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.

It's an issue or me and I'm not just determined to be difficult.

Without a water bottle in the classroom these children are being asked to survive for a maximum of an hour and a quarter without a drink. They won't dehydrate.

They go for 12 hours without one at night!!!

So could the children choose to not drink during the lesson but have a bottle filled with juice or something in their bag so they can drink it during break time? In case they don't want/like/whatever water that is.

I think it's the parents who insist that their precious dc's don't drink water. Of course they will drink water if they're thirsty, they simply need to be weaned off the sugar water they're given constantly at home.

Schools are a democracy and parents, very largly, get what they want.
For example we moved to our present house when DS was half way through the junior school. I thought that the logo on the sweatshirt was a bit weird and it was explained that the Head didn't want a school uniform. Most of the parents wanted a uniform and the PTA ordered a sweat shirt, but they had to have a PTA logo and not a school one, as it didn't come from school! I bought the sweat shirt because I am very much in favour of school uniforms. After about3/4 yrs, when about 96% of the DCs were in the sweat shirt, the Head co operated and with the parents designed a very nice uniform with school logo (in the same colour so that DCs didn't have to get an immediate one).
Drinks bottles are similar issue. If you don't like it get parental opinion and act from there. However you would have to be prepared for the fact that it isn't majority opinion (I doubt it is as I have never had any parents making it an issue) and I ,for one as a parent, would fight you tooth and nail!
I'm afraid that you bring out the worst in me MsHighwater! You clearly have no idea of the problems that are caused by drinks in the classroom and you don't care-because your rights as a parent must come first and you take no responsibility at all. There would be no need for the rule if parents were responsible-most are-sadly some aren't and they are always the noisy ones who know best!
I would love MsHighwater to have 30 DCs on a hot afternoon, who had been filled up with drinks with additives, dripping their sugary drinks everywhere with wasps attracted through the open windows! Sadly she won't, but is quite happy for others to put up with it!
Teachers are only human-although perfectly polite-certain parents are seen as 'difficult' and I wouldn't like to be the parent who everyone rolls their eyes about when her name is mentioned and wants to avoid! Education should be a parnership. I save any fights for something important. If you don't like something-go through the right channels.

Exactly kittywise-give them water at home and they won't have a problem with it at school.

What is it with parents who think that school rules don't apply to them? These are nightmare parents who will , IMO, bring up nightmare children, unable to feel responsibility with society .
This is because they will have been given an over inflated sense of their own importance by parents who tell them that if they don't like the rules they don't have to stick with them and to the hell with anybody else.

Get a grip those of you banging on about your 'rights' to drink whatever you want. This isn't about you and your dc's, it's about what is best for the group as a whole. It's about how the classroom functions with 30+ kids. Your children are no different, they are not special, they don't have special sugar drinking rights.
If you want to rot their teeth and bugger up their blood sugars by giving them a constant stream of sugar water then do it at home, not at school.

Sorry but I think you are being more of a control freak than the Head. He just wants to make sure all his children are hydrated throughout the day.

In my day it was a water fountain in the girls toilet which we all had our mouth around.

Have your DCs never drank out of plastic? We have been given new water bottles from school every September with sports lids, I stick the lids in sterilising fluid every Friday.

YANBU
I agree, those caps are a hot bed of germs etc, I think the whole bring bottle of water is a load of nonsense anyway, what is wrong with water fountain or jug and cups?
do we want our kids sucking on oversized pastic teats all day long?

My ds1 does not like water. That does not mean he's some sort of spoilt brat who mainlines sugar 24/7. I'm not an irresponsible nightmare parent either. Why is it always one extreme or the other on these types of thread. You're either a good parent who sends their children to school with a clear plastic bottle with only water in or you're a hideous nightmare with revolting children who wants to send them in with Red Bull. I sent my son to school for weeks with water in the clear plastic bottle in spite of him not liking water. He came home every day with a full bottle & a headache. I now use a different bottle as I refuse to pay for another rubbish one like the school issued when ds1 already has several at home. I give him weak squash (which isn't full of additives as it happens) which he drinks at break & lunch. Why would that cause a problem for children who do bring water. Noone suffers from my son drinking squash (including him)

Claire I disagree, he won't drink water because he knows you will give him something else. It's absurd to say your child won't drink water.
What do you think all those children do who don't have access to sugar drinks? Do they not drink the water then? No of course they don't, they drink the water. It's simple. It's like saying my child wont eat fruit and veg so I give them sweets and chocolate. For most children the preference is for sugar. As it is for most adults, doesn't mean it's good for them though.

He wouldn't drink water even as a baby. It's ridiculous to say what would he do if he didn't have access to anything else. I don't like coffee but obv I would drink it if I was dying of thirst. It wouldn't mean I liked it. Or do you think I should deprive him of any fluid until he's so thirsty he'll drink water. Interesting parenting technique. And you call me absurd. Thanks for telling me sugar wasn't good for me, I'll have to stop with the diet of non stop coke & chocolate now I've been so well educated. Talk about patronising.

Claire he would drink water if there was nothing else offered to him and you know he would. Water is what we should be drinking not squash.
What a ridiculous argument

I'm a bit torn on this issue as my girls are not big drinkers - neither was I as a child. DD1 is 6 and she takes a bottle of water in which lasts all week. It's in a plastic sports bottle or alu bottle whichever is out the cupboard first. No rules re bottle at school.

My rant is about water for children younger than this - I'm on the committee of a playgroup/preschool and Ofsted said that the kids (2 and 3 yr olds) must have constant access to a jug and cups!!! This is bonkers IMO yet was one of the highest priority things in case of an Ofsted visit. These kids come for 2.5 hours and have a snack and drink in this time anyway. Madness.

Kitty - it must be so good up on your pedastool with water drinking kiddies at your feet! Not everyone does like water and personnaly I would rather my dc had a drink than non at all whatever that may be in the grand scheme of things the level of sugar in weak juice is not going to harm my dc seem OK and tick all the boxes they are supposed to (whereas some I know who are strict on what their dc have dont)

Also as for all this anti plastic just utter nonsense there is nothing wrong with a plastic bottle and they are so cheap now a days thatwhen they get gunked up get a new one and recycle the old one - it really want have that big an impact on the environment.

In fact I wish all perfect I dont do this I want allow this yummy mummies actualy just got a life and looked at what is really important out there and all the disease and poverty others have to suffer - bet they would love for their biggest problem to be a plastic water bottle!!

Now breathe

It's not to do with liking/not liking water, it's to do with the availability of sugar drinks. They would be quite happy with water if they weren't used to sugar drinks.

I actually think that Claire's is a nice middle way, isn't it? She knows her son best and instead of sending him with with something he doesn't like he is only allowed to drink his squash during break times and during lunch. So no spilling it over his books etc.

I agree with a middle way too, although I dispute a DC not drinking water. Mine wouldn't drink it as babies-why would they when they get milk?
As DCs they don't drink it because they know that you will give them something else- if the same DC was with me for 48 hrs they would drink the water eventually because I wouldn't be moved, and they would know it!

I made a special point of noting the class that I was in today. There was obviously no policy on the type of container. Two thirds were transparent and one third were coloured, most were black or grey, one was blue, two were pink and one was a very swish green! There was no way of seeing what was inside. Interesting enough-every single one (bearing in mind it was free choice, was plastic! HOWEVER the DCs didn't have access to it during the lesson, they obviously were not used to drinking in lessons because they didn't ask.It was for break and lunch time.

I think it is a simple choice-any container, any drink but at breaks- or plain water,in see through plastic bottles, for drinking during the lesson.

I agree with kittywise-I hate the attitude that parents 'rights' come first and sod the common good!

but parents aren't arguing for their own rights, they are acting as advocates for their child'd rights, and they are paramount.

The DC has the right to drink water in lessons! What is wrong with that? Why has the parent got the right to send sugary drinks, full of additives and leave someone else to deal with the behaviour, the sticky spillage and the wasps?
People generally, on mumsnet, won't have squash in the house and yet suddenly everyone is wanting to send it into school!

oldandgreynow would that be the right to drink sugar water in a container of their choice? Paramount indeed.

The right to Not become dehydrated and put their kidneys at risk.
Weak Squash isn't sugar water !
What about no added sugar squash , what would be the teaching professions objection to that?

Kittywise - I am finding your attitude to all this absolutely baffling!
You say your own DC has scarred kidneys which I am sure you know can lead to hypertension (and all the risk of serious disease that entails) and kidney failure.Keeping the kidneys well flushed out is the best prevention against UTIs and kidney infection.

Thanks ScaredOne.