When I first became a parent I had these grand ideas of how I was going to feed my child healthful meals and snacks. My daughter wasn’t going to taste sweets for as long as possible. That idea didn’t last long, thanks to her grandma. My child wasn’t going to eat fast food or processed food either. However, my daughter could spot those golden arches a mile away ( she loved french fries).
Well for the first few years I did a pretty good job making sure my daughter and then her sisters ate good meals and snacks. When snacks were given they were always doled out by the guidelines for portions from the back of the box. But mostly, I baked cookies, snacks and granola for my daughters. I even made lunches for school when they were in the younger elementary grades.
But time, circumstances and finances changed and the way I feed my daughters have changed as well. If I was having a hard time keeping up with feeding my daughters healthful meals and snacks I probably wasn’t alone.
I started to think about school snack time and how when I was a teacher it was always something that brought concerns to me. Handling the issue is it better to have some type of snack versus it must be healthful was often a topic of discussion in the teacher’s lounge. Do teachers even have the right to control what kids bring for snack was a question I often asked myself. I know with my youngest daughter her snacks differ greatly from her middle sister’s because of her ADHD medicine. Since the medicine upsets my youngest daughter’s stomach she often would eat saltines for snack (not what I consider nutritious) but it would fill her up and settle her stomach.
So how much input should schools and teachers have in deciding what to eat for snack time? Is it okay for teachers to only allow healthful snacks and and who decides what is healthful?
I believe that parents should be the ones making the decisions about what is appropriate for their children to eat.
However, I feel that schools should educate parents as well as children about nutrition. Schools should also revise school lunches. Since so many children eat school lunches which are notorious for not being healthful why is snack time such a big deal?
Hi Jaimiee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post and welcome to our course!
You raise a really interesting and important issue. Of course, snacks are just the tip of the iceberg, especially when we consider what kids often end up eating for their school lunch (one of my favorite blogs: http://fedupwithlunch.com/). Clearly, if schools' job is to help children lead a productive, healthy and meaningful life, we could be doing a lot more with food.
Of course it's not just what kids eat, but how. If this issue interests you, you might really enjoy the chapters on food in Druckerman's Bringing up Bebe. She talks a lot about the food in the French creches (not only do they have a chef at each nursery school, but they eat in courses). She talk a lot about family routines and the celebrated French snack after school, the goûté. These snacks are often cakes or other things we might consider unhealthy, but they are yummy and teach children to enjoy good things in moderation, with others, as part of daily life.
In fact, I wonder what you think about the possible policing roles of teachers in relationship to the Rosen article on helicopter parenting. I have struggled with this with my own kids, especially our middle son. I see this all the time. Since we can't control what kids do 24/7, they tend to pig out on bad stuff when it's available at school, after soccer practice (always a snack after an activity in the US!), or at a friend's house. How do we teach our children to choose to eat healthy? That is the big question for me. It's like we almost have to inoculate them by giving them small doses from time to time. (This is how I justify our McDonald's on long road trips--it's the one time we do it.)
You bring up wonderful points. I look forward to reading more as we go through the course!
Kyle