In refusing to send DCs to school with plastic water bottles?

[MadameCastafiore]

Right may be a bit long winded but here we go.

DCs have a new head at their school and a couple of months ago were sent home with really shite plastic bottles with sports caps which we were told had to be used for them to drink water in class - now I refused - the bottles were made of the same plastic you buy evian, you couldn't put them in the dishwasher to clean them and IMO you can never get a sports cap properly clean and the ones on these bottles were really soft plastic which after they had been chewed a couple of times (which all kids do I think) they looked grotty and really filthy.

Anyway fast forward to DCs getting in trouble for not having these bottles - I worte to the head and told him about the crappness of the plastic and the fact that they were made of a type of plastic that was not meant to be used over and over again and I said my kids would be using their sig bottles due to the fact that they were easy to clean, did not have sports caps (a urologist I spoke to said sports caps are vile and harbour germs and he told all of his kidney patients not to use them but to sip straight from the bottle) and they were made of metal which did not leach chemicals into the water (don't want my kids drinking from bottles which leach chemicals that mimic oestrogen into the water they are going to drink) and they were not see through so sunlight and heat wouldn;t affect the water and make bacteria multiply if the bottles were not properly cleaned.

He then fought a bit and last week they were selling new bottles (because the first one was free after that you have to pay £1.50 if you lose or break them), new bottles that are made out of a different kind of plastic and can go in the dishwasher but they still have sports caps.

The headmaster says that the bottles have to be see through so he can be sure we are not sending the kids to school with juice or fizzy drink (doh flavoured water is what most of DSs friends have in theirs which nulifies the point to some degree!) I said I am quite happy for him to check the DCs bottles and to make sure it is just water or I am happy to send them in with empty bottles which they will fill up from the water fountain at school.

Now do you think I am making a big thing out of nothing, I do think it is silly to kick off about lots of little things but it grates on me that this man does not trust us enough to do the best for our children and I know some parents don't but really this level of control is a little purile IMO. DSs teacher hasn;t said anything else to him after the first few times but DDs teacher is on her case telling her she muct have this see through bottle.

Can he make us use them is something I would also like answered?

Thank you for taking the time to read my ranty essay.

ROFL at "hydration for learning"

It's all a bit mad now. I teach Science and it is an uphill battle to persuade my pupils that no, drinking anything, even water, in my lab is NOT ALLOWED.

And our trainee was also pretty shocked to be told she couldn't drink from her bottle of water during the lesson either

Wow, that's a lot to write on the issue when you don't care, Purple

Actually it is not the biggest deal in my life but if that is all we could post on here then things would be a little too serious.

The reason we don't allow squash to be brought in in bottles is because it invariably gets spilt and we've had dreadful problems with ants in the summer.
Am always a bit [hmm} at hearing of kids who "don't like water." What's not to like?

Personally I have no intention of using any dodgy plastic bottle possibly mass produced in China. When the baby bottle thing came to light I couldn't believe how many different plastics there are made from chemicals. Over the years I've bought and binned so many bottles that stank of chemicals,they make the water taste horrible so they're far less likely to use them for what they're intended.

Whose to say in a few years time that research will say exposure to too much plastic in these bottles too is dangerous.

I wouldn't mind if it was me as I rarely use them but when it's my child's main drinking vessel I'm going for something chemical free and well made hence the Sigg bottles.

They last for ever and you can get new caps,I don't like the mould that grows in all bottle caps either so refresh the caps now and again. As it happens I've yet to see any mould grow on a Sigg cap as they are well designed.

Having said all that I do think the head in question clearly has waaaaay too much time on his hands and don't get the water obsession either.

but purple would you seriously as an adult have one drink before 09.00 1 drink at lunchtime and nothing again until 4pm?

Ha ha - true. OK - very harsh of me- I don't mean it cuz the majority of us are here to talk about unimportant crap!

It's just that this modern trend in the 'right' to a constant water supply is such a load of crap. The human race has survived for thousands and thousands of year pretty well without it!

It's just a very good marketing campaign by bottled water companies. Has no one noticed the trends that have followed it? What the hell is the current (Mr Kippling???) advert - are we getting our daily need of oats?

I repeat - ffs!

and I don't like water either.

Um

9 til 12

then 1 til 4

so two 3 hour stretches without a drink

what's wrong with that?

PHL - here here! Sipping water all day long is unnecessary and distracting. The human body is very good at balancing its hydration levels; why this craze that every child needs access to water all the time? Different if a child has a clinical need - taking medicine or a kidney condition - but children are quite capable of waiting until break for a drink.

I look forward someone pointing to a properly controlled and conducted trial that shows children do better with constant access to water than restricted to break times.

well I'm just asking would you/do you do that?

Perhaps I meant, hear hear ?

this constant hydration or else DOOOOOM is, as purpleheffalump says, a fabulous coup on the part of bottled water manufacturers

lisasimpson - Yes I would - and I often do! I generally don't get a break other than lunch and manage just fine if I don't have a drink with me.

Sometimes I need it more at the beginning of term because I'm not used to constantly speaking to a whole class all day. But the children shouldn't be speaking at this volume and frequency.

And it's not an argument to say ... "but would you real... " because every single one of us (maybe a few excluded!) did survive this as children - and not 'survive' it in term of 'suffer' it - but in the sense that it had absolutely no significance in our time at school.

When I worked in an office I always had a drink with me to sip at - because I was so bored and it was just something to do!

would you really...

We use metal bottles (the Decathlon version which is a bit like a SIGG one with an anti spill cap). AFAIK my children NEVER drink from them and use the water fountain when they feel thirsty. It's just another pesky thing to take to school in the morning, doesn't fit in the bookbag (makes the rubbish velcro fall open), I am tempted to send it in empty.

I would send in a plastic bottle to shut the teacher up, TBH, and an alternative one if you are bothered.

The waste is shocking, would be much better to install hygienic water fountains. What are we teaching kids with all these throw away bottles?

They can drink at playtime - every school has a morning playtime, and some have afternoon breaks too. That's not two 3 hour stretches.

"I wouldn't mind if it was me as I rarely use them but when it's my child's main drinking vessel I'm going for something chemical free"

You do know that Sigg bottles have a plastic lining, don't you?

Which is possibly a good thing because aluminium (as used for the body of Sigg bottles) has been linked to alzheimer's by many of the same kind of woo merchant alternative therapy types who are worried about plastics.

At dds' school the children have to bring their own cup at the beginning of the year. Everyone gets a glass of water at break times, and anyone who needs a glass of water can go and fill their own cup at an appropriate moment in between. I haven't noticed that the cups are remotely similar apart from a couple who have various colours of IKEA tumbler, but in any case they all have their names written on the bottom to avoid confusion.

That way all the children get to drink fresh water, they don't have a glass of water on their desk all the time which could get spilled, and the issue of germs spreading is not a big issue because everyone is drinking from their own cup.

There are soooooo many things in life that might possibly one day if we're unlucky cause some sort of disease. Do u think there's a possibility that parents can be a tiny bit precious nowadays? (just commenting on general life, not directed at any specific people! :-)

The whole water thing is fairly nonsensical, in that there is not a huge amount of sense behind it.

It shouldn't be an issue to go for two hours without a drink in a temperate climate

And I'm pretty sure it has been proven that there is no need for all this regular water consumption.

I work in an infant school. We insist on clear bottles (so we know it is just water) and wherever possible sports cap (to minimise spills). If children forget or don't bring one there are some plastic cups and the water fountains they can use.

Bloody hell, there's always something else to worry about isn't there? Here I was, quite pleased that DD's school provide them with water bottles so they can keep hydrated when it's hot. Now I find out that she's probably being slowly poisoned by chemicals and dirt. And if I want to prevent this then I have to go and buy some expensive bloody poncey bottle for £12. A bottle which will probably be proven to be giving out a different kind of noxious chemical in a year's time and need to be replaced by an even more expensive bottle.

In my day we used to make little paper cups out of the paper towels in the loo, fill them from the tap in the loo and drink out of them. To the best of my knowledge, we all survived.

Have just checked with ds1 & they don't sit with their bottles on their tables all day (as someone mentioned earlier) They're allowed their bottles at break & lunch which is reasonable imo. When I was at school we only got a drink at lunch & if you hadn't brought your own it was water out of a jug on the table which someone had usually decided it would be amusing to dump their sandwich in. This obsession with water being the only thing anyone should drink didn't exist either. Why do so many of the mums on here (only know 1 in rl) act like anything else other than water is practically poison. I don't like water, don't like the taste & it always feels like it sits really heavily on my stomach & makes me feel sick. ds1 doesn't like water & never has in spite of my attempting to give him nothing other than milk & water as a baby. It's perfectly possible to dislike water the same as it is to dislike anything else.