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.

I am a teacher (year 2) and provide plastic cups by the sink in our classroom. They go in the staff room dishwasher each night. You can have a drink when you want, just stand by the sink. I have to say most aren't bothered, except after play. It's the easiest system in the world and treats the class like grown ups.

It depends on the school Claire-and whether they think that keeping hydrated is important. They all have different rules, e.g. some have it on the side and they only drink it as they go out to play,as they come in, after PE etc, some have it on the tables to have at anytime or some have the rule that it is for when they are working and not when the teacher or other DCs are talking.Some don't have it in the classroom at all. It is completely up to the school, they have the authority to make their own rules and if people want to challenge it they need to go through the proper channels.

Thanks piscesmoon. I still think as a parent I should be allowed to decide what ds1 brings in to school to drink & what it's kept in. However if there are really parents out there sending their children in with bottles of Lucozade I can see why schools have a problem. Reminds me of watching Jamies School Dinners when these mad mums were passing their kids chips & stuff through the fence as they thought they'd die of starvation if they had to eat a healthy meal.

There are mums who think that their DCs can't drink water!

Good gracious.....go in and have a meeting with him and tell him that you will not be allowing your chuild the crappy bottle unless he produces evidence to refute that of the doctor.

By all means posieparker-then he can use the water fountain or have his drink at break. I don't think that anyone is forcing him to have a particular bottle-they are merely saying that if he wants a drink in the classroom he needs to have a particular bottle.

How draconian...

My ds won't drink water as he doesn't like it. Warm water in a plastic bottle is hardly going to convince him otherwise.

In ds1s school it's not a choice. You have to bring in a bottle & it has to contain water. As far as I'm aware they don't have water fountains. Certainly, ds1 didn't know what I was talking about when I asked him.

I don't see why it is draconian-the school is saying-it might be nice for your DC to have a drink in the classroom and not wait until break or lunch - if he would like to take advantage of this, he needs water in a transparent plastic bottle.

Some plastic do indeed leech estrogenic compounds into food/drink containers, it's not an urban myth. However, many plastic drink bottles do not contain BPA, check the symbols on the bottles, anything with symbol 3,6 or 7 should be avoided. Anything with a triangle and 3 or 6 in the center has BPA in it, and anything with a 7 MIGHT have BPA. 7 is a catch-all number for "other plastic".

Check baby bottles, sippy cups, any plastic you heat food up in (heat causes the chemical to leech out into the food), and anything your baby/child might chew.

These hormones have a real effect and the younger the child, the worse the potential effect (exposure during pregnancy is worst of all). Baby boys are most at risk (problems with size and function of the penis and testicles increase with higher exposure to these chemicals). Many countries have banned/are trying to ban the use of these chemicals.

But it would be wrong to think you can avoid exposure by using a metal water bottle (which is not made of aluminum I hope!), and drinking cans of fizzy pop instead of using plastic bottles - pop cans (almost ALL of them) are lined with a layer of BPA film, where as almost all plastic pop bottles are BPA free!!!!! So in that case, stick with the plastic!

Are you sure your metal bottle is not BPA lined?

Also, the major source of BPA to young kids is from food cans (almost all are lined with BPA film), and ready to drink baby formula (recent tests found this had much higher levels of BPA than powdered formula, as it sits in a plastic lined carton for weeks before use - allowing the chemicals to leech into the milk.

This is maybe getting a bit off-topic, but if you are interested in avoiding BPA, you need to know where the exposure risks are!

Your school ibu imo.

But I imagine the idea of water bottles came from the PTA to raise money for the school, why not use cups?

I think we go round in circles! Paper cups are very wasteful for the environment and washable ones need a thorough wash with hot soapy water. I like that idea, as long as a parent comes in to wash them every lunchtime and at the end of the day-otherwise germs will spread rapidly with a quick rinse under a cold tap. Perhaps the yr 6s could do it.

I was interested in your post oldmum-I would be very dubious about metal water bottles.

My children have plastic cups with their names on...parents come and wash every noght until a child 'monitor' is old enough (yr3).

Sounds ideal then posieparker-I would have no objection to that.

Crikey you have 3 parents washing up every evening ! And what about kids whose parents don't pick them up - childminder etc

I think it gets full circle to plastic bottles are easier oldandgreynow!

As a relatively 'young' person, who left school 13 years ago...

We had a drink AT HOME before we left for school at 8 15

We had a drink from our flasks at 12.30 (over four hours later)

And we had a drink if our parents had brought us one at home time.

And this was regardless of the weather, regardless of any sport we did.

And actually, I was NOT fine, and neither were many other people I went to school with.

I remember one girl being hospitalised with heat stroke after 'sports day'.

I had constant urinery tract infections and a kidney infection every July without fail.

My mother reports that unless she met me at the gate with a bottle of water, i'd 6stumble^ home becaus4e I was so tired and thirsty in the summer.

So for all you "it never did me any harm"ers - not everyone is you.

I think that it is a very good thing colditz-I remember being really thirsty in the summer-with no access to water. Even my DSs were at primary school before water was allowed in lessons. Unfortunately people don't realise that it is new thing-not to be abused. It is a pain in the neck in the classroom-but the benefits make it worthwhile- and I don't think it too much to ask the parents to co operate. Any system that ensures that every DC is having plain water, is fine with me-I really don't care, as long as it is transparent and doesn't hide anything coloured or sugary/sticky.

Piscesmoon what would you say to a young child who won't drink water especially plasticky tasting warm water.Do we just let them get dehydrated, kidney infections etc What your objection to a splash of squash in to flavour it.The well-being of teh child is the paramount thing - not the convenience of the teacher.

oldandgreynow, I think that is the root of the problem. A school adopting a policy like this is NOT putting the children's needs first.

There are sensible reasons for restricting the drink that the kids can take into class to water only - of course water will make less mess if spilled. However, to take the extra step and potentially threaten to deny the child even that if the mandated bottle is not used - when there are potentially valid concerns about the nature of those bottles - so that the nature of the drink can be more easily policed is dictatorial and inappropriate.

I'd like to know what piscesmoon would do if a pupil kept coming to school with a "non-approved" drink bottle?

I would say that they can have it at break time and lunch time but not in the classroom.
I would suggest that the parent puts the water in fresh, with some ice in the morning and that she tells DC to empty it at lunch time and refill.I don't see that weak squash is any nicer warm and plasticky tasting-it is just as vile!
I also don't think they are that thirsty-I have only once in my life been extremely thirsty and at that moment I would have given everything I owned for a drink of water!

Take it off them MsHighwater and send them out to the water fountain when they asked. If no water fountain I would keep a cup especially for them-if the parent was determined to be difficult!

I think this is getting way out of proportion! I was in 3 different schools last week and all DCs had a plastic bottle-if they wanted one. It really isn't an issue and a I can't see it being one.

You've put your finger on it, piscesmoon. You are determined to see parents who think you are in the wrong as being "difficult". I work in the public sector too but I do my damnedest to see behind the "difficult" exterior that some of the people I deal with present. It can be done if you are prepared to make the effort to respect other people.