If you had paid for your child to have school dinner today, and then on the way to school she was adamant she didn't want it after all...

[emkana]

would you

a/insist to her that she has to have it
b/pop into the local co-op to buy something for her to have

I would choose a)

but I might let her decide what I made for dinner that night

a, she probably change her mind when she see it.

Buy a sandwich on the way to school if I had time. At least then your money won't be wasted.

At my school you had to have the same thing (either school dinners or packed lunches) for half a term, so you couldn't pick and choose.

depends on the child and age
if a very unusual sort of mind change from a normally unflappable child I'd get them something else. If the child is over 8 I'd insist

Oh hang on I see you've already paid for it. Hmm well, in that case she's have to have it.

a).
It wouldn't be the paying for it aspect - it would be the 'consistency' aspect. DS is occasionally hankering after packed lunch because one of his freinds has it. I am standing firm, he does like the school dinners (except on days he does the whole packed lunch pester, when sudenly he doesn't). If i was planning to move permanently to packed lunch I would do it, but I wouldn't let S mess about and give in to him. Storing up trouble! And I wouldn't swap and change between school and packed lunches - too much scope fopr whim, too much disruption of the lunchtime social cohesion.

I'd say 'well you do this every day I haven't got sandwiches on me, I'm not walking back so hard luck'

As I did today, yesterday, every other bleeding day

tell her she is havign schol dinners.

Tell her hunger is a very good sauce, she is not getting sandwiches, so she will have to eat her dinner because she will be hungry.

a- or she'd do it every day.

(a) you've already paid to start with, and if she gets away with it once she'll keep doing it.

DD has no choice but to have school dinners. It is the only option open.

a. definitely. wouldn't even want her to know b was a possibility.

in any case, anyone who has time to pop into the co-op on the way to school is far too organised

a, definitely.

(a)

like the suggestion of letting her decide dinner.

We pay the whole year in advance so he gets it whatever. We get a weekly menu and I check it out every week - there is one dish taht crops up every couple of months "green pea dish with steamed cauliflower and hard boiled eggs" - give him packed lunch that day!!! It shoulds disgusting to me but apparently all teh Eastern European kids love it!!

Keeps DS happy to get a packed lunch sometimes.

seems pretty unanimous

did you do b then?

another vote for a). Ive paid for it and you are having it.

It wasn't my child.

It was my friend.
She actually bought her dd dairy lea lunchables and some strange drink in a red plastic bottle, plus a fruit bar.

she is banned fro Mumsnet by the ancient law of the food police

ROFL at peachy

tell her she is having school lunch

your friend is not a follower of Anabel Karmel, is she?

no choice, it's paid for and she can't just get what she wants on a whim, she'll be fine once she sees the lunch