Parents rebel against school ban on junk food

[Caligula]

I decide kid's lunchbox

Had to share this with you. My DB was telling me about this earlier - a friend of his works in the school concerned and the reason they've banned juice etc. is because there's too much room for confusion with fizzy, sunny D and other e-numbered shite. The paper version of this newspaper had a big splash about their kid's yuman right to eat crap but apparantly, no information about how their human right to be educated can be seriously affected by them eating shite. Hilarious!

hello, have got rant out of system now, will try to be a bit calmer

mine were given baby juice from a very young age by mil. nothing i could do about it. xp gave it to them because his mum told him to. so no, i didnt start juice because they wouldnt drink water, they had the juice first.

if they refuse something i give them i tell them they cant really be that hungry/thirsty and dont offer alternatives. the water thing is quite a touchy subject with me because i would like ds2 to drink it, i know its goood for him but he is very strong willed and just wont. he has never been to hospital because of it thankfully because i have given in and allowed him milk, but he can go over a day before he will take even a tiny sip. tbh if he is drinking watered down fruit juice i dont see why its such a problem.

ds3 drinks lots of water but also wants to try anything we have and so is also a big fan of tea, juice, coffee & beer (the last two we thought it would put him off if we gave him a sip, worked with the other two. but then he went mad for more - which he didnt get before i get lynched!)

See, I think MIL's like that should be banned from seeing their grandchildren.

(Friend of mine asked me the other day if her DIL was being unreasonable in not allowing her to put rusks in Grandson's bottle! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!! ON NO ACCOUNT is she being unreasonable, I animatedly assured her...)

By the way, GG, I would have hexed my MIL if she'd done something like that.

Because I wouldn't want to go to prison for murder.

said this before, will say it again- don;t care what they do with mainstream schools (ds2 can quite happily eat what he;s given or not at all- I don't really care- he can make the cognitive choice- it's up to him) but wish they would make special schools exempt. Healthy eating is giving me, dh and ds1's teacher a collective headache at the moment and I'm sick of it. Ill thought out idea from someone up high who actually will say "they must eat lentils" but puts no money into therapists for children with genuine eating problems. Aggh bllody agghl

no prizes for guessing why my mummy-boy-xp is x

however ds3 (different dad) has also tried fruit juice. i dont give him cheap squash, he occasionally has fruit shoot or ribena but he does still drink water, as does ds1. ds2 just doesnt like water

I think even in mainstream they should be taking into account the problems those of us with AS and ASD children experience with feeding. There seems to be very little understanding of the difficulties we have; I remember thinking when watching the Jamie Oliver programmes that the approach is fine with NT children, but for autistic children it just wont work. The water thing is an example-if they have taken against it at some point, then they just will not drink it.

Well said Milliways - those on school lunches get cake and custard every day (according to WWB anyway! )

Mine don't drink water because even as babies they spat it out and I suppose because I don't like drinking it I don't make them drink it either. I give them the next best thing which is watered down pure fruit juice or milk. I really don't think this is going to kill them. They don't drink squash or anything fizzy (and neither do I).

While growing up I didn't drink water either (unless absolutely forced) - I think we had squash. Anyway, I've got one filling and qualifications coming out of my ears.

Anyway, once again this argument is rather pointless. Most of posting on here are bothered about what are children eat and therefore make the effort to make their lunchboxes as healthy as possible. We aren't the ones that need these ridiculous rules forcing upon us - it's those sending their kids in with 3 Mars Bars in their pockets but unfortunately these are the very parents tht won't take a bloody blind bit of notice anyway!

PMSL at 'got qualifications coming out my ears' - what am I on about?! Ha ha!

I agree tiggiwinkle tbh- had an absolute nightmare in ms with eating rules- at least in special school his teacher can feed him in the classroom if he needs to. The fact that it extends to my son's school though is ludicrous (especially as a decent number of the children are tbe fed).

mojomummy i hear what you say - but if you follow that argument maybe the govt should put no under 16's banners on sweets and chocolate
or ban turkey twizzlers from our supermarkets.

i accept advice and education to parents on the matter - but dictation. i think not

If kids are only to drink water I pity all of those you live in areas with crap tasting water. We are lucky here to have lovely tasting water. My kids get biscuits and even crisps sometimes in their boxes. Along with the cheese roll and other stuff. Am I going to have to hide at the school gates too with lunch bow in hand.

Kids need a balanced diet yes, but that has to include fats and sugars too. We will still have obisisty but more eating disorders too if its going to get this anal. I have a lot of respect for the campaign to improve school dinners, but there has to be a limit to what is banned.

Message withdrawn

hellmouthcusty, I'm all for banning turkey twizzlers & seriously think sweets & chocolate should be honestly & properly labelled.

Still say only water at school

Oh god, the terrors of 'junk food', run, run while you still can.

Excuse me if I just have another chocolate digestive.

At DS's school he has school dinner and snacks provided by the school. All very healthy stuff and he has learned to try new things and like them so all good.

They also have to bring in a bottle of water every day. I bought a cup and only used it for water and at first it was fine then I noticed he was drinking less and less. Found out why when I was thirsty on the way home one day and tasted it - yuck! Just tasted of plastic. So I have started putting about an inch of pure apple juice in and then filling up with water. Now he drinks it. I have always given juice but pure juice diluted. That way he gets water and fruit IMHO.

I wholeheartedly agree with Custy (as usual).

Btw, how is fresh orange 'junk'? It's the same as eating an orange!

Sam was offered water only from babyhood (as well as his soya which may well have given him a taste for sweet things but he wiouldn't bf and was allergic to formuls). he didn't drink it, only would drink soya, his teeth when they came rotted and somer were removed. DH drinks water until it comes out his ears, i confess to not liking it but I don't drink juice either- if it's a meal, I serve water to everyone. Everyone drinks it bar ds1.

When he got ill with dehydration in the summer, it was one of the hottest days of the year and he had been made to run a fun run at school. We don't offer squash, ever, at home.. we don't buy it. It's muck. We called NHS direct and tey were getting an ambulance out to us when dh said sod this, popped over Spar and bought Ribena. Down it went, ambulance was cancelled.

Like Hell am I going through that again for the sake of water!

DS2 loves water BTW, and often chooses it. DS3 we are battling with but we are sticking by our guns.

Should the no juice rule come in at our school, then DS1 will have to come home for lunch, which will have a horrible knock on effect. They havea no exceptions policy: If the school rules say it, you all do it, regardless.

GDG, I blame Jools then

Is your DS drinking water at school still?

WeeSaidie... ... pot noodle for lunch??

(geting a bit p'ed off tho with people telling me it's coz I didn't offer / don't force it / etc... SAM HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION. HE RESTRICTS HIS INTAKE OF MOST FOODSTUFF, MORE EACH DAY. LOTS OF KIDS HAVE THIS CONDITION. THERE IS NOTHING I, OR ANYONE ELSE, CAN DO)

Ha ha - water was offered but I never drank it. However, we really didn't eat many sweets, she never bought biscuits, we didn't have puddings (I mean as a normal everyday thing) so our teeth didn't suffer and none of us are in any way fat! I think a lot of that is just genetics though. I've only got one filling too. Every time I go to the dentist he says 'perfect, see you in 6 months' so Jools did OK!

bakabat-I really hope you can persuade the "powers that be" to change the policy at your DS1s school. How on earth can they be not have taken the associated eating problems onto account at his school? Is there any hope of a change?
peachyclair-I quite agree. However, other people whose children dont have the problems our DSs have just do not seem to understand. Perhaps it is impossible to understand until you have to cope with an autistic child-I dont know.

Thanks Tiggi. I just wish I could show everythi g else Sam has... his love of broccolli, carrots, beans (the pulse sort). Fruit Juice ISN'T a demon food, when consumed in moderation it has vitamins etc, unlike the squash and fizzy that so many kids seem to live on. A good diet is a balanced diet, and a balanced diet doesn't need to be perfect.

but mojomummy are we not inviting those in authority to supervise what we eat and to say what is good for us? or do you think you should be exempt becuase you know better that many parents about what is good for children to eat and what isn't?

when people in positions of power start directly controlling what my children can and cannot eat - ii shall be seriously worried if i have not voluntarily devolved that power - ie school meals.

on another point - peachyclair - there has obviously been the phrase " unless there is a medical condition" onitted from the " you pander to your kids if you give them pop and juice" argument.

i would think that it went without saying ( but it doesn't apparently) that when you make an argument for only giving kids water your not including those with medical or phychological conditions.

i buy my kids that 20p dialutable juice from tesco. the one that probably makes them impotant. i buy one them one bottle each once every three weeks. when its gone - its "corporation pop" from the tap.

theres a middle ground.

LOL Custy - Jools used to say 'corporation pop' at which we'd get really excited until we realised it meant tap water! ha ha - evil mummies!