Is dinner lady unreasonable?

[upsideup]

Do you think this dinner lady is being unreasonable from these two incidents? I don't want to over or under react.

DS(8) has eczema and 2 weeks ago he had a flare up around his wrists, the dinner lady said to him 'Oh that looks nasty' which he thought she meant gross, she hopefully didn't which is what we told him. The day after she asked him if he needed a plaster/gloves to cover them up while he ate and told him to make sure not to touch any of the other children's food. DH let her know when he happened to see her a few days later in the playground that DS that it wasn't contagious and she apologised to him, not to DS though. We hoped that she was only trying to be kind and helpful to DS but had just got it wrong from this incident.

Today at lunch DS's friend left his peperami on the table so DS took it to the bin with the rest of his rubbish. The dinner lady checked his lunch and saw that it was unopened and told him to go back and try, he told her that it wasn't his and that he doesn't eat meat anyway but she still made him and sit back down. Theres a system where they check some of the kids lunch boxes to make sure they eat enough but I have made it clear to the school that I don't want how much my kids are eating to be monitored, so their lunch boxes are never normally checked and I don't know why she did it today. Also the names of the vegetarian kids are up in the kitchen and theres only a few of them so she would either already know this or be able to check.

DS is pretty loud so there have been quite a lot of times over the past year where she has told him to be quiet, which is fine when hes doing something wrong I want him to be called out on it though he is saying she tells him off more than others.

AIBU to think these two things happening so close together could mean shes taken like shes taken a dislike to him and is picking on him?

I did wonder why people were talking like he was being told off for touching other people’s food. Since you didn’t say he was!

Yes of course we work unpaid, it goes with the job. We earn peanuts and take a huge amount of care with the children we're looking after. Don't be so bloody patronising.

Some dinner staff are crap (as this one sounds).

Some like me are amazing.

In my world, 'That looks nasty' is not derogatory. It means aww poor you, that looks painful and horrid for you to deal with

I would not be offended by it and it is a term that was used all through my childhood

The day after she asked him if he needed a plaster/gloves to cover them up while he ate and told him to make sure not to touch any of the other children's food.

That whole scenario says she os ignorant nor what exema is and appears worried ds's skin is going to contaminate other kids food. Ds was not touching anyone elses food, he lives with the condition no need to tell him that nor ask him to cover it up.

The 2nd incident is worrying as a) she didnt believe him and b) she tried to insist he ate meat and sent him to sit down till he did. If she hadnt gone off would it have been ok for her to try to force him, keep him in until he had?

I would be having a quiet word about it all with teacher or ht. Not an all guns blazing thing but just a reminder about staff realising what exema is and that humiliating a child because he has it is not on.

it's a shame you're working as LSA for < NMW, SadieHH. Our TAs do earn > NMW. Colleague who had 25 yrs experience in nursing referred to all our wages as peanuts, though I always thought it was ok given we had no childcare costs.

At my DC’s school they don’t throw anything away. He comes home with a manky lunchbox every day filled with fruit peelings and crusts... it’s probably a sensible idea though because I recall throwing shit bits of my lunchboxes away as a child myself. Anyway beside the point .

She sounds misinformed about what eczema actually is which isn’t a massive deal, she just needed educating. Hopefully now she knows it isn’t contagious she won’t say anything. I don’t know where you are from but here in Yorkshire we would use nasty in a sympathetic tone, not derogatory.

The pepperami thing is a bit of a twat, I don’t think kids should be forced to eat anything they don’t want even if it was his.

Kids always think the world is over when they are told off. If he loud, he deserves a rollicking. Unless you have evidence she solely picks on him and leaves other trouble causers to it then you can’t really suggest she is picking on him.

he is saying she tells him off more than others Is she telling him off more than the others because he is misbehaving more than the others? or because he doesn't listen to her?

The reaction to eczema was wrong, but hopefully was out of ignorance rather than picking on him. It's easy to forget who is vegetarian so I'd be inclined to think it was a mistake rather than anything nasty.

@constantlyexhausted I'm also a special needs TA, If I were you I'd be looking at getting a job in a different school. MSA's are massively underpaid, I moved up a whole pay grade when I became a TA.

Tbh he is used to being told off for being loud, we both know he can be loud.
His teacher has to tell him most days not to be too loud, so does his sports coaches and me and DH have to tell him to not be to loud and he has never suggested any of us pick on him more than others. But he says that this dinner lady always tells him off even when its the whole table being loud or hes not even the one being loud.
I know he might be getting it wrong which is why I only said this is what he is saying rather than this is what is happening but as this isnt a common complaint I hear from him I am trying to listen him.

If he’s being told not to put his hands in peoples food it’s highly likely that’s what he was doing whether he will tell you that or not.
Creating an environment where your son knows he can come and snitch on the staff for telling him off and you will go in and speak to them will do your son no favours at all op and the school will eventually just tune you out.
You have recently spoken to them about 2 absolute non issues op you need to let the little things go.
My kids come home complaining about minor incidents they feel we’re unfair on a daily basis. I would never be out of the school if I went in making a big deal out of it every time.

Don't think she's picking on your son. Just think she needs more training.

I think that the first two points could be valid. The eczema incident and the comment 'that looks nasty' could have been said perfectly sympathetically and the plaster/gloves comment out of misplaced concern. Likewise, the peperami incident could have been an oversight by her part and being told by people higher above that rules are rules and everyone must eat most/all of their food . There's a list of vegetarian children and yes, they should and can check on it at any time but she might not have.

But it's your second to last bit that makes me think maybe she has taken a dislike to him? Is she really targeting him when he is loud when others are also loud or even louder? Because if she has, then all that I have written above is false and she may be undermining your son. I only say this as someone who was in a somewhat similar situation in primary school and only much more later on in adult life, collaborated by others in my year at school, looked back on it as weird and getting singled out solely and unfairly.

he is saying she tells him off more than others

He knows 100% of his own telling off, but a fraction of that of the others. 8 year olds can feel hard done by easily.

He was not told off for putting his hands in someone elses food, he was told to make sure he didnt after he was offered gloves to cover up his hands, the dinner lady obviously wrongly pressumed he had some infectious rash and didnt want it spreading. He doesnt like touching his own food with his hands so there is no way he would ever touch anyone elses.
DH happened to see the dinner lady and let her know that he only had eczema so it wasnt contagious, no staff have been snitched on.

Are dinner ladies still doing that lunch box checking thing? The evil bitch lunch lady at my school used to practically hunt me down, and I can attribute my eating disorder to her. So thanks Mrs poltrack

The "that looks nasty" comment was a bit insensitive but she probably meant sore and I'd ignore it...the gloves thing is just odd...in the interests of thinking the best of people...maybe she thought that tomatoes, lemon etc would sting and gloves would protect him?

However, she should know who is vegetarian in the same way she should know if a child has allergies. Better still, listen when a child tells you X isn't theirs...I work with pre school children and even they can be trusted on this!

Being poorly paid is zero excuse for being poor at your job...my pay is rubbish, my best is still expected and I expect the best from my staff as well even though their wage isn't great either.

I had bad eczema as a child and people who havent had to deal with it can be very confused by it. I used to get people at school trying to put bandages on me or make me wash the skin (both of which would have made the skin worse) and they were just trying to be kind. People see open wounds and get very worried. I wouldnt paint it as someone taking a dislike to your son id just think it was ignorance.

The meat thing again just seems to be about lack of thought in general rather than nastiness.... its not like she checked up on him again is it? She just left and he put it in the bin.... which implies she just did what she usually does when she sees kids with fuller lunch boxes as a matter of routine and did not really think about it.

Yeah, I agree. I really doubt she's targeting him. If he does rub her up the wrong way by often being loud, and therefore he's 'on her radar' so she notices him more and he gets told off a lot, well, it's not the end of the world. It happens. Kids get through it. I don't think dinner ladies are meant to be your friends are they?!

This isn't good at all and it sounds like she needs some training. Do they train dinner ladies, there's jobs round here they can't fill as pay bad and only an hour per day.

I would complain about the eating meat, not listening to your child, but maybe she has seen gloves used as a treatment before and thought she was doing the right thing.
It does sound like a misunderstanding.
Checking their lunch boxes is a policy in some schools that nobody can opt out of. Maybe they agreed with you to placate you, but still intend to check.
Pretty fair actually as you can't have one rule for one and another rules for others.
I'd mention it to the teacher at drop off on monday.

This sounds more ignorant than anything else, we had a to complain about one of the dinner ladies in our kids school after she multiple times didn't let him finish his lunch, he gets extra time because he has ASD and issues with food. She also forced my daughter to sit next to a kid who was internally excluded for attacking her in the playground. Most of this was just due to ignorance, the reason we complained was because she was such a repeat offender, my son is underweight so it is very important he is allowed to finish his lunch as we are trying to cram in extra calories. I found talking to the teachers did nothing, we went straight to the head.

As for eczema the SENCO at the school told the headteacher my son was covered in flea bites! Honestly people do not have a clue.

All our issues were resolved very quickly, she was retrained, my son now eats his lunch with his teacher instead of the hall. I make her lunch as well now as she used to come into the place I work every day to buy her lunch. She doesn't pay for it anymore ;)

I really think you should mention this to his teacher. It’s not ok. There are three separate issues here, so it needs to be sorted.

I'm going to leave it for now, tell DS that she just made mistakes/misunderstandings and get him to make sure hes quiet at lunch.
If anything else happens in the next few weeks I will have a work with his teacher.