessed with his eating and reported almost exclusively on that and not the rest of the day at handover. We'd thought the peer pressure thing would work but it just didn't and he was eating nothing at all most days, or just potato if there was potato that day.

I switched to sending him a packed lunch after 6 weeks, it just wasn't fair.

He's 6 now and on packed lunches for school too even though his big brother lives the stodgy lunch club food...

Mine will eat various raw vegan but not cooked, one type of cheese, salami, likes "hard" breads - sour dough, seeded, so that's all good. He won't eat any kind of pasta which is massively limiting school lunch wise! He's tried but gags.

I actually think he does have sensory issues to a degree, but that's just my opinion, never sought a diagnosis. Some textures make him gag - cooked vegetables, eggs in any form, rice, pasta, soft fruits (the only child I know who won't eat strawberries or grapes - he'd eat his bodyweight in apples though).

I agree try him on unexpected things - there are some properly out there things dc3 will eat considering all the everyday things he won't! He's good at trying a nibble of anything new but only one time in 20+ will it be added to the list of things he'll eat.

Mine won't eat Haribo either :o it's the texture. Loves chocolate and biscuits of course.

We serve meals he won't eat at home (he sat next to a pasta dish at lunch time chatting with everyone, just didn't touch it) I always let him have an apple afterwards and make sure one meal a day is one he'll eat.

I wouldn't want him hungry all day at school though, it seems cruel. I don't think school is the place to be leaving him to go without, especially as you've tried it to see if peer pressure helps, and it doesn't.

My 11 year old was like that. Phobic around food when he was younger to the point of gagging and running out of the room at the smell of certain things.

There is no way at that age that I would have added to the pressure of his food issues by making him sit in front of a school dinner that he wouldn't eat and make him feel embarrassed, stressed and hungry for the rest of the day. Tour DS is only little and needs to enjoy school, not be scared of going and worried about the lunch break all morning.

My DS had packed lunch all through primary and has gradually WITH ALL PRESSURE OFF increased the food he likes over the years to the extent he loves roast dinners, juicy steak, chicken currry, Mexican food including fajitas etc, pasta, pizza etc etc. So wierd to see him wolfing broccoli down and asking for more when I think back to how awful meal times were when he was a toddler and your DS's age.

I think it helped my DS that I insisted we all did family meal times. So not a separate child-only tea at 5pm. Is that possible for you with your schedule. Just getting his curiosit piqued and seeing others ENJOY food will help him feel confident enough to have a taste of something new. Never show disappointment that he says he doesn't like something. Praise when he decides to eat something different even if it's a only a mouthful of something new. Don't go over the top praising though. Just a casual "great, well done, isn't that delicious?" And carry on the conversation about something non-food related.

they DO get better as they get older, these food phobic kids. Boredom with liked food, seeing peers enjoy food and feeling left out at parties etc when everyone is getting stuck into pizzas, becoming mature enough to listen to explanations of how foods are made or how they grow, all helps.

Give a multivitamin and relax about it all.

My DS still won't eat fruit (likes fruity flavours and smooothies but think this fruit phobia is the last thing to go from his food issues when younger, but I think he's going to be starting to eat it soon. I can tell he is interested in the idea and it will happen naturally, when we casually offer him a strawberry or something as we are eating them.

But for now, in school, give him a packed lunch of what he likes.

to go back to the op, I think it would depend on his weight. if he's underweight the school will just want you to feed him. if he's still in the healthy range you should be able to persuade them to keep trying till half term. my daughter always picks jacket with cheese and cucumber if the main looks yucky. at our school packed lunches contain sandwich fruit and giant cookie if that helps but they only give that on school trips and sports day.

Ummmm school spaghetti is probably not very much like your spaghetti though! To your DD it probably isn't the same meal!

My dc2 loves school lasagna but eats my home made lasagna (which dc1 and DH live) somewhat unenthusiastically and asks me to make it like school one day I knew I'd have no time to cook and bought a big Aldi ready made lasagna - "Lovely! Thank you mummy! It's exactly like school's!" Gushed my delighted dc2

Curly I agree, one of mine at a very limited diet aged 5/6 due to a stomach upset that went on and on and put her off all the food she used to eat, it was so frustrating seeing her eat plain pasta, ham and cucumber for about two years. But, I agree food shouldn't be stressful and as long as they are getting enough calories and vitamins, the form it is in doesn't matter- she's much better now and eats a pretty wide variety of food, with a few dislikes, but 100% better than the limited diet of before. Most of the children I know with very limited diets (including one with only jam and cheese white bread sandwiches) eat more now, in terms of range. Don't make this a big deal 'OP I feel sorry for this little boy, the amount he's currently isn't ok for a busy schoolchild and it's obvious it's stressful even to get those mouthfuls down.

Give him the packed lunch. For him, it seems, the school dinner is the equivalent of being given a shit sandwich every day. His eating difficulties go way beyond having a preference for certain foods because he is repulsed by foods outside his comfort zone. Kids with this level of food aversion would sooner starve.

I would persevere with school dinners myself, OP. My DDs are fussy eaters, especially DD1, she's a nightmare. They're both having school dinners and they eat things at school they wouldn't eat at home. (DD2 does anyway.) DD1 chooses a 'grab bag' sometimes if one is available, which is annoying, but we've never been told they don't eat enough.

It's your call, maybe give him time to get used to it, if he goes on not eating enough then make the change.

I am still a fussy eater & went through the misery of school dinners.
I still remember being made to sit in front of a plate of something with custard on it when very young because they used to insist on serving you stuff even if you didn't want it.
To this day you couldn't pay me to eat custard (I have tried it as an adult)
I probably ate once or twice a week at school, although this was back in the days when you got a teeny bottle of milk in the morning) and my mothers cooking wasn't much better, so by the time I was ten it had become normal in our family for her to buy me a small tin of salmon for my Christmas dinner so I had something to eat.
Personally I also couldn't cope with what I saw as intimidatingly large portions - too much of something I liked was overwhelming although I didn't know how to explain as a child.
I also had problems with different food types touching each other.
Needless to say I was a very thin child.

I then went to boarding school, same thing.
I ended up being sent to the doctors because some (most) of the meals were so repulsive to me I would rather starve all week then eat them.
They thought I was anorexic. (not, never have been)
Fortunately, the doctor seemed to understand that if there was anything greasy, slimy or spicy involved I couldn't eat it so they let me have a dispensation to eat as much toast as I wanted instead of the meals.

I'm telling you all this because my growth & general health was affected by malnourishment.
Left to myself, I actually would have had quite a healthy diet as the foods that I would eat did increase as I got older, but when the choices were frequently things I couldn't cope with or nothing, I chose nothing for years.

To this day I will usually only eat once a day and have been known to forget to eat at all because I am so used to such a small food intake.
I do drink milk however, so get a fair amount of calories in.

Make packed lunches and let time help you out.
Your son will grow into a more varied diet, just don't let him train himself into subsistence level amounts of food intake.

to everyone yes she has said that home and school spaghetti taste different. but she has also tried to say that home and school cucumber taste different too 😂

but we are making progress, and my method has worked for me.

To ds foods like that would taste different dependant how they are prepared! At home he will occasionally eat a raw carrot (never cooked) the packed lunch for the school trip had carrot sticks in but he wouldn't eat them as they tasted different - only difference was how they are cut!

The talk of beige food has reminded me. Smiley fecking faces and nuggets was the meal of choice when mine were little. I remember DS having that one Christmas dinner instead of what everyone else was having. The year after he had turkey with the smiley faces with a chipolata - no gravy. The year after that he had roast potatoes and turkey and chipolatas with gravy. The following year he was eating turkey, roast potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, chipolata and gravy. Now both my sons turn their noses up at beige food and say it's boring and prefer home made curries and other spicy food or a nice steak or salmon. It is a really gradual process, over a number of years, OP, and I really wouldn't expect quick change just because he has started school and mixing with peers at lunch.

My dd started off with dinners. I soon found out she was starving herself some days. I went through a stage of doing a combination of packed lunches and dinners depending on the menu. She's a fussy eater. Always was with some sensory issues around texture and flavour of food. She's 9 and a lot better these days.

My take is she is at school to learn. Hungry children don't learn either scholastically and even more importantly at a young age, emotionally. They are at a big disadvantage and something so easily rectified by 10 mins a day by the parent.

I'd just give him packed lunches. He's so little. Odds on he will eat better as he grows so long as you keep offering him yummy varieties of tasty foods, which help him grow and make his tummy feel good.

I think food is such an emotive topic because as a parent one of your main "duties" is to feed your child and you want them to be healthy - but some children do have real issues with food so in order not to create long term food negativity you really need to let it go (in the great words of Elsa ).

We've had many Christmases where everyone else will be sitting there with huge plates of turkey with all the trimmings and ds will be perched on the end with a cold tuna sandwich. Which is what he wanted.

What's more important- a joyful day with a happy child who is eating what he wants, or endless battles and misery and lots of tears about it?

It sounds like your son already eats quite a lot of different things (compared to mine anyway)!

I wonder if the constipation is some kind of mild bowel issue like IBS rather than being the result of his diet. ie maybe the constipation is the cause of his picky eating rather than the result of it. Perhaps he doesn't like the impact certain foods has on his tummy so avoids them and sticks with 'safe foods'?

Pick a few meals at school close to what he usually eats and pack lunch the rest of the week

Your DS sounds so much like my DD1, OP. I've been at my wits' end with her so many times. She also has the constipation issue, and we have to go on at her about eating fruit and veg and drinking enough. The constipation led to soiling in her knickers, though this is thankfully at an end (at age 7).

She just changes her mind constantly, it's such hard work!

My nuggets and waffles boy still doesn't eat veg but can't half put away a slab of rib eye steak or a lamb chop!