How do You Respond When the School Tells You How to Feed Your Kids?
I know many of you have babies and haven't dealt with this yet. But for those of you with children in school or who are teachers, what's your experience with school policies about food?
For the past few years, our elementary school has encouraged healthy eating for the kids, asking that we send healthy snacks in their lunchboxes. Okay, for the most part I do that. But I will send in a few chips to go with a sandwich or a cookie or two for dessert. I don't think it's the end of the world.
Up until last spring, students were allowed to bring in a treat for the class on their birthdays. Of course, this was usually cupcakes or cookies. In the middle of the school year, they decided to stop this altogether. No more treats allowed for birthdays.
Then they decided we need to watch what we bring in for holiday parties. The class can still have a party, but it has to be very limited in foods and sweets are basically not allowed. We can do things like fruits and vegetables, crackers and cheese, granola bars, etc.
Now with Halloween coming up tomorrow, the question of goodie bags came up. The children often bring in little bags of goodies to pass out to their friends. Now we're not allowed to send any food in whatsoever or the bags will just come back home with our child. We can send in pencils, stickers, erasers, toys, etc., but absolutely no candy.
I guess I'm trying to figure out where the lines should be drawn. I know obesity and diabetes are an increasing issue with children and I absolutely agree with trying to encourage healthy eating. But at what point do we have to let parents make decisions and not be governed completely by school policy?
Just throwing this out there for some discussion. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about all the rules. Honestly, at this point my biggest fear is the school going peanut-free and trying to figure out what to feed my 6-year-old for lunch! Right now they have a peanut free table in the cafeteria, but I've heard rumors of just doing away with peanuts altogehter. Of course, that's all Eli will eat for lunch!
Who else has come across these types of issues and how were they handled there?
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As a former Kindergarten teacher, I know exactly what you're talking about. My school tried to enforce those type of rules but in our inner city location, got no support from parents. I was completely behind the birthday party rule (sorry). It was just absolutely annoying to have to do a party during school hours. They are so messy! I always felt bad for the kids whose parents never even came in to school too. But the food rules I thought were over the top. They were bordering on censorship. I do not believe it is the school's job or anyone's job to tell us what to eat. We can be educated on healthy choices, but ultimately it is our choice.
Elsie is so right about how we are backswards. We can choose whether to have a child or terminate a pregnancy but we don't have a choice about the foods we eat on a school campus. It's crazy!
I remember in college I had a professor tell us that we should not even drink a soda in front of our students because it was modeling bad eating habits and that we should not chew gum if they weren't allowed! I am all for modeling but I also believe that there is a place where children must learn that they are not equal to adults. There are some things we can do that they can't (such as driving) and they just have to deal with that.
In defense of teachers, though, a lot of teachers are simply following school rules, even if they do not agree. Also, teachers are much more than just educators . They reach the whole child. Although your children may come from stable homes, there are many children to whom the teacher is the only constant in their lives. They spend little or no quality time with their parents and rely on teachers as their parental figures. Teachers do not have the right to indoctrinate our children or teach them moral values, but they definitely are more than just educators.
Cheryl-This is such an interesting topic. I'm still sorting out my feelings on it, but my gut reaction is that the schools are trying to hard to be parents rather than doing what they are there to do, which is to educate. I recently saw an article in Reader's Digest that was touting how a principle made changes like what you've described to the school she teaches at and now the kids are healthy and at reasonable weights...It made it sound like it was such a positive change. But here's my problem with it:
I think for me, the big issue is that schools were established to give an education to the children of our country. Now they think they should do everything from sex education to monitoring the food the kids eat. I wasn't even allowed to carry Ibuprofen in the school for when I got my period when I was in high school, yet I could have talked to a counselor and found out where to have an abortion--because that was MY right. It's just so backwards and it is getting worse and worse. The food is another example of this. Teachers have enough work as it is, they shouldn't have to monitor the students' food as well--they should be using that time instead to monitor students' behavior or take their planning period. Schools who are taking these measures have overstepped their bounds. Now, offering healthy cafeteria food, taking out soda and snack machines (or offering healthy substitutes in the soda and snack machines)...doing a unit on the food pyramid and healthy choices, teaching how to monitor caloric intake, even making it harder to get out of gym class. These are all fine in my opinion because they are educational things to do. But when you say that a child can't bring certain foods into the cafeteria...now that's a problem in my book. If a parent thinks a dessert with lunch is o.k. then the child should be able to have a dessert. It is just one more step towards the parents having no rights whatsoever.
As a former teacher, I was actually told in my college teaching courses that it is the SCHOOL'S job to socialize the students (this was at a top teaching college in VA). The reasoning for this was that the parents weren't socializing their children and that the parents expected us to do it for them. We were told that the parents actually agreed with the things we were teaching, they just didn't have time to do it themselves. I heartily disagreed with this and since I know that that's the school's agenda, I am not sending my son to a public school where their agenda doesn't necessarily match with mine.
So yes, I think this is wrong on a social level as well as a practical level (teachers just don't have the TIME to be adding one more thing they can monitor). Besides...What ever happened to allowing kids to be kids...bringing cupcakes in on your birthday, having holiday parties...It's a real shame that we're taking these things away from our kids.
So that's why I am initially against it. I haven't fully researched things, but that is always my gut reaction when the government tells me that they know what's better for my kid than I do ...I suppose I'm an oldest child know-it-all...Never did like being told what to do.