Is checking contents of childrens bottles and confiscating them if not water only illegal?

[devonvalley]

New head has instructed staff to do above!!
They get returned 2 hrs later a t lunch, so my son who is working towards water only,has a drink at 8am then not til 1pm ! the idea behind preventing dehydration is to increase a childs fluid intake to enhance concentration levels in school and a dash of good squash or flavoured water which a lot of parents would /are using will be confiscated !!(hs sugar free additive free, natural flavouring dash of squash to take rawness off for time being) all rest of family drink water, but son has food issues,and refuses to drink water on its own.we keep trying,others did convert a t there own pace!(children should be treated as individuals at school are they not??) If it was coke i could understand!
We have to give written consent to many things in school time, this needs our permission does it not?checking, confiscating. We fought two wars in this country to deny dictorial leadership??

What's wrong with freely accessible water for all at break and lunchtimes, regardless of whether or not they have a water bottle in school?

spiritmum

Yes, there should be access to water DURING break.

Montblanche, give it up. You see the "I must drink water all the time" people everywhere now, constantly sucking on a water bottle like a dummy. They won't be told.

It even assails people who really should know better. It appears marathon runners are more at risk from too much, rather than too little, fluid.

www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-302--8785-0,00.html

I have sympathies, we ahve had this twice over.

I should clarify the boys in question have ASD: ds2 doesn;t like water and won't drink it but is gicen it anyway (but as I say, pointless as he just iognores it)

DS3 at 5 had no real language, and doesn;t do water, in a full autistic way: spit it out. An absolute. School kept taking his water bottle and refusing to allow him to drink it (squash). Theyw ere also unhappy about the soya we sent in as he can't have milk so some days he got no fluid between 9 and 3. It took a Paediatrician and a dietician employed by the LEA to persyuade them to let him have it- and still one teacher kept refusing. Another mum didnt reaslise and was sending water but in a juice bottle- that was confiscated as well.

Now ds1 is having treatment for an eating disorder where he dehydrates himself and he is a water refuser- he seems to have a full on phobia (also baths, rain, etc). Although school being helpful the rules are so absoliute that he cannot bring himself to take in squash. We are giving him the clear flavoured stuff tbh. And would in your case.

the whole water bottle thing is a bit ott imo.

a jug of water and some paper cups.

why train them up to be consumers of expensive bottled water?

it is a distraction as others have mentioned and adds to the mountain of nearly indestructible(plastic) waste we produce. yes, even if it is a recycled bottle.

OP seems to think that a child has the same rights and privileges as an adult. Comparing a child's lunchbox with a patient's locker? I also suggest home schooling.

god I a PMSL at the idea that if you only offer a child water they WILL drink it.

No they won't - so might - but certainly not all.

And it's not nice watching your child become dehydrated for the sake of getting them to drink the stuff

'kids that WONT drink water???

then they are of YOUR making,because how would they live if we didnt have bottled juice or squash to make it more palatable for the precious little darlings!
'

Ha ha ha

dontcha lknow that on Mn before you amke such sweeping sattements you have to put 'Unless tehre is sn involved...'

(but also sad that people DO often think its just down to how we raised them)

Tokyo, okay, I'll spell it out.

Not enough water = dehydration.

Overheated classroom = dehydration.

Dehydration = constipation.

Constipation = anal fissure and distressed dc.

Holidays = no constipation.

I'm not talking too much water (surely everyone knows that is just as bad as too little?) but enough to keep my dc healthy.

afaik, the OP has not mentioned any SN for her child. wouldn't SN kids have a different provision in this scenario?

well I don't even have SN as an "excuse" for DS1 - he just point blank refused to drink water, and had I left it any longer before caving "for the better good" he'd have ended up in hospital and I'd probably have had SS knocking on my door for neglect!

(he did the same with his food when were decided we "had" to get him eating exactly what we were having.....)

Bizarrely he's now nearly - well he's as good as - 10yrs old and the drink he has most often is tap water......

Clinically dehydrated after two hours of classwork in a UK school? If you say so. How does he manage to sleep through the night? Does he need to be woken up every hour to pour fluids in?

OP did mention food issues, though, which many have taken to mean fussiness.

no, sadly, SN children don't get special provision as a matter of course - we argued long and hard to get dd1 her drink bottle in school,

and then someone put a cup of water down for her anyway, which lead to all sorts of problems.

Foxy I know that, I was joshing about the you have to put 'except where there is SN' bit, and showing how ahrd it is to get exemption even when there is SN invoved with the rest.

generally, I think Skidoodly is right mind.

(and no, no special provision, ended up having to go to LEA panel to be written in a new statement at a cost to LEA of who knows what before school fully agreed..... nuts)

goes back to water being on tap for all kids anyway.

it is not necessary to keep one hydrated, barring medical issues.

good drink and loo break at home.

a good drink at lunchtime, maybe one at break time too. loo breaks at lunch or break

a good drink when one returns home.

It worked for kids at school where I grew up at 18 degrees north latitude....

see, with the SN provision it happens. it is a sorry commentary that some parents have to fight for it, I agree.

Er, no, not clinically dehydrated. Dehydrated enough over time to get constipated, yes.

I was constpiated when pg. Not clinically dehydrated. The main advice? Drink more water. Fibre is needed to sort constipation and it doesn't work unless it has water to swell it esp. if it comes from from grains.

Our GP advised me to ask the school to ensure that our dc - all dc - got better access to fluids. Nothing doing.

despite being firm at our school I think we can also be flexible to accommodate parents and children with sn provision so it is always head scratching to hear about these 'letter of the law' people out there.

doesn't clinically dehydrated mean staying home and having a rest and rehydrated for a day or so?

Like your paper cups idea btw, Foxy. There woudl be a fuss about 'sustainability' though.

they can write their names on their paper cups and use the same one the whole week?

"Er, no, not clinically dehydrated. Dehydrated enough over time to get constipated, yes."

I still don't understand how this can be a problem for two hour stretches during the day in the UK climate, while it's not a problem at night. Where is all the water going when he's in the classroom? Constant urination? Sweating off a litre an hour? What?

I asked the OP several pages back, why her DC could not drink water? No answer.

This thread is a real tribute to what I refer to as the "pandered generation".

I can't believe (barring disability and special needs) that any child would go thirsty rather than drink water. It flies in the face of basic human/animal instinct.

I used to let my children drink fruit juice. A few years ago, I decided that as it wasn't good for their teeth they couldn't have it anymore, so I stopped buying it.

End Of.

Water, Milk Or NOTHING!

Padme - it may well fly in the face of basic human/animal instinct but believe me when you have a child like it then you simply have to believe it.

If my DS1 decides he's not going to eat, sleep or drink - then he won't. And nothing on this earth will make him.

I sincerely hope he nevers finds cause to go on a Hunger Strike when he's older as he'd stick to it and probably end up starving himself to death.

I still find it astonishing myself - but believe me it happens.

I'd be happy with it, Foxy.

Tokyo, it's not two hours. If I count on my fingers it's actually closer to four hours because (unlike the teaching staff) they do not get adequate opportunity to drink at morning break. The water isn't going anywhere because they haven't drunk it in the first place.

Classrooms aren't 'normal' environments. Once the heating goes on the rooms are both very hot and dry. Half the kids are full of snot (advice from every GP I've ever spoken to re snot: 'drink more clear fluids').

If it were just my dc then maybe you could say I'm talking bollocks. But other parents complain of this, too. The school simply doesn't give them enough opportunity to get adequate fluid. And fluid is important.

here

"If I count on my fingers it's actually closer to four hours because (unlike the teaching staff) they do not get adequate opportunity to drink at morning break."

So there's your complaint, then, and what should be fixed.