How would you handle it?

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
What makes me mad is when I go to put a tiny piece of candy in his lunch as a treat & he freaks out saying mommy we can't have that. I told him to eat it & tell the teacher to call me. I'm his mother & if I want to let him have a piece of candy after his sandwich & healthy sides, then he can! (P.S. he hardly ever eats sweets!)

Why are you sending the candy when A) he's not supposed to have it at school; and B) he obviously knows that and tells you not to send it?

Is this some power trip thing?
 

pebbles

Member
Why are you sending the candy when A) he's not supposed to have it at school; and B) he obviously knows that and tells you not to send it?

Is this some power trip thing?

No, not a power trip at all. But usually after Halloween or Easter when we have all that candy & it's just one of the miniature pieces. I've never been told that you can't pack anything in particular in school lunch. (Even allowed to send peanuts, they just can't sit at the peanut free table then)

Trust me, he's not a sweet eater, so if I want to let him have a treat every now & again (it's not often at all I send candy) that is my business as his parent. When they want to pay for my groceries then they can dictate what I can pack in MY kid's lunch.
 

Roman

Active Member
My Son's favorite packed lunch was plain yogurt, with cucumbers, and slices of lunch meat to dip in the yogurt, oh and a hard boiled egg.
 

twinoaks207

Having Fun!
Oh,dear, I don't know where to start. I'm looking at this as both a parent AND an educator so please bear with me (especially as I'm on the iPad so I may not catch all of my typos). First, taking the lunch away was not an appropriate way to handle the issue, neither was charging your account ( and an administrator should get the cafeteria to fix it). A better way to handle it would have been for the aide to share the concern with the teacher who would then call home to discuss it. It is your choice whether you wish to choose this battle to fight (getting that money back).

This year new and more stringent laws go into effect concerning what may be served for meals in schools. This information should be available on the school system website. If not, let me know and I will dig up a link for you.

My school is a Bronze School in the Healthy Schools program. We must do several things to contribute to the health of our students & staff ( and I've talked about them in other threads). We have a school-wide "healthy school food policy" that we send home on the first day of school. It covers what is okay for class parties and a reminder to please not send family size bags of chips and soda to school as a lunch plus a few other details. For the most part our families are very supportive of these efforts.

I understand about picky eaters. My youngest has tons of food allergies, is picky & wouldn't eat any bread. Packing a lunch for him on days he couldn't buy due to allergies was very challenging. I know this folks wondered why he never had a "sandwich" & instead had only the meat. At least he would eat apples, cucumbers & yes, goldfish!!! :)

If I were you, I would just chalk this up to first week craziness since you've already contacted the school, and just be on the alert for any further issues. If there are any further issues, start with his teacher first ( conference) and then go to the Principal. The teacher MAY be able to help but really has no control over the cafeteria. the Principal would have some say but if it involves policy from the district, state & Feds, you may need to go higher. Choose your battles.

Had I been on lunch duty with your baby, I would have wondered, but figured he was a picky eater & made a mental note to keep an eye on him to see how much he ate. If he ate it all & still seemed hungry, I'd have called home to let you know so we could figure out what was best for your little guy. Kindergartners are notoriously picky eaters so chances are good you'd probably never have heard from me about this because he would have eaten what you packed & been fine!

I would also recommend being sure to go to back to school night if only to get information about the day's schedule and any info about snacks provided for the kids.

Hope that he has a wonderful, fun year!
 

doubtfull24

New Member
Last year my sons school was picky about what snacks we sent in for snack time. I sent him in with a nature valley granola bar , he came home and said the teacher said I couldn't bring that in as a snack anymore it isn't healthy. Sorry but what I choose to send is my choice. I pay for my sons food/snacks and if you would like to buy him what you think is a healthier choice than so be it if not then sorry.
 

mitzi

Well-Known Member
Grandson is here for a sleepover and told me all about his school lunch (funny after this conversation all day on here). He's just starting Kindergarten so it's his first full days and having lunch at school. Today was the first time he bought his lunch and was so excited. He kept telling me how good it was. Cheese pizza, green beans, milk and for dessert pears. Not a bad lunch I would say.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Cheese pizza, green beans, milk and for dessert pears.

I thought all kids got for school lunch these days was gruel and an ounce of desiccated mystery meat? Now I'm hearing about corn dogs and cheese pizza - with pears, no less. What happened to Michelle Obama's starvation lunch program?
 
I thought all kids got for school lunch these days was gruel and an ounce of desiccated mystery meat? Now I'm hearing about corn dogs and cheese pizza - with pears, no less. What happened to Michelle Obama's starvation lunch program?

Don't you remember, pizza got re-categorized as a vegetable.
 

Natron0915

Active Member
Oh,dear, I don't know where to start. I'm looking at this as both a parent AND an educator so please bear with me (especially as I'm on the iPad so I may not catch all of my typos). First, taking the lunch away was not an appropriate way to handle the issue, neither was charging your account ( and an administrator should get the cafeteria to fix it). A better way to handle it would have been for the aide to share the concern with the teacher who would then call home to discuss it. It is your choice whether you wish to choose this battle to fight (getting that money back).

This year new and more stringent laws go into effect concerning what may be served for meals in schools. This information should be available on the school system website. If not, let me know and I will dig up a link for you.

My school is a Bronze School in the Healthy Schools program. We must do several things to contribute to the health of our students & staff ( and I've talked about them in other threads). We have a school-wide "healthy school food policy" that we send home on the first day of school. It covers what is okay for class parties and a reminder to please not send family size bags of chips and soda to school as a lunch plus a few other details. For the most part our families are very supportive of these efforts.

I understand about picky eaters. My youngest has tons of food allergies, is picky & wouldn't eat any bread. Packing a lunch for him on days he couldn't buy due to allergies was very challenging. I know this folks wondered why he never had a "sandwich" & instead had only the meat. At least he would eat apples, cucumbers & yes, goldfish!!! :)

If I were you, I would just chalk this up to first week craziness since you've already contacted the school, and just be on the alert for any further issues. If there are any further issues, start with his teacher first ( conference) and then go to the Principal. The teacher MAY be able to help but really has no control over the cafeteria. the Principal would have some say but if it involves policy from the district, state & Feds, you may need to go higher. Choose your battles.

Had I been on lunch duty with your baby, I would have wondered, but figured he was a picky eater & made a mental note to keep an eye on him to see how much he ate. If he ate it all & still seemed hungry, I'd have called home to let you know so we could figure out what was best for your little guy. Kindergartners are notoriously picky eaters so chances are good you'd probably never have heard from me about this because he would have eaten what you packed & been fine!

I would also recommend being sure to go to back to school night if only to get information about the day's schedule and any info about snacks provided for the kids.

Hope that he has a wonderful, fun year!


Thanks for that outstanding response and explanation. We are not pursuing it further and are (so far) satisfied with the responsiveness from the teacher. This is round two for us with round three just around the corner. It's the first time we've had this sort of issue with the school, so as you say, hopefully it's just a matter of back-to-school craziness. From the number of responses here, I see we aren't the only one's with a picky eater and we're working on that the best we can.
 

Merlin99

Visualize whirled peas
PREMO Member
My Son's favorite packed lunch was plain yogurt, with cucumbers, and slices of lunch meat to dip in the yogurt, oh and a hard boiled egg.

Sounds like a kid with a desperate need for a gyro, better get him to Niko's quickly.
 

mitzi

Well-Known Member
I thought all kids got for school lunch these days was gruel and an ounce of desiccated mystery meat? Now I'm hearing about corn dogs and cheese pizza - with pears, no less. What happened to Michelle Obama's starvation lunch program?

They still have a choice between 2 entrees. That day it was a choice of either pizza or turkey/cheese sub. My daughter said after looking over the menu for the month, it's basically the same as when she was in school and that's been 17 years.
 

Rommey

Well-Known Member
First, its not any of the school's responsibility to provide lunch, decide what lunch is appropriate, or overrule my decisions about the health and welfare of my children (unless there is clear and substantial proof of abuse or neglect). Second, there were many times when my kids just didn't want to eat very much...so just to get them to eat something...anything was a trying time. Then there were other times when we just couldn't feed them enough. Of course we knew the growth spurt was coming.

So a teacher looking at a single lunch a making a determination about the quality doesn't take into consideration what my kids may or may not eat on any given day.
 

Roman

Active Member
Sounds like a kid with a desperate need for a gyro, better get him to Niko's quickly.
Now that's funny because he does really like Gyros. He's in the USCG, and will retire in 2016. I'll have to take him to Niko's sometime. I never made him eat what he didn't like, and now at the age of 41, he loves all food. He'll try anything. When he was about 3 years old, all he would eat was a scrambled egg for the longest time. It was driving me crazy. His Doctor said, "If he doesn't eat it, he doesn't need it". We just had to make sure he took his vitamins. He's now 6'3", and weighs 215, so he did grow in to a healthy adult.
 
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