DD being made to eat?

[Widget123]

My daughter is 5 and has never had a problem eating, she's a perfect weight but like all kids knows what she does and doesn't like. She's been back at school for two days and both times come back and innocently said 'I ate fish fingers today, miss ** said I can't leave the table till they're gone'. She hates fish fingers and she said she really didn't enjoy eating them, I'm feeling a little livid right now that a teacher (who I assume to be new as I haven't heard the name before) is telling the children they can't get up until they've eaten?! If my child doesn't want to eat something then no one should be force bloody feeding her. Anyone else had this? How would you approach it?

She was probably told to eat some before she left the table. There is a tremendous amount of waste with kids throwing away meals because they want to go out to play. Why did she choose fish fingers if she doesn't like them?

Send her with packed lunches.

Definitely a packed lunch

When I had this I sent dd with a packed lunch and wrote in permanent sharpie across it that she wasn’t to be made to eat all of it, just what she wanted. No issues after that.

Our school has a menu so parents know what food will be served - if the children don't like that food then the parents can send packed lunch. Simples!

It's the same menu for all schools in the area and lasts for the entire term.

Don’t the school send the weekly menu to you? Just don’t send her in on fish day - which is almost certainly always a Friday!

Midday assistants will try to encourage children to eat, for sure.

Our school has a 3 week rolling menu with a main meal or a snack option. Does the school not send you the menu?

"Midday assistants", not heard that term before, we used to just call them dinner ladies

I doubt they are forcing her to eat, or forcing her to eat everything. Most midday supervisors will encourage children to eat, particularly if they see that they haven't eaten very much (on the flip side of your post, is all the parents who want their DC to be encouraged to eat because otherwise they never bother to eat and come out of school starving).
Surely fishfingers was not the only choice (there must have been a veggie option at least?)

My mum worked as a MDA over 15 years ago and that was the job title then!

Haworthia, that makes me feel old.

Yes it's on the menu and always has been, regardless of what's on the menu that's not the point I'm making, she can be full wherever it's something she likes or not, the point is is that twice she's been told now she isn't leaving the table until she's eaten her dinner. There's a big difference in gently being encouraged to eat so you don't go home hungry which I completely support, and being told you aren't leaving the table until you've finished your meal which is what's happened here.

Or at least it is how a 5 year old interpreted it.

If you forced DS to eat something he didn’t like he would throw up. He’s NT, just a very fussy eater. I think it’s a texture thing.

Why did you give her school dinners when you knew what was on the menu was something she didn’t like?

She hates fish fingers and she said she really didn't enjoy eating them

So why did you not send her with a packed lunch, especially if you knew that was the dinner on offer? Would you rather she ate nothing and they let her go out and play?

I’d be pleased - she ate something that she doesn’t really like and nothing bad happened. We all have foods that we’d not choose to eat but can tolerate if they are cooked for us. It’s a good thing to teach children not to be fussy.

The thing is Widget I suspect if she’d eaten a reasonable amount of her lunch that she would be told she couldn’t be excused.

If she’s being told to stay at the table she probably hasn’t eaten anything at all.

Bear in mind even the loveliest children interpret situations to their own point of view in the retelling.

By all means ask the school what their policy is on this but if she isn’t going to eat her school dinner I’d send in a packed lunch.

For every parent cross that their child was 'made' to eat, there's one cross that their child went through the school day without being fed.

It is a long day and children need to eat. Portions aren't really big enough to have plenty left over.

I think YABU.

I also really hate food waste.

I’d be pleased that she’d eaten. Fish fingers are pretty inoffensive and tolerable so good way to encourage children to eat something even if it’s not what she would have chosen. They need to eat at school and the portion sizes are small. At my children’s infants school, there wasn’t a choice other than the parents choosing meat or veggie option.

The thing is there’s a huge difference between encouragement and the whole “you can’t go out to play until you’ve finished” which I think is awful. As a child I was made to finish my food and the anxiety it caused me about it led to some very difficult feelings about specific foods as I got older - even now I can’t look at a plate of mashed potato without feeling sick after being made to eat it as a child. The whole thing was very traumatic. Sometimes I was so stressed by the whole thing I was sick before lunch!

My son aged 6 has autism and he has a very restrictive diet as lots of children with autism do. It’s not being fussy, it’s due to sensory issues (if you google restrictive diet autism you’ll find lots of information). Making him finish a meal would be cruel and likely to put him off a food for life, or even food in general. He is under a dietician and they have advised us to feed him whatever and whenever he likes to build a positive relationship with food.

Sure most neurotypical don’t need that level of “whatever goes” but no child should be pushed into eating something they genuinely don’t like or have had enough of. Generally speaking if a child is hungry they will eat.

Maybe go and have a word with her teacher as they shouldn't be forced to eat.

As a MDS I would encourage children to try something but if they don't like it or won't eat we don't force them. If there is enough we will speak to kitchen and get more of what they do like...though some days there has been a child (fussy eater) who has refused to eat anything ... This circumstance there's not much we can do but tell their teacher who will hopefully encourage them to have an afternoon snack and make parents aware they didn't eat their lunch.

How do you order lunches? Are you sent a menu? Our children choose their meal in the morning. Some schools send a menu home the week before so you choose meals for the following week. Or do they choose when in the dinner hall? How did she end up with a meal that you and she knows she doesn't like??

I think it's highly unlikely she was made to stay until she was finished. The teacher will have noticed she was pulling faces at the fish fingers and would be trying to encourage her to eat something before she left the table. We really can't win with this one. If pupils go home hungry the parents phone to say they aren't eating enough at lunch and could we make sure they do.

Remember that you are getting the 5 year old version of what really happened.

For every parent that tells the teacher not to force them to eat, you've got twice as many telling you to make sure they eat all of their food. Try doing the old fashioned thing and actually have a conversation with the teacher.

You know its something she hates on the menu and you still let her have school dinner?
You need to have a rethink.
I imagine a reasonable person would assume that a parent would not make a child have food they hated if the parent did not want them to eat it.
I would be very upset if my child did not eat enough at school and was not encouraged to eat or I wasn't informed they weren't eating but then my DCs take a packed lunch if its something they don't like on the menu that day. Less waste, they get fed, no confusion and everyone is happy.