The impact of hunger / no breakfast on children's learning

[FireOverBabylon]

My DS is too young for school as yet but we've been looking at reception ready for the 2013 intake - do they have a breakfast club etc. I was reading this article in the Guardian about the impact on learning of children not having breakfast. It's staggering. I had no idea that there were children desperate enough to eat pencil shavings...... No wonder they can't work well in class.

It's absolutely heartbreaking - I have to admit to running out the door to take DD to nursery with just an apple and a muesli bar for breakfast (although they do have their lunch at 11.30 so this only has to last her a couple of hours) - am making a promise to myself that when she starts school we'll be up and ready for breakfast for 8.15 (ish).

How much education for parents do you have to give?
I have come across schools who have had to give toast to children at lunchtime as their parents have not sent in a packed lunch, assuming the school will feed them.

at DCs junior school the staff self funded a breakfast club for the most needy kids - it fed into results so tangibly as to be worth the expense

if you've not seen kids buying breakfast at the sweet shop you are cosseted

This is heart breaking, but incredibly moving and reassuring to see how loving some teaching staff are.

See this - Independent last month, just as horrifying

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/look-back-in-hunger-britains-silent-scandalous-epidemic-7622363.html

On a slight sidetrack, there are a very few people who find it very difficult to eat in the morning: my mother is in this category, one of my brothers and my dd. If I force dd to eat before 9 a.m. she will just throw up. It's not about my not being organised to cook breakfast; it's about not wanting to mop more breakfasts off the floor. But even in cases like this, there are things you can do, like send in a snack- though that can be difficult in junior school where they are very strict about what can go in school bags and be eaten when.

I think there is a bigger picture about long standing hunger and lack of thriving through negelct is affecting development being the issue and not just missing breakfast .

My dd is well fed and cared for she does not eat or drink most mornings. It is a battle and I worry about ennergy levels, but on the whole she is not hungry and is not malnourished or under weight and is thriving through adequate food love and attention therefore I do not think missing breakfast will have a massive impact on her learning.

I cannot believe parents are sending children to school with no breakfast-what is the world coming too its shocking it truly is!
Since my children started nursery we have a routine where they are woke up for seven, washed dressed, then i give them a breakfast of either toast, porrige or cereal and the odd occasion crumpets or pancakes.
Theres no excuse for not feeding your kids before school except pure laziness-money doesn't come into it as you can get cheaper versions of all the above.

some children do not eat before school, because they find it difficult, surely that is not shocking, you cant force feed a child.

many families simply do not have enough money to feed their family either.

Im not on about parents that attempt to give their kids breakfast, i know kids can be stubborn, my 6 yo is always refusing dinner, im talking of those few than cannot be bothered to get up early enough to at least try.

but that is the point Im making, it is not as simplistic as these children are missing breakfast it is about sustained hunger, nor is it about lazy parents not being bothered to get up early. It is about deprivation.

It isn't that simple Pumpkin. Life in lots of families is very complicated.

A relative of mine has a boyfriend who has just been sent to prison. He grew up hungry and his younger siblings are in poor health and under nourished. I should feel sorry for this young man but I can't because he is very abusive towards my relative. He is a product of his upbringing.

His mother has 8 children. She spends all her money on takeaways for the family and unnecessary items on the day she gets her benefit and then has to use food banks until her next benefit payment. They do not have enough food to eat. The children don't have a bed each and they don't have lightbulbs in each room. She spent her childhood in and out of care. She loves her children and is doing the best she can. By our standards she is falling way short of providing for the children. Her teenage sons have both spent time in prison and her teenage daughters both left school with no qualifications and had babies very young. I dread to think of the outcomes for the younger children.

Her parents (late 60s) were abused violently by their parents and grew up in the care system.

It is a vicious circle and families like these need more support than they are currently getting.

Pumpkin, others would crticise your choice of breakfast as being a bit too full of carbohydrates, with the potential to cause a blood sugar dip mid-morning.

"We are seeing effectively responsible parents who are just not managing to have food in the house," said Kids Company's founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh. (from the Independent article)

It's not about laziness. It's about lack of money.

Cereal doesn't cost a lot of money, and cereal is what my kids get most days, i was just putting down their other breakfast choices.
I have friends on benefits and i have also been on it in the past and even then my kids and their kids had atleast cereal or toast for breakfast when they wanted it.
I cant fathom why people can afford a take-away but not a box of cereal.

It is 70p for value rice snaps and only 31p for value cornflakes and with places like the poundshop and tax credits i cannot see why a mother/father can not afford a bowl of cereal for their kids?

cereal does cost alot of money and quite frankly I do not often buy ceral because of how much it costs and how little it lasts and that is 1 child eating it. incidently my dd does not eat breakfast ofetn but she eats ceral for supper. And when you have 4 children a packet of ceral does not last very long.

It is an impossible argument to quote the cost of food, you do not know nor understand the other financial preasures that parents are facing, balifs knocking on the door, using force to gain what they want, threataning to take children away if parents do not pay up.

life is complex and complicated for many people who have not had the bst start themselfs let along having the skills to give their own children the best start, it is hypocritical to say, well I understand the cost of ceral so why cant they, many parents cant read let alone understand and recognise the value of money.

I am a student parent and quite often my dd is not able to have packed lunch so she relys upon free school meals, that is not enough to keep her going all day, So I sacrifice to put food on the table, many many parents do not have the ability to that because they may have little skills, The may have lots of skills but ecountered fancial hardship and cant find a way out. circimstances are key.

well you cant see because you are blinded to the issues families are facing, instead of quoting the cost of food why not read the article again and do some research into deprivation.

well in certain shops it may cost 31p or what ever but it may also cost £6 to catch the bus to go and buy 31p cereal

Most council estates I have seen do not have poundshops on them: they have small and very expensive grocery shops. Bargains are for people with the money to travel or live close to shops.

The bottom line is, is this shouldn't be happening in this day and age.
Maybe the goverment needs to provide education for the needy to help them feed a family on a budget & stamp down on over priced grocery items.
Its the children that are suffering and it saddens me

oh and lets not forget the parents who are too derpessed or struggling with their own mental well being and effects of prescribed medication or illegal drugs and alcohol, who just cant get up and face another depreate day.

education will do nothing to lift many families out of desperate lives either pumpkin. you canot undo years of negclect many parents are damaged by years and generations of deprivation.

Education will not give parents access to cheaper food, if they are too poor or disabled or have severe mental health or dpression to be able to get up catch the bus and trapes around town looking for budget foods.

Would make sense to replace child benefit with free meals (breakfast and lunch) at school, so a balanced provison could be made - eg much better for the child to have an egg and apple for breakfast thatn a bowl of sugar cereal. This would also maybe ensure the children get to school on time and truant less in those 'chaotic' families.

I think there are two separate issues. One is that some people don't eat breakfast. Secondary schools often start very early and children leave for school very early. DS just does not want to eat before 7 am. I never wanted to eat breakfast before school when I was in secondary school either.

The second is children who don't get enough to eat at all. Some parents just don't care, but a lot are genuinely struggling for money. All this cereal only costs 15p or whatever is not really helpful. You still have to have the money to go out and buy a pint of milk every single day for breakfast unless you are suggesting the poor just live on dry carbs.