Water in primary school

[magickingdom82]

All the children at our primary school are supposed to bring a bottle with water only to drink throughout the day. Bottles are apparently checked. However I know a tonne of parents who send their kids in with flavoured juices because their kid won't drink water but AIBU to think it isn't fair on those that do send water in. As long as the majority of parents send in water they get away with sending juice...

School make a fuss about pack lunch - with rules that don't make any sense- but will accept sugary drinks?

Never heard of people who couldn't drink water until recently. It's completely ridiculous. You might prefer one brand to another, because they do taste different, but not being able to drink any water?

It's funny how people don't seem to develop such strong intolerance against sugar or junk food. Water and vegetable can make some people feel sick apparently, greasy or sugary junk food: never.

Because DD needs to drink plenty to make her constipation medicine work. If I send water she will drink some but not much. If I send

Heavily diluted squash she will drink it all. It isn't worth the consequences for her.

We’ve always had children who’ve refused to drink water. I asked the school nurse whether it was better for them to h esquash or nothing and she said that, on balance, although sipping at squash (rather than having it with food) is worse for a child’s dental health, it’s better than drinking nothing.

It’s a problem in the hotter weather when the child’s drink bottle runs out and the only option is water. But some of them drink water in those circumstances.

My DS is a water refuser. I sent him in with water for the first term. It came home every day at the same level and he got two water infections. His mood and concentration were affected and he was constipated so much that we had to give Movicol every night and he was having dirty underwear due to this despite being toilet trained for 2 years (is it compaction? His paediatrician gave it a name). Since Xmas I’ve sent him in with flavoured water. His behaviour and performance have improved massively and his toilet issues have stopped. I couldn’t give a rats arse if you think this is lazy parenting.

FGS how petty can you get

YANBU

Do other children notice? Oh yes, they certainly do.

I send water in DD's bottle. She vastly prefers juice. I send water anyway because that's what the school has (repeatedly) asked us to do. She still complains that her friends get juice in their bottles.

What parents give their children to drink at breaks and lunch time is their business as far as I'm concerned, but we get lots of water spillages in class every day and if those spillages were of juice then there would be a lot of ruined work and reading books. We also have occasional problems with ants and spilled juice would exacerbate that issue too. Please don't send juice in water bottles for class use. Save it for lunch and breaks. Your child will not dehydrate, they really won't. As for all this nonsense about it being up to the school to enforce, how on earth is a teacher to know unless the liquid is in a clear bottle? If there are medical reasons, teachers will make obviously make allowances. Otherwise just stick to the ruddy rules.

My DC don't drink flavoured water or squash at all, even at home (DS prefers milk, DD likes water or very occasionally peppermint tea) but I have worked with children who will let themselves get dehydrated rather than drink water and it is genuinely not worth my time to check children's water bottles then deal with children who have headaches or don't feel well because they haven't drunk enough, who get water infections or constipation or worse proper dehydration when it is hot, all of which distracts from lessons far more than a bit of flavoured water ever will.

Then we can safely send our kids to school with crisps and chocolate in their lunch box because otherwise they would starve and be too tired to study and concentrate, being healthy food refuser, vegetable refuser and boring food refuser.

Why are people not using this argument yet to fight the lunch box police? kids need to eat!

0ver 800 million people in the world do not have access to clean water. Frankly, I don’t know how we dare talk about our children getting “dehydrated” between breakfast and break.........

Wateraid

"Let them drink squash"

will say the MN in their best Marie-Antoinette tone.

BertrandRussell

Well said. When my students talk about their 'human right' to 'go water fountain' (prepositions, please, people!) I want to slap them with a fish and tell them to go and live in sub-Saharan Africa for a few months, then come back and talk to me about human rights.

As a teacher who has had a bottle of squash spilt within reach of freshly printed school reports that were signed and ready to go out, I would argue for only water to be brought into classrooms. It was a colossal waste of time sorting through them and re-printing/signing, and easily avoidable if everyone follows the rules! Even worse if squash or juice gets spilled and ruins the childrens' books.

water refuser heard it all now.

I think most children will prefer something sweeter as distinct from tap water once they have tasted it. I do believe there are children who don't enjoy drinking water. What I don't believe is there are children who would refuse to drink water eventually if they were thirsty enough ( obs SN aside)

water refuser heard it all now.
It's a modern Western thing. You can't even blame the kids when they hear their parents tell them that water taste bad and that sugary drinks are much nicer.

I am waiting to see a sad face in the papers soon about a teen who needs alcohol free beer to keep hydrated and focused at school

Whatever happened to 10 seconds at break at one of these then back to join the queue?

I still remember the taste of the cold water while all the other kids counted down the 10s.

80's kids survived, I'm sure kids can go from breakfast to lunch without constant sustinence.

Forgot to attach pic!

Bertram and Pengggwn
Someone took offence to me saying the same thing. I obviously wasn't referring to the level of SN that meant a child wouldn't eat or drink anything without prompting, I was saying that genuinely thirsty humans will drink water. Baileys only for me at break.

Hoardinghobbit

I knew what you meant, and I reported abusive comments made towards you that I thought were totally out of order.

Lazy parenting? Get a bloody grip.

0ver 800 million people in the world do not have access to clean water. Frankly, I don’t know how we dare talk about our children getting “dehydrated” between breakfast and break.........

Exactly.