Primary school insisting my child takes water not squash to school, despite there being a medical reason for it

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

My ds is 10 and suffers from frequent migraines. He takes daily preventative meds for them, and we try hard to manage them by eliminating triggers.

Obviously, dehydration is a major trigger, and so I need to make sure he drink enough during the day. I send him to school with weak squash in his water bottle, as he is not overly keen on water, and so will not drink enough of it. I know this to be the case from seeing him drink at home.

School are kicking up an almighty fuss about it. I have spoken to them countless times explaining why he needs the squash, and have also written a letter insisting he be alowed it, abd again explained why.
Today he was pulled into the heads office because of the squash.

I went in after school and asked to see the head. I was told she could only speak to me for 2 minutes. She came out and right away knew why I was there. She just went on and on about many people not liking water and getting headaches, but that other kids would think it was ok for their child to bring in squash also.
She then said that my ds had promised earlier that day, to try and drink only water next week. So basically they got him to agree to this in a meeting with no parent present.

I explained again about his migraines, but she basically insisted and just said that ds had agreed now.

Is there anyting I can do about this ? I think their treatment of him and his condition is appaling. We have also had issues where they have made him wait for calpol when a headache starts.

Oh he is quite happy to eat nothing at break time rabbit
He seems to have survived so far [grin[

What about mineral water in a good (non-plasticy) bottle. Tap water does taste bad IMO, our is so chlorinated it's like drinking swimming pool water.

Daftdame, you need to read posts! Feckless was in regards to parent of children bring taken in to care.

DP finds things like The Orange Squash Non Issue time wasting, when schools have a limit on resources, so effort on this type of rubbish, is not spent on something more important. As I said before, if you think this is important, you need to get out more. Hth

My dd gets migraines. For her it's not just a matter of lying in a darkened room, although she has to do that too, it's about literally screaming in pain for several hours, and that is after she's had painkillers (although she often will throw them up) sometimes she completely loses her balance and starts slurring her words as well. She finds them very scary and dh and I find them very very stressful.

We found that we had to have several visits to the GP before getting treatment that seems to be working. I would suspect from the OPs postings that she too has had several doctor's visits before being prescribed some fairly heavy duty medication (our experience was that the doctor was very very reluctant to prescribe strong medication for children) so the posters saying no no of course it's not a migraine should really stop.

dd also has not drinking enough as a trigger, along with stress, not eating enough and puberty. That doesn't however mean that she always eats and drinks enough. Luckily her school have been very supportive and they don't have stupid drink rules so we've not had to fight that particular battle.

Rabbit, such measures would surely only be necessary if DS insisted on haribo because he wasn't overly keen on the fruit which is what is allowed?

Migraines vary. I have been diagnosed as having migraines (headaches with visual disturbances), I don't have to lie in a darkened room (and I tend to just refer to 'headache' when describing them as I don't feel they justify migraine levels of sympathy). So the OP's son is not necessarily not having migraines just because calpol helps - early paracetamol helps mine.

I didn't say it wasn't a migraine. I said several times that I am basing what I said on only dh and his migraines.

nooka it sounds really terrible for your dd and it must be horrible to watch her in so much pain.

Can I just ask though, what if your school did have a water only rule? Surely you would make sure in that case that your dd did drink enough water, even if she didnt like it, to prevent her being in so much pain?

I don't know, I mean I have no clue what it's like to be in that situation but I can only imagine if you know they have to drink in order to prevent terrible migraines, and the school has a water only rule, then you would be spending all your time and effort on getting your DCs to drink water, to make them understand why, to trying different variation of bottled water, ice water etc rather than putting a l

*load of effort into fighting the school over this no squash rule?

It would make more sense to me to do that. If they need to drink and the school won't allow anything other than water and your DC can drink water but just doesn't like it, I would have thought that your issue was with your child, not a school rule.

Just get doctors note.

Just want to mention, my son took Pizotifen for while, but they made him feel moody and he looked really ill, with big dark circles under his eyes. I was relieved when he decided to go off of it. He was about 12-13. We did find a trigger, by process of elimination, it was diet coke. He stopped drinking that and improved. Good luck.

"Now, what you need to do, TantrumsAndBalloons, is tell him off for spurning fruit when children in the developing world are starving and would kill for that fruit. You could also tell him that he would eat fruit if he were stuck in the middle of the desert with no other options, so logically, therefore, he has to eat it at home and at school. You could also mark his fruit, so he only has to eat a bit at a time. Simples."

If my ds suggested that because he doesn't like fruit he should have a chocolate orange for break time, then actually, yes I would say all those things. However as he was always quite happy with a carrot or a handful of raw green beans then I didn't have to.

Come on OP. Update URGENTLY needed.

I too doubt Calpol would touch the sides of an actual migraine; also that any reasonably intelligent 10 year old could suffer one even once and take the risk of it happening again by refusing to drink water.

I see my childs intelligence is now being insulted. How rude and unkind.

Calpol is given to ds at the first sign of a headache. At this point, no one knows wether it is just a headache, or a migraine. I don't hang around to find out, and don't want school to either.
Sometimes the calpol doesn't work, and then ds will be in a lot of pain, and need to lie down in a dark room, with a cool strip on his head. He usually then vomits. Sometimes the vomitting cures the migraine, but not always.

For those actually interested in my original point, Ds is now taking two bottles of water to school, that contain ice cubes and slices of orange. The 2nd bottle is kept in the staffroom fridge, so that he can have cold water and not lukewarm water thats been sat on his desk all day. He hasn't been drinking it all, but more than previous attempts.

So far so good. The teachers eyebrows raised at the orange slices, but nothing has been said, yet.

Oh and also, just like to point out, that ds doesn't drink fizzy pop, as someone here said.

Well that sounds good! Well done DS and school!

Sounds like a good compromise, hope he can manage better now. Also I congratulate you on such a measured response to the unnecessary hysteria on the thread.

That's great. Maybe over time you can reduce the orange slices as well (you know, a bit at a time), but that's a great start. Well done DS!

Whilst you are back, is the no-squash an all day rule, or just in the drinks bottles that they have in the classroom?

Well done OP. That's a great compromise.

TheOriginalNutcracker - there is an awful lot of rubbish on this thread which I hope you can ignore.

It seems that you have take some of the better advice re. ice cubes and orange slices, and I hope this helps your ds.

TheOriginalNutcracker - there is an awful lot of rubbish on this thread which I hope you can ignore Agreed!

Glad you've managed to sort something out. I most certainly do not drink only water at work op. I Would rather not drink than drink only water .. and I'm sure your sons teachers dont only drink water too so I think you've done well to get to this compromise.

That's great op glad a compromise has been reached and I hope you can relax now a bit :)

Hope your ds is ok

As far as I am aware, tiny (and i mean tiny) pots of fruit juice are available at lunchtime, or water.
Throughout the rest of the day it is water only, including breaktimes (oh unless they buy a milkshake from the tuck shop)

Ds btw would quite happily drink milk instead of squash, but it's not practical to have that at school all day.

Ah, I see. And he can't take in fruit juice/squash in his lunch box? So if he's not drinking the water he's getting nothing for 6 hours?

They don't have milk at break time? I know it's quite expensive but for a couple of weeks until the end of term (Apologies, we are still infants, don't know if it's made available for juniors).