School breakfast clubs

sarahellenwhitney my Granddaughter is very much on the skinny side and below weight for her age. She is a child who doesn't do sweets, cakes, biscuits. Doesn't like chocolate and asks for salad all the time her favourite snack is sugar snap peas, nuts or sparkling water. So she is encouraged to 'scoff' a Danish pastry if she wants one. She had seen the doctor and Mum has been encourage to give her full fat milk/cheese as often as she will eat it. Food is often not on her agenda at all.

So please do not judge what you don't know.

My grandson is was very pleased when he was told that his new school has a breakfast club, especially so when he was told he would use a debit card to pay for what he wants, a bit miffed when told: no, you can't use it outside the school

My granddaughter loves breakfast club.
I can remember just turning up at school really early and playing unsupervised in the playground as most of the other kids did.

A breakfast club was started at the school I worked at - it was a great success. Many of the children, on free school meals, had nothing before they left home. A bowl of cereal, toast, fruit and yogurt set them up for the morning. Prior to this I often saw one small boy with a huge greasy puff pastry sausage roll; this was his breakfast every day, and the pastry held a sliver of grey 'god knows what' as an excuse for a sausage. He was brightened up considerably by a breakfast with friends, and something decent and fresh to eat. There were a few mothers who sent the children although they didn't work, but that was their choice, and one mother actually managed to get half price breakfast club for three children although she didn't work, drove a large car, smoked and always looked very well dressed...however, these exceptions aside it was a great idea and was good for the children.

maddyone I was moaning in the Squealing Children thread that my niece's inner city/deprived area school is now an academy and gets little support for its 'wealthy' sponsor.

Your post reminded me about their so-called breakfast club.

TWO PIECES OF WHITE BREAD no butter or jam or anything. Just bog-standard white bread (oh and water, and that's not a cliche about prison food).

One family's father, who is from N Africa give his three kids little pots of honey he makes up. He was willing to provide a catering quality toaster like you see at hotels, but they turned him down. Health and Safety crap... staff would have to get 'training' to use it.

DOH? Two pieces of bread with nothing on it?n Why can't they even get butter? They also get raw veggies (crudites) like carrots, but sometimes it's cauliflower or broccoli. Some kids make the rounds of classes looking to visit those kids don't want their veggies and they gladly take any offered.

Tanith
I would place my concerns on the health of those who 'scoff' for the sake of scoffing.
A piece of fruit when already having eaten breakfast then OK.
A 'danish? I don't think so.

Fuck housework! There are more important things in life, especially when you have young kids.

Actually, especially always.

SAHM-ing is not about housework.

no not

So women who work don't do housework it seems.

So why work to pay for child care and a cleaner

The families I know who put their babies in all day child care are career minded, mothers who work part time evenings in supermarkets and cleaning offices are stay at home mothers .

Hear, hear, jalima. If a mother pays someone to look after her kids, that child-minder/nanny has a respectable job. If a mother chooses to that job herself, apparently she hasn't got a respectable job. Weird way of thinking.

Besides, it's not just about 'minding' the kids; it's about educating them as well. Some women want to have a strong influence on their kids' early education because it matters.

NB I said educating, not schooling. Those are no synonyms.

should a woman (or a man)devote years of their lives and all their waking hours to housework and looking after children? I don't think that is healthy for either them or the children.
Why should mothers (or fathers) towho are able to, not take a career break for just a few years whilst their children are tiny or to perhaps work part-time?

Women are other women's worst enemies I agree and think therefore that there is no reason to be derogatory about mothers who choose, if they are able, to stay at home for the few years when their child(ren) are small. Why should they spend all their hours doing housework? What is wrong with looking after children? It follows that the job of a nursery nurse is one to be scorned if it is that demeaning. Working mothers have to fit in the housework too.
I don't see why it is not healthy. Most of the young mothers in my group all those years ago were lucky enough to be able to stay at home for say 5-7 years and their children were able also to meet up with their friends, went to play groups at 3 which was for only about 2.5 hours of each day. They have all grown up into outgoing, confident adults, no less so than those who went to nurseries from babyhood.

And yes, I realise it is not possible for everyone but there is no reason to scorn SAHM.

Let's not judge the rise in children suffering with mental health illness by the number of suicides. Do we wait for a rise in suicide statistics before we listen to the teachers who are expressing their concerns for children suffering anxiety, panic attacks and depression,

Is it not possible many children are now obese because they comfort eat ?

Reaching for a bar of chocolate or packet of biscuits because of depression by children is no different to adults.

daphne Given the high and increasing level of mental illness in young people, I find this surprising. There is concern that a significant number of suicides are not being reported as such but are reported as "accidental" or that it cannot be said definitively that the person intended to take his/her life. The Telegraph had a report on this in 2011:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8811351/Suicide-rate-masked-by-coroners-verdicts.html

Good morning and a happy Easter to you all.
When I was working in an inner city infant school, we had a completely free breakfast club. It was funded by special funding from the city council because it was in a deprived area. Out of over 200 pupils including the nursery class, breakfast club was attended by about 20 to 30 children, many of which were the children of working parents (not well paid jobs I hasten to add) but we still had children who arrived having not eaten anything that morning. I used to give those children school milk/fruit as they often complained of being hungry. The breakfast club was run by TAs who were willing to work an extra hour. The food was cereal and toast, so nothing complicated, but far better than nothing.
We also ran an after school club, but it was funded by a small fee, no free funding at all, again TAs who wanted an extra hour or so of extra work ran the club. Sadly it had to close after a year or two as too many parents simply didn't pay and we couldn't keep topping it up from the school budget.
Just thought I'd throw my professional experiences into the debate.

I feel sorry for children now, factory farmed in school buildings, sent there before their working day starts and left there long after it has ended. Holiday clubs in that same space with the same kids they are lodged with all year. The state is just taking over, holiday restriction when some parents can only have term time leave from their jobs........we allegedly prize family life and then do everything we can to avoid it.

No wonder our children are so miserable.

Annie - I wasn't offended but I did want to respond in defence of the many working mothers. Elothoethan puts it well, as ever.
It does concern me that in the UK we seem to have a greater tendency to use various substances than in other European countries. Binge drinking, parents turning up at school with a can of Special Brew in one hand and a spliff in the other. This happens much more in areas of high deprivation and unemployment than in more affluent areas. Eloethan's point about cuts to benefits, the closure this year of over 1000 Sure Start Centres does leave many children deprived of support that has been shown to help them.
Breakfast clubs are especially important in areas of high deprivation. I've mentioned previously one 6 year old arriving weeping, who told his teacher he'd missed breakfast club and hadn't had anything to eat since school dinner the previous day. This is an extreme but sadly, not that rare incident.

According to an article, which appeared in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2014, the UK has the lowest rate of suicide in 10 to 14 year olds in Europe. Ireland's rate is three times higher for girls and six times higher for boys.

Suicide rates are a fairly blunt statistic and don't take into account other mental illnesses, but it does appear that the headlines might not be quite what they seem. UK teenage suicide rates have hardly changed in a decade.

bjp.rcpsych.org/content/205/4/283.figures-only

Anniebach Did you live in privately rented accommodation or did you have a mortgage to pay? On a cleaner's wages, you'd be hard pushed these days, with either private rent or mortgage to pay, to manage on one salary.

Aside from that, whilst I believe that weekly working hours are far too long for both men and women, and particularly for people with young families, should a woman (or a man)devote years of their lives and all their waking hours to housework and looking after children? I don't think that is healthy for either them or the children. And if a woman (or a man) spends many years at home, this will affect any career plans they may have had.

I agree that many children in this country are suffering because of the long working hours demanded of their parents, but that is not the parents' fault and I think it is wrong to put it down to their selfishness.

It appears that children in this country are far more prone to mental illness and emotional difficulties than in many other countries of similar economic standing. I don't believe this is down to mothers going out to work (they go out to work in those countries too) but to many other factors, not least of which are sky-rocketing property prices, stagnating wages, insecure housing and employment, and expensive and often barely adequate nursery provision.

There is plenty of stirring talk at the moment about the importance of giving everyone an equal shot. I feel that, in reality, far from prioritising children, the cuts to education and services (such as Sure Start Centres - cut by a third) and benefits - including in-work benefits - mean that children will continue to be the victims of short-sighted policies that will in the long term adversely affect the physical and mental health of the country and damage its intellectual standing - as has happened in the USA.

As for Fay Weldon, I don't see why her opinion should be valued any more highly than any other woman's opinion. She came from a middle class family and benefited from a good education, culminating in a place at St Andrew's. When her first marriage (to a headmaster many years her senior) failed, she went out to work and became head of copywriting in an advertising agency. Even though she apparently worked from home (which many women can't do) I wonder if she coped without any other domestic assistance. Frankly, she is one person who really gets on my nerves, with her constant criticisms of feminism and her suggestion that sexual harassment was welcomed by women in her day.

Please accept my apologies for my post, Iam, Ana, Morgana, and anyone else who may be hurt or offended,,it was wrong of me . I am truly sorry

Annie

Daphne, another apology,i thought you were much older than a mother of babies when tax credits came into being

I went back to work when my kids were just a few months old. They went to a childminder who was wonderful
It was hard work and emotionally challenging
But the worst thing was the prejudice and nasty comments from others. Mainly other women.
Please do not let us go down that road again!

I typed six months and it has become choked, my spelling is not as grim as that

Jalima Wales has a different policy about school meals/ breakfast club because the education budget is devolved to the Welsh Assembly as I understand it. England's policy comes directly from central government. So two different countries as far as Education is concerned. (And Scotland 's education has long been different of course.)
It's a Labour government in Wales I believe.

Yes, I did Ana, just commenting that I went with DM to work as there was obviously no child care in those days and they couldn't have afforded it if there had been.

I don't know about the teacher.

My experience of children with serious mental health problems is that they were usually (not always) from families with a long tradition of child abuse or neglect, rather than from so called "good enough" families, where both parents or one single parent went out to work.
Like daphnedill, I returned to full time work when my two younger children were about 6 - 7 months. I was lucky, I used leave and flexi time to return part time so by the time I was full time, they were very settled with the child minder who (30 years later) remains a family friend. Both those children are now mothers of toddlers, both work and their children are confident, happy and outgoing. They spend part of the week in nursery, part with grandparents. Nurseries are very different places than they were 30 years ago.
Research quoted (even in the Mail) this week, suggests that the children of working mothers tend to be more successful in work, aspiring to senior positions.
Amongst the adult children of my friends, all of whom worked either full or part time throughout their childhoods, the now 30 plus year olds are doing well, thank you.