Packed lunch police

[penneforyourthoughts]

DD’s school has changed their packed lunch policy and no longer allows them to have juice cartons of any description.

I know that there are bigger problems in the world but it’s made me pretty cross. DD is quite food avoidant and I do my best to pack a sensible lunch for her but I like the fact that I can give her fruit juice (flavour, texture and one of her five a day, I think).

I don’t want to make a fuss because it’s a great school but AIBU to raise it with them?

@tatamama the dental point REALLY isn’t understand I assure you. I assume @Derbee is a dentist like me as they really seem to understand the impact ‘healthy’ sugary drinks can have.

Regardless of what people think about juice, when are we going to stop letting schools tell us what we can and can't feed our children. Unless there is a serious case of neglect I honestly can't understand why it's their business. So what if other kids are jealous - that's life!

Don't get me started on the rule that my child is not allowed to walk to school on her own until year 6. Just how is that heir business I wonder.

I follow these rules, but they seriously annoy me to no end.

A very close friend works in a school and the children that have 'bad' packed lunches often have issues at home too. So whilst as I originally said I don't agree with every rule the lunch police dictate, I'm glad the schools take note and monitor.

My guess is there are other causes for the behaviour - the issues at home - not the lunch.

@hopingbutlosing

A very close friend works in a school and the children that have 'bad' packed lunches often have issues at home too. So whilst as I originally said I don't agree with every rule the lunch police dictate, I'm glad the schools take note and monitor.

My guess is there are other causes for the behaviour - the issues at home - not the lunch.

I didn't say there was a 100% correlation between 'bad' packed lunches and behaviour. Some of the children are brilliantly behaved but a 'bad' packed lunch has been a flag to issues at home which is why I'm glad schools do monitor lunch content.

The 'bad' parents giving their children permanently horrendous diets constituting neglect won't take any hints from what the school don't allow in lunch boxes and stop and think 'wait, maybe if the school don't allow them on the premises, that probably means I should ban/severely limit them at home as well'.

They'll just treat it the same as uniform: a 'school thing' that might not make a lot of sense to them, but totally irrelevant outside school.

@1940s monitoring is fine, but I just don't agree with banning food.

I disagree. I'm glad that the child that needs to sit next to mine from 12.45-3.45 hasn't just chugged a large full fat Coke and a sausage roll. That would have an impact on my child's learning environment.

Some do the rules are silly and too much, but I like some rules of what the children are eating to attempt some stability of their mood and attention spans.

Here’s the thing - MY children don’t drink fruit juice, squash or fizzy drinks. I only ever give them water from when they are babies so they never get the taste for it.

Upshot of that is they never really wanted other drinks. My older two are 7 and 19 - they still chose only water when we go out and there are other drinks on offer (aside from my 19 year old who likes a bitter like an old man when he’s out with his mates ), my 7 year old turns down squash of offered by other people because she prefers water.

My mother in law does her best to try and force fruit shoots down them - which I can’t stand, awful, awful stuff, but because it says fruit on the label she thinks it’s a health drink. Luckily they always say no thank you.

So yay me, where’s my medal?

But I can also see that other parents don’t have that experience and that there are children who just won’t drink water for what ever reason. So I see those parents points of view without judgement.

It doesn’t make me a better parent because I’m too tight to buy squash or fruit juice. And it doesn’t make them bad parents because they are just trying to make sure their children are hydrated.

You can flavour water without it showing, I've had it with sliced lemon, cucumber and mint, I suspect it would work with slices of orange too. Put the favouring into a jug of water and refrigerate overnight.

Absolutely! This is to do with reducing waste. All those mini cartons waste a lot of lot of plastic and cardboard. We all need to use re-usable cups/beakers!!

The true irony is that schools will happily sell your child sweets and cakes as a way of raising money for the school. I can't bare this double standard.

Yes, YABU. There is a huge government focus on oral health at the moment, and fruit juice will be full of sugar!

Just buy a large carton to have at home and then decant into a small bottle for the lunchbox. They don’t need to know what is in a reusable bottle.

Ah but cant she just have squash in a flask?

I really don't see the issue. It's cheaper for you and less waste for landfill innit

I'm surprised more schools aren't 'water only'- ours is.
Water followed by milk are the best.(healthiest) drink options.
And (tap) water is the cheapest!

Ughhh I hate packed lunch police! There's a lot of things schools do to keep kids safe and healthy but I honestly think policing and criticising their lunches is just asking for them to have issues with food. Make a fuss.

A juice carton everyday creates unnecessary waste. They are mixed materials so hard to recycle. A clear plastic bottle of juice would be better, but obviously best of all is water in a refillable bottle. Won’t rot teeth either. My kids school has only ever allowed water.

I would continue buying her the juice but put it in a bottle. It's probably because cartons tend to explode and make a lot of mess. It is only 1 of her 5 a day if it is pure juice not from concentrate and 150ml I believe

It isn't much fun being in a room with 30 kids who have consumed loads of sugar & E numbers at lunchtime. Many LA encourage schools to adopt a healthy eating (& drinking) policy.

@AnkleDeep

They are educating her- teaching her juice isn’t a great choice of drink

Fruit juice doesn’t count as 1 of your 5 a day.

Some of the school policing issues might be as a result of the 'desirable' Healthy Eating status that many schools subscribe to ( I believe it's Ofsted related but not too sure.)

Trouble is , for every parent who feels that they've been judged , there's another parent who will happily pop a tub of 20 cocktail sausages from the supermarket round the corner , into a child's lunch bag.

I saw so much woeful parenting at the school I worked at for nearly twenty years.
Pepperami packs with sausage rolls and a chocolate button pudding.
Vacuum sealed burgers in buns.
Crisps and skips and French fries.
Cans of full sugar coke.
A single bag of chocolate buttons.

It's been so sad seeing so many children, over the years being nutritionally damaged.

However, school dinners still remain absolutely appalling and most of the Key Stage 1 free dinners are thrown away.
Mostly due to the fact that children won't generally eat pieces of meat and refuse to eat salads or vegetables.

You'd be very surprised at the number of children who don't use cutlery , but that's probably for a different thread.

@niugboo

Fruit juice doesn’t count as 1 of your 5 a day.

Yes it does.

A 150ml glass of unsweetened fruit juice, vegetable juice or smoothie can count as a maximum of 1 portion of your recommended 5 daily portions of fruit and vegetables. from www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/water-drinks-nutrition/

It isn't as healthy as whole fruit but it does count under NHS guidelines.

Regardless of what people think about juice, when are we going to stop letting schools tell us what we can and can't feed our children

When children spend so much time at school, we have to allow schools to educate and enforce healthy eating and drinking where they can. We can’t object to school policy, and also complain about issues with the NHS etc when the largest reason for admission of primary age children is tooth decay.

Children who drink water at home won’t be bothered by the water at school rule. Children who drink juice/squash/fizzy drinks (and I HAVE seen primary age children drinking fizzy cans) are at least limiting the damage to their teeth by drinking water for the time they’re at school

Many schools don’t allow just anyway and never have. Save the juice for when she gets home, or before school. They don’t need juice in their lunchboxes, water is fine.