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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have some sympathy with the "Jamie Oliver Burgers through the fence" mothers?

186 replies

Fridayfeeling · 10/04/2008 22:36

We got a letter home earlier this week asking not to put crisps, chocolate, sweets in our children's lunchboxes.

How about you Fu*k off and mind your own business - a mini roll never killed anyone (especially as part of a balanced diet) !

OP posts:

claire7676 · 10/04/2008 23:53

I do not understand expat? Octo, I am genuinely jealous! Sadly though the only veg (bar peas) my DD will eat is pureed into sauces, grated etc, (that is what I mean by conned)

VeniVidiVickiQV · 10/04/2008 23:53

I really REALLY dont get the hardship about children not having chocolate or crisps for 6 hours out of their day. I really dont. It's crazy.

Octothechildherder · 10/04/2008 23:53

Expat - are you my mother?

expatinscotland · 10/04/2008 23:54

I mean, she won't eat fruit and veg, claire, does that mean she won't eat a sandwich and oatcakes in her lunchbox?

Because parents place the burden of their kids all jacked up on junk food on schools and teachers, heads are increasingly putting in rules like this.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2008 23:54

I mean, she won't eat fruit and veg, claire, does that mean she won't eat a sandwich and oatcakes in her lunchbox?

Because parents place the burden of their kids all jacked up on junk food on schools and teachers, heads are increasingly putting in rules like this.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2008 23:55

I don't, either, VVV, or the idea that they just absolutely positively will NOT eat anything else, but they eat well at home.

Octothechildherder · 10/04/2008 23:55

Claire - you have to do what works for you - but she really doesn't need to be eating crap at school.

Good night all x

Btw - I am no domestic goddess LOL

VeniVidiVickiQV · 10/04/2008 23:57

Phew! Thank god for that Expat and Octo. I thought I was going mental for a bit with all these folk saying "YANBU"......

Try living with a child with strict dietary needs and then complaining about farking mini rolls. Honestly.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 10/04/2008 23:57

Night Octo

LyraSilvertongue · 11/04/2008 00:01

DS1 refused for ages to eat chocolate. it turned out it was because he'd been taught at school that chocolate was unhealthy.
While I appreciate the school's efforts to teach the children what's healthy and what's not, I don't want him scared to eat any particular food. He has chocolate sometimes, but an otherwise very healthy diet with plenty of fruit and veg.
The best example to DS1 is his best friend at school, who has blackened teeth from eating too much sugar. DS1 doesn't want black teeth.

claire7676 · 11/04/2008 00:02

Ok, one last try before I bow out gracefully and retreat to my bed. Expat, she will eat half a ham or sausage sandwich, some raisins and a fruit pouch. That seriously is it. I've not said at any time that I want to fill her lunch box with sweets and chocs and crisps, just that I resent being told what I can and can't give her. (Part of a more nanny state problem 4 me) I would like to include homemade flapjack or something sometimes, thats all. Secondly, I have never argued that she eats well at home. (Trying hard to maintain a rational head and not feel like I'm winning worst mum tonight award, remembering why I don't often post...) Anyhow, I will now bow out, night ladies! x

Octothechildherder · 11/04/2008 00:04

No no claire - I get worst mum award for my 11 month ds being bitten by a rabbit last week and having to go to hosp for stitches not long after I let go of him in his backpack and he fell forward onto a wall and got a black eye Thats BAD mummy!

Def off to bed is midnight

AbbeyA · 11/04/2008 08:24

It is difficult to strike a balance between healthy eating and nanny state. Most schools are going for healthy schools awards, they have sorted out school dinners and only have fruit at breaks but then it is all undone by very unhealthy lunch boxes. Some DCs lunchboxes are unbelievable and only have crisps and chocolate! It is perhaps a good thing to say that if they are eaten in school then they have to comply with school policy. However it is very condescending and dictatorial to the parent and I would resent it. My DSs are older now but although they ate fruit at home they wouldn't at school so any put in a lunch box came home. They liked to eat quickly and get out to play!

belgo · 11/04/2008 08:29

My children's school has strict rules about what goes into their luchboxes.

It makes my life very simple that all the children have virtually the same. It means they all eat it because all the other children are eating it.

I like rules. Easier for me as a parent.

Blandmum · 11/04/2008 08:41

You really have to see just how poor some of the food choices are in lunch boxs to belive them.

There is one lad where I work who always has 3 bars of chocolate and 2 packets of crisps.

We had one lad who was so off his face on red bull, he was violent.

Trying to teach some of these kids before lunch is hard, thrying to teach them after a face full of sugar and e-numbers is alsmost imposible, and they could be in your kid's class

and we have 1300 kids in the school, you can't keep track of the fact that 'X has not had a choc bar this week, so he is OK with a mars bar today'

You only have yo wait a few hours to give your child the treat of your choice, why are you so worried?

AbbeyA · 11/04/2008 08:48

I think on reflection that I agree with you, belgo-it makes life simpler and it is worth having rules laid down if it gets rid of the truly appalling lunch boxes.

Blandmum · 11/04/2008 08:51

My kids have a hot lunch (thank the lord!) but are only allowed fruit or veg for snack time, which is great. They do make exceptions for real medical need.

the restrictions have encouraged my rather picky ds to eat more friut, which is helpful.

MrsMills · 11/04/2008 08:54

I think you'd hate it here then .

Lunch is provided free to every child, but there is no choice, you get what you are given. There is no dessert. All allergies are catered for, but fussy eaters are not. There are not so many fussy eaters here. None of the children have packed lunches

Fruit is given in the morning and mid afternoon they have a snack, something like cheese and crackers, yoghurt etc. Milk or water are the only drinks given.

It works.

I appreciate that this is not in the U.K., but it is food for thought (pardon the pun).

Blandmum · 11/04/2008 08:56

Mrs Mills, my ds's food choices expanded rapidly when he started having hot lunches in school. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing! and as in your situation, the only expections are for real allergies

belgo · 11/04/2008 09:00

Where are you MrsMills? I'm in Belgium.

I find that if you give a group of children all the same fruit on a regular basis, then they tend to all eat it.

This is what my children's school does (we do pay a small amount for it of course).

MrsMills · 11/04/2008 09:03

Absolutely right MB. You cannot underestimate the power of peer pressure around the dinner table.

I help out at the school one day a week, so have lunch with the children (aged 4 - 10), and it is a joy to watch 30 children all finishing their plates and more often than not, having seconds. Nobody is judging what's on their plates, it just isn't an issue. Full stop.

MrsMills · 11/04/2008 09:05

Belgo, I'm in Sweden

Blandmum · 11/04/2008 09:06

Interestingly there was a point where the school allowed 'fruit bars'.

Some of the kids wanted fruit winders (ghastly things) and the pressure was there on the parents to buy the things so that the kids didn't feel 'left out' at break time.

Thankfully the school tightened up the rules, and juniour school kids tend to accept rules fairly well!

so now we are back to fruit and veg

seeker · 11/04/2008 09:19

I just don't get this "I don't want to be told" business! Why on earth not?

Children need good healthy food. They need not to be on a sugar high for afternoon school - and a lot of them need to realize what healthy food is, because they sure as hell don't learn it at home. Children only get one chance at life - isn't it up to the school to do everything it can to make that the best start in all areas?

I think it's absolutely brilliant that lunch boxes are policed - not least because it stops mine going on about the unfairness of them not getting sweets when other people do.

And I would have a bloody sight more sympathy for the "burgers through the fence" mothers if they had been "sandwich and a punnet of strawberries through the fence" mothers!

Elk · 11/04/2008 09:21

My dd (fussy eater) has been having school meals for 2 terms now and the only vegetable they have persuaded her to eat is broccoli(and does not include the stalk) and she will now eat sausages. This is a school where everybody has exactly the same hot freshly cooked lunch. She very rarely gets pudding as she doesn't finish her food so gets offered an apple/banana which she also doens't eat. So sometimes peer pressure/familiarisation doesn't work as well as everybody says it does.

I was seriously underwieght as a child (until I was a teenager) and my GP told my mother that if all I would eat was crisps and chocolate then that's what I should have as I couldn't afford to loose any more weight - What would a school do in that situation now?

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