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

[3andnomore]

cheese...you may not find it easy to believe...but indeed a lot of people do seem to live under a rock

and why would school prefer squash to water???????

[duchesse]

Cheese- if your daughter's trouble with eating is only at lunchtime at school, it may be worth investigating further what is bothering her about school lunchtimes. Many children in many schools do not have enough time to eat properly (they are given maybe 10 minutes to get and get out again), and if this is the case, it would certainly be worth highlighting with the PTA and board of governors.

Maybe, alternatively, some other children were giving her a hard time about having good stuff in her lunches. Again, worth investigating and dealing with.

If on the other hand, she is just not hungry, surely it wouldn't hurt to give her a load of fruit and a cereal bar or something for school, and make sure she has something more substantial when you get her home.

I personally feel that if a child eats very little anyway, one would be doing her a grave disservice by ensuring that all the calories she does take are empty ones. I've been there with my second child. I know it's not fun, but if it's any consolation, the child started eating adequately at 11, and did not seem to suffer any ill effects from years of eating very little.

[Lorayn]

cheeset, it is fine to give your children what they want but sometimes parents just dont have a clue.
Take this morning for example, DD tells me so-and-so ate some of her cucumber/cheese and pitta breads yesterday so can I give her more today as so-and-so's mum only gives her yoghurt.
Obviously I queried this and asked if she was sure it was only yoghurt.
"Sometimes she has a sausage roll, and she has two frubes and a big chocolate yoghurt thingy too"
I asked what about fruit, does she have any fruit, and DD told me "no, her mum doesn't buy it, she says it is too much money and she gets it at school anyway"
So this child who was happily eating pitta breads with cheese and cucumber and has no problem eating the one piece of fruit a day that schools provide was being fed junk.
As for the 'fruit' being too expensive, her mum smokes, and has regular appointment at the hairdressers to have her hair bleached.

[duchesse]

It is amazing that some parents are blind to their children's diet and, to put it bluntly, their tendency to chubbiness. I am constantly amazed to see children from otherwise perfectly functioning homes being sent to school with lunchables (you know what I mean) and fruit leather by parents who just didn't seem to notice that little Johnny could frankly do with being a stone slimmer.

I am also continually horrified to see families out and about where not is the mother slightly rotund, but the children, for their ages are frankly obese. I just wonder whether they think it is just a hormonal problem, when in all likelyhood, the parents just expect their kids to be on the chubby side, not realising that a BMI of 20 on a 7 yr old is actually quite seriously overweight for a child. I read somewhere on the the WHO site recently that a BMI of 15-16 is what you would expect for a 7 yr old. Shall try to track down their charts; very difficutl to navigate site though.

[Lorayn]

I have to admit both my children have a little podge on them round the middle (you can see from my pictures neither are obese though!)
Although I do feed them fruit and veg, and generally healthy food, we do enjoy good homecooked food, and I would prefer to cook with real butter/cream etc than buy 'healthy' food with additives.My children have huge appetites but eat good food which I would prefer to them being little skinny things that I constantly worried about getting food into.

[OrmIrian]

My problem atm is that while the rest of the family are reasonably slim, even though DS#1 eats a good diet he eats such a lot. He is also growing a little tiny roll of flab around his waist. This has happened before and usually it disappears when he has a growth spurt. But it does worry me a little. Will be keeping an eye on developments.

I can see how children get a little overweight without parents noticing or worrying too much, but once they are reaching obesity I simply can't see how it can be ignored or seen as normal.

[cheeset]

Hi, dd yr 1, school requests water not squash, my dd wont drink water at sch, her bottle comes home full BUT they have access to their other beakers which are kept full in class with water.

My kids brought up on Annabel Carmel, healthy, healthy, healthy.

Ds eats brilliantly but dd is an absolute nightmare at home and eats next to nothing, the same at sch.

Done the coaxing at the table, 'little bit more sweetie'(no pressure) done the pressure stuff (in desperation) and we all know that doesn't work.

What can I do?

That's why I'm laid back now, of course empty calories terrible and I don't stick choccy in her lunch box or the dairylee crap but as a mum you just want them to EAT!

I'm just hoping that she will just snap out of it one day.

After cooking aup a veritable feast in the kitchen to be told' I don't like it mummy' grrrrrrr.

[cheeset]

oh and yes, she gets little time to eat her luch at sch, they are not allowed to talk whilst eating their luch(because it takes them so long to eat).

DD refuses to eat her favourite stuff now because she gets bored with it-bring back bl hot school meals!

When I was at sch, we had the best grub, my sch won loads of awards because of the fine food they cooked. I love meat n 2 veg and was brought up on it particulary anything that went with 'spuds'/potatoes as my mum is Irish(compulsory Irish yayre!)

Now my family bloody hate potatoes, the kids have never liked chips or nuggetts even though I have forced them on them in the past as a quick meal-trying to get to bloomin cubs, bedtime etc!

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Sorry but I do think URBU (well a tad anyway).

I don't want my dd's school to "leave me alone and get on with teaching" I want them to communicate with me as much as possible and the more detailed and precise that communication the better imo. Just ignore the stuff that doesn't apply to you.

Having said that, our school has no objections about holidays being taken in school term up to the age of 6 ...