Does your DC primary school allow squash through a hot day?

[Neowwwm]

Sent my DC with a non- see through bottle with juice in today as since weaning and trying - DC has never drank plain water. Teacher removed the bottle stating water only in the day which will be provided with their own water bottles from school and juice only at lunch time.

AIBU or should this rule be relaxed during heatwaves?

Why is it bad? I've drank heavily diluted sugar free squash (yes, it exists!) all my life, brush my teeth well and I am 30 with no fillings or decay. I have 6 month dental checks and each time they give me the all clear and praise me for my good hygiene. Tap water in my area tastes like crap and I refuse to keep buying plastic bottles of water

Ours is officially water only in bottles in the classroom, but they are allowed squash or juice in their lunchbox (fizzy drinks though).

Unofficially they will turn a blind eye to squash in water bottles as long as the water bottle is an opaque one so you can't see what's in it.

*no fizzy drinks

For those saying their children don't like water, that is because you have given juice too often. If you had never offered juice and only ever offered water it would be their norm and they would drink it. You make a lot of these issues.
I tried giving DD water every day for 7 months before she became ill. She didn't drink it once and never gave her anything else but milk even when she was clearly thirsty. When she became dehydrated she still just spat it out but drank the squash from the doctor in seconds because she was so thirsty.
The same way I gave her cauliflower every week and she spat that out too. She just didn't like it.

No but it's silly imo.

better to have squash than drink nothing all day. Especially in this heat. Wonder what would happen if a child ended up ill because of it.

@Silverswirl what about those people who, like me and my son, physically gag when drinking water? We both has autism, it’s neurological and it has massive impact on what food and drink we can and can’t tolerate.

The only idiots are those (with the rare exception of severe disabilities) who are claiming their kids won’t drink water.

It's not at all rare for autistic children to have very restricted diets though. One of mine never drank water. One of them only drank water. The food was another ball game altogether. Your posts have displayed a shocking ignorance regarding autism or plain nastiness towards parents - I can't even work out which. I hope it's the former, at least you can work on that. A nasty character is harder to change, but educating yourself about disabilities before posting utter shite blaming parents who have such a hard time as it is can be done.

Jeez @Silverswirl, you really don't have a friggin clue do you, yet here you are still spouting your ignorant bile. You should be so ashamed of your ignorance, but instead you stand up there & spout it for all to see 🙄

& FTR, I'm an adult. There was no such thing as squashes when I was a DC & definitely not in our house. Pop was a very occasional treat. So water, milk or tea was the norm for kids as we had no choice

How strange that by your reckoning I should love tap water as it's mostly all I had as a kid. Especially when I can't stand it as it's way too chemical for my sensitive palate

Ignorance 🤦🏻‍♀️

Our school is water only

My child has autism, was diagnosed at 2.4 years old . he doesn't drink water, never has . He doesn't eat meat or many veg and a number of other things due to spd. He was breastfed until 3 because of this.

He doesn't sleep either .

He's not denied any of it. Its all there avaliable to him. But I prefer to listen to the advice of professional rather than people like you who have no clue .

YABU with this comment.

Water only is not stupid.

Giving kids only sugary drinks is irresponsible. The damage it does to their teeth is real and creates bad habits for later life.

I don't enjoy plain water as I find it boring, my children all drink water but prefer squash when it's hot so that's what I give them. I just put it in a non see through bottle.

I think that’s pretty poor of the school tbf if that’s all she will drink. You need her drinking in this weather. However, I really wish I’d never introduced squash to my children. My daughter has poor teeth and the dentist thinks it’s because of sweets. It isn’t, she doesn’t even like them, it’s purely the squash and Tropicana in the mornings. I never took seriously how bad it actually affects them and I’m regretting it. Even with my own teeth really as I have drank in since being a child also.

Oh dear @SilverSwirl, you're very rude but haven't posted anything constructive.

As I asked in my previous post, perhaps you could give an actual solution if you're so knowledgeable in the area, rather than post... Well, I won't say what it is as I like to remain civil on MN. I have a robust understanding of autism in particular, and SEN in general through my role, lived experience and my postgrad research, so please don't feel you need to hold back on your advice, I am almost certain I will understand any technical terms and theories, and am interested to hear.

My son's school is water only however they do make exceptions if needed. DS suffers from a condition which is made worse by dehydration. He will not drink water, we have tried countless times he will just go thirsty so he has permission from the school to take in sugar free flavoured water which we do actually top up with water.

This is a sensible suggestion. Reduce the amount of ‘squash’ until your DC is used to the taste of water.

I can remember getting milk in mornings until Maggie Thatcher intervened but don’t remember having any access to drink outside of meal time.

There were shared water jugs on the tables in the lunch hall but kids quickly realised not to drink from them as they were full of boys spit. 😐

Pretty sure everyone just bought and drank cans of fizzy pop. The 90s were a mad time to be alive.

I used to be allowed to drink Coke for breakfast. Not hard feelings to my parents as everyone just does what is common at the time but I won’t be giving my DC fizzy drinks unless it’s a party or something.

Ive had veneers for front teeth since about 22 so let that be a cautionary tale on the realities of sugary or sweetened drinks 🤦🏼‍♀️

Squash doesn't need to be "sugary"

No added sugar orange squash for example is about 4 calories per glass.

But the OP hasn't indicated that her DC has any of these disorders.

I wasn't diagnosed until my mid-twenties 🤷🏻‍♀️

Lack of diagnosis doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist and on a hot day, it's far better that small children drink squash than nothing at all, surely?

My dd wasn't drinking enough water, never does. I tried discussing it with school and they wouldn't engage. She was coming home with a blazing headache and being quite unwell in hot weather so after a couple of days I bought her an opaque water bottle and put weak sugar free squash in it. Sometimes she has a slice of lemon in plain water. But now she drinks. In the first instance I would speak to the teacher at pick up.

What's with all the 'sugar bad for their teeth' comments. Most squash is sugar free now.

We actually tried an ant test out in the garden to see if they would touch it. They marched straight past with their little ant noses high in the air with disdain.

I think children should be encouraged to drink water rather than squash but I can't really get too bent out of shape about it.

So your answer is to allow a child to be hospitalised multiple times if they don't drink water? Rather than preventing them from becoming that dehydrated by offering them something that they will drink? Do you think the medication for repeated kidney infections is healthier than dilute, sugar free squash? Or do the hospital stays where they are being injected with saline IVs and on wards with lots of other poorly children carry less risk than a bit of juice? Is it a conscious choice to be this ignorant?

No, water only - ants! It's not great just to drink squash.

That will have been set very early in your childhood and you will have been offered an alternative when very little (probably very sugary back then) which you feel preferred. After that water didn’t taste so good and gagging got the response from your primary caregiver that you required.
This in built dislike of water has continued and subconsciously passed to your child as so so many likes and dislikes / character traits do between parent and child.
If juice, squash and fizzy drinks all disappeared tomorrow from every shop in the world and all there was left were bottles of water or tap water, you would be drinking it and most likely in months or years down the line your brain would have got very used to the way it tastes and you would like it.

Its better to drink something- rather than nothing in the heat.

If your child is used to only drinking sugary drinks, now is not the time for them to risk not drinking anything at all.

Pop colourless squash in their water.

Start weaning them off squash by diluting it more and more each time.

It’s not just the sugar or calories it’s the ph and acidity

“The best time for drinking sugar-free drinks is with meals, whereas continuously sipping during the day will cause the most damage”

www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/nutrition-and-oral-health/sugar-free-drinks-are-they-safe-for-teeth

There is also a difference between something having no sugar and having no added sugar.

This site has a list of better and worse options for flavouring water:

dentalchoices.org/which-drinks-are-tooth-kind/