to want SOME control over packed lunches?

[kinderfool]

DD's (6yo) first day back at school today and she was a bit nervous about her new class so in her packed lunch, besides her drinks bottle, ham sandwich, a plum, piece of cheese (proper cheese not cheese spread or something) and a box of cherry tomatoes (at least 10 or more), I put in a Kinder egg (a massive treat for her) to cheer her up.

Comes to pick up and she'd had a reasonable day but was anxious to tell me she'd really wanted to eat her egg but hadn't been allowed. Checked her lunch bag expecting that she'd tried to eat that first and been stopped but after checking first and asking her, found out she'd eaten every crumb of everything else and had one little bite of choc before the TA watching stopped her. And it wasn't as if certain things aren't allowed, there's no nut allergy notifications at her school, and no set down rules about what can/can't be brought.

Now I completely sympathise with the need to crack down on kids who get a lunch of Coke, crisps and chocolate AND would completely understand if it was the toy they'd objected to (but dd was told by me she could eat the egg but not to even open the toy bit, to bring it home with her instead and knowing her she'd have repeated this parrot-style to the TA), but this just seems completely overboard for the first day.

As far as I can see, what I sent her with is a balanced meal so as long as it stays that way it should be of no concern to anyone else what I want her to eat. Plus she's a skinny little thing (thanks to never staying still) so the very last thing I need is someone putting ideas into her head that it's only ever acceptable to eat uber-healthy foods.

AIBU to, in a very polite and reasonable way, tell the TA to keep her nose out?

That is true madamearcati! When DD was once told of for eating a cereal bar the teacher said to her something on the lines of ""and you mum thinks it is OK to eat sugary snacks then?!"" when dd reprted it to me she said she felt like hiding a hole with shame!

I went srtaight to the HT to say that any complaints WRT to my dcs lunch boxes had to go through me and not my dcs who have no say in what I pack for them! The HT was actually that the teacher had gone through the child as well!

The problem is that the food served up at schools varies wildly. I am quite happy to let my son have chips at school with a steak once a week, as I do not provide chips at home on a regular basis; however, I object to him having a burger at school as I do not know what is in them, but do know what goes in the ones made by the butcher. We look at the menu, work out which days he will have a school meal, which days he will have a packed lunch and plan accordingly.

My son has a biscuit or a kitkat every day, plus fruit juice, a smoothy, fruit and a sandwich, as he is 13 and growing rapidly. Lunch boxes are not policed, and so life is easier. If I didn't provide that (or homemade cake if I've baked) he would spend money in the canteen on chocolate muffins, so at least I am controlling what he eats.

Juuule, you said "As I've said before, how about bringing back proper cookery lessons. How about nutrition being taught by qualified nutritionists"

I've seen this mentioned before on mumsnet about children not learning to cook at school. Is it common for schools not to teach cookery?

My dd learns cookery at school, but we are in Scotland. As far as I know all schools in my city teach cookery to the children.

At my dc's school they introduced a healthy pack lunch policy and consulted pupils and parents. They made a big thing of it giving housepoints, stickers etc if you had a healthy lunch. The kids loved it and would tell their parents not to put choc, biscuits, crisps. fruit shoots in their lunchboxes as they did'nt want to miss out on the rewards. The teachers loved it as the children were much calmer in the afternoons. I loved it as I it saved me money. The only people who kicked up a fuss were a few parents who did'nt want to be told what to do!.

Don't know about other schools but dd's school definitely doesn't teach cookery - at least not regularly or 'properly'. They have no cooking facilities (lunch kitchen is only for use for cooking school lunches) so all they do are things that can be done in the classroom, usually about once or maybe twice a term. Last term it was doing chocolate crispy cakes - teacher melted the choc outside the room and then all done in the classroom. The term before they did fruit kebabs (with some sort of syrupy 'topping'/sauce). This term the only thing we've been told involving food is dyeing fabric using onion skin/beetroot etc so not technically cooking.

Have raised the issue of cooking before and just been told they don't have the opportunity to fit it in so end of story. Really really wish they did it, or at the very least discussed it if they couldn't practically do it (ie, meal ideas, favourite foods and how they fit into the week etc). I remember doing cooking at least once a fortnight when I was at school and although it was generally some kind of buttery biscuit or cake it was still useful to get the idea of cooking from scratch. At secondary school we made a wider variety of things but it was still very much the vein of 'fruit & veg = good, chocolate & sugar = bad' but looking back it was better than nothing. Appreciate times change but think cutting down on cooking/food education should be more of a priority, not less.

Maybe I should move to Scotland, seriously.

My dd1 is at Secondary school, they get cookery classes once a week.

My dd2 is at primary, they don't get cookery lessons.

Sorry I should have made that clear in my last post. It's all secondary schools that teach cookery, is that not the norm elsewhere?

Linnet, at our secondary school they don't seem to do cookery. They do food technology. Which seems to have a lot to do with 'designing' sandwiches or writing up a cafe menu. My children have made a pizza. Which seemed more to be assembling a pizza as they took in a pizza base and put cheese and tomato topping on it. They made a milkshake - milk, milkshake powder and a variety of chocolate and sweets to put on top. I can't think of anything else they've made so not sure what they do the rest of the time.
None of mine have opted for this subject at GCSE so maybe it changes after KS3.

But, nooka, just because something seems to be easy and cheap does not make it right. And, there is always the law of unintended consequences to consider.

I hate the idea of giving children "rewards" for having a healthy packed lunch when, as gorionine pointed out, the child has no control over what is being packed. By all means, teach children about food - cooking lessons would be a great way to do that - and reward the children for the knowledge they acquire but to try to manipulate the parents by how the children are treated is appalling, imo, and the "rewards" will do that just as much as the teacher's comments to gorionine's dd did.

I can't see how relying on bans will do anything of significance to improve the nutrition overall of kids whose parents don't know how to provide an adequate diet. All it does is to piss off those who can feed their child perfectly well, including incorporating a reasonable quantity of sweets, biscuits and chocolate if they choose to do so, and sends a message that undermines the authority of all parents. Nice work.

Well I'm afraid that's public health for you, it's all about the benefit to the public, not the individual. Cost effectiveness being one of the main factors used for assessing most programmes.

As I recall (I worked in primary care when the healthy schools programmes were being introduced, but no longer do so) research shows that increasing consumption of fruit/veg, improving the quality of school meals (a long long way to go there in some areas), spreading healthy eating messages and reducing the opportunities for junk in school go some way to increase the number of children eating more healthily (with side benefits around increasing concentration). On average packed lunches have been found to be less healthy than school dinners (I imagine that there is a fair bit of variation within that) which is why schools were asked to bring in packed lunch policies (although these were supposed to be consulted on) as part of Healthy Schools.

Given that the benefit is to the child in eating healthily I don't have quite your appalled reaction to sticker type schemes, but it is a fine line to walk - however given that the main reason why parents give their children packed lunches (more than cost apparently) is because they want to be sure their child is eating food they like then influencing the child's wants doesn't seem that wicked. Adverts push in the other direction, and I think there was a bit of a feeling that it was important to fight back on that front with reverse pester power.

At the end of the day we as a nation are getting fatter and fatter and that's a bad thing, costly and life limiting. So of course the government is going to try and do something about it. I think the numbers of parents who are so angry about minor limitations to lunchboxes (checking lunchboxes is a step too far, but this isn't actually advocated to schools) is outweighed by those that are quite happy to have their children supported in making good choices (certainly where schools do consult they generally get positive reactions from parents).

On the wider issue of parental autonomy, I am afraid that there are many areas where schools do undermine parents, rightly or wrongly should parents choose schools which have very different values to their own. It is I think one of the things that comes as a bit of a surprise to many parents, as schools IMO/E are still very old fashioned in that respect and very much set the rules and expect you to follow them. I can understand why they do that but it's not very in tune with the move to consumerism pretty much everywhere else, hence it getting up parents noses to be effectively told what to do.

After all you might be annoyed, but is that really going to make you feed your child badly if you currently do not?

An excellent post nooka.

Nooka rocks

I think that Nooka sums up the current situation very well. I don't think she has given a good explanation of why current methods are a good idea. I still think they can cause harm in some instances and don't really address getting children to understand nutrition properly.

As regards her last paragraph - we are constantly being told about the schools being in partnership with parents and pupils. In reality this seems to mean in the main, that schools dictate and parents and pupils do as they are told.
I think it is now schools which are being surprised by how some parents are wanting to be more involved in their children's lives and are reluctant to allow the school to decide what a family should or shouldn't be doing outside school hours (is lunchtime one's own time?).

nooka " should parents choose schools which have very different values to their own."
Unfortunately a lot of parents don't have a choice of which school they send their children to.

Nooka I agee your post is very well thought and yes I also agree that my DCs will not have a worse diet but IMO it is not only about the diet thing it is about taking away parental choices away. As I haave mentionned before, the plan is to go much further that sweets and chocolate soon it will be yogourts who are too sweet and cheeses thast ate too fat or too salty. I am making my point strongly to the school now at the early stages because if nobody does I worry that one day, I will receive a list of 3 items that the school considers ok for me to put in my dcs packed lunch. It does probably sound like I am having a wimp over the issue but I can guaranty you that the list of things that will become "forbden food" will only grow and grow if nothing is done now!

WRT to choose a school with different values to your own, when DD1 started school 6 years ago, the policy did not exist, when ds2 started the policy did not exist, when ds3 started nursery in the ame school the policy did not exist. They came up with it last September do you really think I should have changed school for my DCs?

Sorry for typos.

Im am also waiting patiently for the day the Government will decide that too many fruits cause tooth erosion an then fruit will be banned too. This way, eating absolutely nothing it is certain that the generations to come will not be obese and will have beautiful teeth...that they do not even need to use anymore!

Nooka, I also have to disagree quite violently with the notion that just because something appears to be for the good of the majority (making children eat better) that it is, therefore, OK to ride roughshod over the fundamental principle that individuals have the right to exercise choice over their own lives (including the right of parents to exercise choice over their children's lives).

There is also the point that has been made more than once on this thread that introducing simplistic bans on certain types of food could do harm while it fails to do the good it strives for.

And checking lunchboxes very much is part of the policy advocated for schools. I've looked on various official websites in the past couple of days. On the School Food Trust website, the sample packed lunch policy - so presumably the kind that is approved of by the government - includes this :-

"Packed lunches will be regularly reviewed by teaching staff / catering staff / midday meal supervisers / pre-identified pupil packed lunch helpers (delete as appropriate).
Healthy lunches will be rewarded by?. (stickers / congratulatory letters home / etc)
Parents and pupils who do not adhere to the Packed Lunch Policy will receive a leaflet in the packed lunch informing them of the Policy. If a child regularly brings a packed lunch that does not conform to the policy then the school will contact the parents to discuss this."

Now, of course, much will depend on how the school puts this into practice. I think that stepping in just because a child's lunch contains a piece of chocolate goes too far.

And yet another good post by Mrshighwater.

Very, very scary actually.

The school my niece goes to does a points reward scheme for kids who bring in healthy food. However, my niece took in a fairy cake that she made with her mum (from scratch, not from a packet) and had points deducted for it. The teacher announced to the entire class that my Niece might have cost them their end of year trip by bringing in a cake!!!! My Sis went along to the school to speak to head, and was informed that cakes are not allowed in packed lunches (not in the leaflets sent home) But the best thing is that the kids on school meals get custard and CAKE for dessert. How does that work?

My DS goes to school here in Ireland, they don't have a policy in place but expect parents to know what should and shouldn't be in a lunchbox.
Last night we had a bbq (ended up indoors) but we had leftovers. So I sent DS to school with leftover Potato salad which had spring onions, grated carrot and some raisin or currants in, a yoghurt/actimel drink. Fruit and water. The potato salad was taken off DS and handed back to me this afternoon when i went to pick him up. They don't consider Potato salad to be a meal and so it was confiscated!!!

I'm so confused. And to the annoyance of what is allowed and what is not, they only give his class 15mins to eat their lunch. Which includes the time it takes to get all the kids to sit down and get their bags etc. He ends up having a few bites of lunch and some of his juice/water, which seems kind of pointless sending in lunch at all, when he gets out ten minutes later.

I feed my DS a mixture of fruit and veg throughout the day anyway, I managed to do this fine before he started school and expect I will be able to continue to do so all the while he is in school.

I was hoping that he would be allowed to 'relax' a little wrt to food and have some of the stuff he wanted because he eats so well throughout the day anyway. Admittedly, he doesnt want choc spread sandwiches but he is after mac n cheese and fish fingers

Have rambled and may have lost focus along the way... sorry

Shocking AntdamntheDM! Wrong from both schools! Did they really think he was better off staying hungry for the afternoon!!!!

I think they seen it as 'he will be going home in ten minutes, its not that big a deal' But when he starts to go full time, it will be different. He will not want to particpate in class if he is hngry.

They also haven't mentioned anything about an increase in lunch break for the kids when they do go full time. Because imo 15mins is not long enough for a classful of 4-5yr olds to eat their entire lunch. Everyday for the past two weeks, we have been sitting on a bench in the park across the road from the school so that he can finish his lunch.

Where we are in Ireland, none of the schools have a lunch hall that offers food, so all the kids bring a packed lunch. My neighbour was telling me about what she puts in her DD (age 9) lunchbox. She has to put in one piece of fruit, one bottle of water or diluted fruit juice. Something containing calcium (cheese or yoghurt) and for the main part either a sandwich (using appropriate bread) with a healthy filling or a flask of hot soup. However, they do not check what kids actually bring in their lunchbox, so that seems very pointless.

You can't win

When I'm feeling charitable, I am inclined to think that horror stories like the one about AntdamntheDM's neice's school are examples of individual schools taking guidance that is reasonably sensible (i.e. promote healthy food choices) and going nuts (tho, possibly not peanuts ) with it - the kind of thing that happens with Health & Safety guidance, for example.

What you've said about your ds's school also horrifies me, Ant. Not just confiscating potato salad (or anything else) but the minuscule amount of time allowed for eating. Surely if we are to rely on schools to promote the healthy eating message, it would be better to make sure that they know what they are talking about?

Perhaps what we shoudl be doing is to look at other countries that have a health track record we can envy and then try to work out how their entire approach to food differs from ours. And then try to copy it. I don't know whether schools in France or Spain, for example, have foods that are banned (or whether they are healthier than we are, for that matter) but I'll bet they get longer to eat than 15 minutes!

Yeah i'm with you MsHighwater. I can't understand how anyone can think that 15mins is long enough for a child to eat his/her lunch.

I also think you have made a good point about other country's eating habits. I really doubt that France, Germany or Italy ban certain foods from lunch. I think that they may be healthier than we (or so I am led to believe) because they have such a different attitude to food than we do.

I´m in Germany and we send in a mid morning snack.
School is 8-1.15 most days so mine are home here for a cooked lunch.
I usually send a couple of sandwiches and maybe a cereal bar.
I´m sure we´ve been asked not to give sweets.

I don´t give biscuits/chocolate as I see them as treats rather than food.

One day is until 4 and there is a canteen serving snacks or a hot meal.
They get 45mins for that.

Sounds like things have moved on since I was in the UK then. btw I'm am not in favour of schools being highhanded, I think they would do better at developing partnerships if they learned how to do things like consult (something that many schools are very bad at) and dropped the "we know better" attitude.

The continent doesn't have the same obesity problem though and it's nothing to do with school lunches, more a fundamentally different approach to lifestyle. My children have been in school in the States and Canada though and obesity is a very big issue over here too. In the States the schools used sweets a lot as rewards, sold icecream every day, and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a lunch option too (also every day). There were a lot of fat kids, and it was sad to see them wheezing around.

But the welfare state is largely based on the idea of majority benefit, and yes that does mean the loss of some individual freedoms.