To be feed up with school telling me what to do and how to do it?

[ivykaty44]

Had a letter home from my dd's school last week telling me that they would be sending a booklet home telling me what I should be giving my dd for her packed lunch. I do know how to make a healthy pack lunch, including three portions of fruit each day in the pack lunch.

This week they send me a letter telling me that it is tantamount to being a criminal if I so much as dare to even think about taking my dd out of school during term time - I havn't even asked (standard letter to take home)and my child may be excluded from school if I go on holiday in term time.

The letter really does seem to have this attitude of "we have the power to make you" and I really don't like it I am not a child, I can look after my dd and give her healthy food and take her on holiday during school closures. I just want them to leave me alone and get on with teaching my dd........ rant over

NOT feeding your children properly I mean.

("Please don't feed your children properly, we like the challenge of dealing with malnourished hyper-active lunatics. Our lives are dull and we'd like to make them more exciting.")

LittleBella - it became the norm when people suddenly started to have more money and hence a better standard of living than they had the education to deal with. We got rich too quickly

If people were a bit poorer they wouldn't have the cars to park on double yellow lines or the money to buy junk food (they'd eat bread and potatoes and carrots) or be hyper from lack of exercise (walking everywhere and working hard).

Anna, unfortunately, it is often the parents with less money that feed their children badly.
You can buy a cheap frozen rubbish food a lot cheaper than fresh meat

Lorayn - I know, but those parents still have more money than their parents and grandparents who would have fed their children on root vegetables and pearl barley and water rather than on frozen pizza and fizzy drinks.

Littlebella, I think that at some point quite a large section of society became more interested in the rights that they have to do what they want, while failing to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

People are busy and think they have a 'right' to park on double yellow lines, 'because it is only me' doing it not everyone', forgetting that they will one day be stuck behind someone else who has done the same thing.

we are losing sight of the fact that all our actions have an effect on society as a whole. thatcher effect, if you like (or dislike

mb - but don't you think that has to do with money too? Ie when people were poorer they were mechanically prevented by lack of funds from doing things that were anti-social? And then they got richer and all kinds of new possibilities opened up to them very quickly, and they hadn't been brought up to know how to manage those possibilities within then context of society where lots of other people were having the same opportunities for the first time too?

Anna, you make it sound like those who have always had money, know exactly how to handle it and, indeed, other people.

pointydog - no, that's not what I'm saying. You cannot infer that from what I wrote.

True, but many of these parents don't know how to cook anything other than sausage/nuggets/burgers/chips.
When I was a single mum with little money we lived off cheap but wholesome dinners like pasta and tomatoes/cottage pie/toad in the hole etc.
I hate to say it but a lot of the parents that 'can't be bothered' to work, and go on benefits (not all parents on benefits btw, just a large amount of them) also 'can't be bothered' to spend time actually making dinner rather than shoving it in the oven.
Many of these parents that 'can't afford' to buy 'decent' food can afford cigarettes and alcohol, it all depends on how much you care about the diet of your children when it comes down to it.

that was in reply to our grandparents having had less money and feeding us better btw

Sure, they don't know how to cook = they don't have enough education .

Or just don't care, I lose count of the amount of 'honey, we are killing the kids' I have seen where they give up almost straight away and stuff their kids on lazy food.

I don;'t think that it is a money issue at all.

I grew up in the Rhondda in the 60s and 70s in a working class family. I don't want to sound like the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch, but we had next to nothing in the material sense.

But what we didn't have was poverty of spirit. I was raise, as were all my mates to believe that we should be decent, reasonable people, who should try to put back into society at least a little of what we had taken out.

I know this makes us sound horribly 'worthy', that's not the case, honestly!

But post Thatcer larger amounts of people only seem to be interested in what is in it for them, instant gratification of every instant whim.

I teach children who have no concept that to improve yourself, materially or sociall , spirtutaly, whatever, you actually have to work. And I find that rather sad. And their parents are often just as bad. they seem to feel that as well as teaching their child I should learn the material for them as well.

I have lost count of the number of cases where parents show no shame in children who do the most awful things. All you get is a constant stream of excuses, we should have realised that the boy didn't really mean to stab the child he pulled a knife on, for example.

The mother of the child who set up a bebo website asking of a teacher 'Do you hate her, do you want to kill her' argued long and hard on MN that her child shouldn't be expelled from the school, she felt he was misunderstood.

and obviosuly none of this is of the same scale as someone taking their child out of school, but it is part of the same continuem, 'I've made a mess, now I'm expecting you to clean it up for me'

The mother of the child who set up a bebo website asking of a teacher 'Do you hate her, do you want to kill her' argued long and hard on MN that her child shouldn't be expelled from the school, she felt he was misunderstood.
I obviously missed that one!!! I knew a girl whose teacher had a miscarriage and she was extremely nasty about it, sending her hate mail, pictures of dead babies etc, and her parents didn't believe it was her fault either

Some parents just don't care enough.

I don't think that it is because the parent dom't care. I don't know what the real issue is. It think for some life is so complex and stressful that at the end of a long day at work they don't have the energy left to go 10 rounds on what is, or isn't approriate behavior from their child.

I also that feel that many parents are so lacking in confidence that they feat that their children will stop loving them if the parent gives them anything less than 100 agreement.

Its beyond me, if I'm being honest

Large amounts of people do seem to have the attitude of "what's in it for me". But aren't we instilling this attitude in them from early on with the star charts, reward systems, certificates for 'good lunchboxes' etc. Doesn't this tell them that you don't do anything unless it provides a reward?

Parent's also have their confidence undermined by 'experts' telling them what and how they should be doing things. Is it any wonder that some give up and leave it to the experts as obviously they will do a better job than the parent. Or so we are sometimes lead to believe.

It's all part of the same thing though isn't it? Schools tell parents what to do because they don't trust parents to do it (with good reason in many cases). Experts tell parents what to do, because most parents in our culture have not had any contact with babies since they themselves were children. And we've bought the myth that you can control every aspect of your life; I don't know if you remember, but about 10 years ago Frank Field put forward an idea (swiftly shelved) that people leaving school should write a "life plan" in order not to be a burden on the state. That control-freakery fits in with the zeitgeist and I think a lot of parents, faced with the loss of control a baby brings, seek to re-impose control by following an expert.

Sorry, bit off the point.

but unless we told the parents not to send the alcohol in to school, they would still be doing it. Trust is fine and a great thing, but what do you do when you are woking with people who you really can't trust to make reasonable choices?

And remember the school have next to no choice on this sort of thing. We are expected to take part in the Heathly Schools Initiative.

And when it comes to food preparation I can't honetly blame some parents for not knowing what a healthy diet is since the education system has failed to teach them. And if they are ignorent, so are the children.

Yes good point a few months ago there was an article by Charles Moore in the Telegraph or Spectator or something, about being told by a charity which takes elderly people out to tea, about how to prepare food and how ridiculous it was.

However, the charity's point was that actually, you can no longer trust that people will know basic health and safety stuff about food preparation, like washing their hands before handling food, and not leaving food hanging around the kitchen for hours before serving it. And as their clients are frail elderly people, they couldn't take it for granted that their hosts would know.

And sadly, the charity are probably right.

I wish I agreed that it wasn't because the parents don't care, martionbishop, but unfortunately I don't. I know of quite a few sets of parents who have laughed off the idea of 'healthy eating' with the, 'I didn't eat what they call healthily but I'm fine' when in reality they are obese and probably have goodness knows what health problems, I know of parents that think it's just fine that their children have had eight teeth removed by the age of seven, because it is only their baby teeth after all, and the worst is I know parents who used to make their two boys fight, until one cried, the one who cried first was the 'loser'.
Thats what i mean by parents that don't care enough, and then on top of those there are the parents who think that the experts 'don't have a clue'.
What on earth are we supposed to do about them?
The saddest thing is that the children of these parents are who suffer and it is likely they will continue the cycle, so unless schools etc do try and have an affect on the children whose parents don't make the effort then nothing will change.
This is why schools send out such letters, and try to encourage children to eat healthily/stay in school/exercise etc

But tbf, some "experts" don't have a clue.

I name no names.

True bella, some don't, but most of the things that we are told, like children needing more fruit and veg, less fizzy drinks, more exercise, less salt etc.
I mean things like Government recommendations not some of the ridiculous programmes on TV, I mentioned 'honey we are killing the kids early, but I honestly think some of the food they make the families prepare and cook is totally over the top, most of which I would never cook, and we have what I consider to be a good healthy diet.
To help people change it takes small steps that they hardly even notice, it would be extremely hard to change your whole life in a day.