to think that my DSs should be allowed to eat what I give them at breaktime?

[lonelymom]

My DSs school seems to have an unwritten rule that they are ONLY allowed fruit at breaktime. Problem is one of my DSs only eats bananas unsupervised. Any other fruit and I have to stand over him saying 'Git it down yer throat NOW!'. Anyway as his bananas have been coming home uneaten and bashed (even though he has a 'bananaguard' being the height of coolness that he is) I started to give him 'schoolbars' and apple crisps but he is coming home saying that his teacher will not let him eat them and he has to put them back in his bag . Now come on - these are a form of fruit , they contain lots of fruit anyway. I am furious about the apple crisps as these are essentially dried apple slices dipped in lemon juice. I have spoken to his teacher about this a few times and she has said that it's OK so I don't know what the hells going on. This nanny state we live in makes me bloody angry. I am a grown adult who should be able to decide what my kid eats!! If I want to give him a Mars Bar, I should be able to, fgs. By the way, my other DS (in a different class) gets to eat his.

AbbeyA, I'm getting very close to swearing. My dd has a healthy diet though I should not need to justify that to you. It consists of things other than fruit as well as fruit. It includes a little chocolate and, even, the occasional burger (very occasional). At 3, she has never been into a McDonalds or a KFC or any other similar establishment and we have no plans yet to change that. This is not, and never has been, about me (or the OP) not wanting my dd (or her ds) to eat fruit. It is about a principle - and about the fact that the OPs school actually doesn't appear to have a published rule about this - only an "unwritten" rule that is, in any case, denied by the teacher. It is also about supporting what actually works instead of being smug about what will not work on its own.

It's ok, abbey. AT this late stage, there's no chance of you understanding (not agreeing with, just understanding) a different point of view here.

And I don't believe for a second that all teh staff in your school have a piece of fruit for break.

The patronising tone is wearing me down too, MrsH.

The principe stinks MSHighwater-and that is finally my last word! My DCs eat in McDonalds, have puddings etc but I don't object to someone telling them they can only have fruit at 10.30am on a week day.
Choose your school carefully. You can have any principle you like but in my LEA her snack would be taken away from her.
I cannot believe that someone is so against a piece of fruit merely because they are told to do it!!

I'm glad you showed up, pointy.

I'm not. Let's fly away and find us a better place.

SGM, thanks for the history lesson. Actually I do know what Rosa Parkes was famous for, thanks all the same, and I don't think there is anything incorrect or offensive about speculating that some people might have thought that the fact that she could get on the bus at all was all that mattered and that the issue of where she should sit on the bus might be too trivial to risk going to prison for.

By mentioning Rosa Parkes at all, you were suggesting that this issue is too trivial to take any kind of stand on - even when it is, as in my case, limited to discussing it on a message board. I was not equating this issue to segregation. But you were telling my I'm wrong because you think it's not important enough to bother about.

I'll try, pointy. Really I will.

Glad to see this still going on.

Do those who say "it's a rule - obey it" see any downside to having a government issued menu for all meals of the day - for adults too?

Surely with all the obesity this would be a good thing and no one would disagree surely?

It would save you all the effort of choosing what to eat.

OK, one more point and then I'm going. SGM, Rosa Parkes did not sit down because she was tired. As I understand it, she sat down as part of a planned protest against the segregation that, amongst other things, reserved certain areas of buses for whites only.

MsHighwater on Mon 29-Sep-08 19:14:44
"SGM, all I am suggesting - all I have been suggesting all along - is that if I, as her mother - were to choose, occasionally to give my dd something other than fruit for a snack at school, she should be allowed to eat it without interference."

Yes and if I as ds's mother were to choose occasionally to put him in different clothes, why should he not be allowed to wear those without interference? Where is the difference?

Blimey, this thread is seriously weird.

Eating fruit as a violation of civil rights????

My dds are too young for school but dd1 goes to a kindergarten with a fruit-only rule for the afternoon session and do you know, it never occurred to me that my rights as a parent were being ruthlessly trodden on!

If my dds have this rule at school too I'm not sure I'll give the issue more than a minute's thought.

Some of that minute will be devoted to feeling grateful that my children won't be sitting in a classroom full of children high as kites on E numbers.

The rest of the minute I might spend reflecting that this could make a big - perhaps lifelong - difference to children who don't normally eat fruit at home.

Then I would turn my thoughts forever to more weighty issues, like why there are 1 645 345 pink socks in the sock basket but no actual pairs.

It's not even as if they're going to force him to eat fruit; he has the option of foregoing the snack altogether. It's not exactly going to do him any harm to fast from breakfast to lunch break.

The problem is that it is impossible to have a rule saying that pupils should have generally healthy meals, or that they may only have unhealthy snacks now and then or they should only be allowed to fill their lunch boxes with unhealthy snacks if they eat healthily at home etc etc. It would be impossible to enforce.

Either you can have a rule about what food stuffs you can bring in or no rule at all. If you have no rule, you have to accept that you will have to teach and try to discipline children who are subsisting on packets of hula hoops and candysticks- underfed and high as kites on sugar and e-numbers.

If it were my dc, the choice would be simple- you either eat the fruit I give you or you have to wait until lunchtime.

Incidentally, in Sweden, where I have contacts, all parents expect as a matter of course that their dc's will eat school lunches and nothing else (no provision for bringing in lunchboxes), but it would be considered a major interference in parent/pupil rights if a teacher were to comment on what a pupil was wearing (unless too cold and flimsy to be suitable for compulsory outdoor games).

They don't wear uniforms? but how does that work. Doesn't it lead to anarchy and the fall of civilisation as we know it?

Odd there are 350+ posts on this thread, with so many passionate views (on both sides) and yet there are less than 60 posts on a thread about voting in a general election (which I suspect is in itself highly disproportionate and optimitic to the actual turn out of the electorate).

SGM, you can continue to believe that I'm trying to lend credence to my argument by likening it to the civil rights movement in the US in the 60s, if you like. It's not what I was doing and it doesn't make your argument any stronger to try to dismantle mine on a false premise.

I was simply trying to point out that just because someone says that an issue is too trivial to be bothered about, doesn't mean that it is. If that offends you, I can't help it.

MsHighwater I think you are in the minority. Years ago when the school I worked in changed to healthy snacks we only had 1 complaint out of 300 kids. All bar 1 of the parents were grateful.

Now at my son's school they have the free fruit/veg and parents can send in fruit/veg too. It works well,kids are happy,parents are happy,teachers are happy.

Teaching classes of 30 kids stuffed full of E-numbers isn't easy,perhaps you'd care to give it a try.

It's not a vote on who approves of fruit.

I expect the majority of women wear skirts/dresses, but if you got a letter tomorrow forbidding you to wear trousers of any kind when picking up the kids from school you might want to tell them to mind their own business.

Abbey...the battered/deepfried marsbars are most likely a sscottish thing.....there are lots and lots of scottish people here in Corby ...just thought I mention that....

Do you not see the simple issue here is that schools can and constantly do make rules about what CHILDREN are allowed to do on their premises? It is their right. My children's school does not allow scooters and bikes from home to be ridden into the school playground. Most schools have rules about what children wear. They ban running in corridors, stop them talking over the teacher, insist they read certain books and do certain work, they ban kids from leaving without a parent, and yes, make sensible decisions about what children can eat while on the premises. This is so not a matter of human rights.
And yes, sometimes the rules are for parents too. At my school prams were banned from the school (now parents pick up from the playground so this is no longer an issue).
Most teachers have better things to do than read the small print on food labels in order to work out if a snack is healthy or not, and as many have said, they really don't enjoy teaching kids off their tits on e-numbers. If your kids don't like fruit, then they can do what everyone used to do, wait until lunch. Kids are getting spoilt and fat, and parents who whinge and whine and carp at every sensible rule are half the problem.

I think it was rebelmum that said earlier, that apparently all those parents that obey these rules and accept them are therefore accepting they are bad parents...
tbh, I disagree with this....because I know, if it was me they would not need to make a rule like that....but I know that many people don't have that kind of commonsense, and therefore accept that these rules are put into place in order to assure all Kids have healthy food available....simple really...

FairLady, please think about what you have said. All these rules are OK (you seem to be saying) because they are forcing people to do things that are good for them even if some of them lack the sense to make those sensible choices for themselves. So it's OK to compel people to do things that are in their own interests (as defined by?). Now I'm not going to risk any more flaming by suggesting any parallels with any more serious issue but, if you accept the principle, does that not strike you as all a little dodgy? Even a little bit?