After school snacks

I collect my Grand daughter one day a week from school. I give her a toasted currant tea cake, or a couple of crackers and a little cheese, or a slice of malt bread I'm sure you get the picture. She is always hungry then. We have dinner about 5.30p/m It's a long time to go from 12 midday to dinner without anything to eat. She certainly isn't overweight and is extremely active.
Being only 9 her parents and us have a good control of what she eats. I think one of the problems with older children those at senior school is that they can call at the "chippy" on the way home stuff their faces and then have a dinner as well! When I was a child the chippy was only open for a short while at lunch time and tea and supper, not all day. As with all these things it is a question of balance.

I never take anything for mine but they usually have a drink and biscuit when they come home. My granddaughter is quite faddy so never sure l how much of school dinner she actually eats.

thanks nanny some seem to feel criticism where non was intended.

As a thin-as-a-rake (oh far off days!) schoolkid I used to love school dinners but was always STARVING when I got home n would rush to the bread bin and make myself a stack of jam butties. I tried to make sure my DD and, in turn, my DGD always had a healthy snack after school because it can be a long time to tea time especially if - holier than though alert ! - teas's made from scratch.

When I picked up my DDs from school I never even thought of taking a snack . (2 days a week I had been at work so not coming from home). They left school at 3pm and we ate a cooked meal at between 5.00 and 5.30pm, I think we sometimes had a biscuit and cup of tea when we got home. Nor did I ever take GD1 a treat Both DDs now in their mid-thirties and GD1 who is 17 have no fillings.

I understood the op to be observing the number of parents/grandparents etc who were handing the child a snack as soon as they appeared at the gate. I don’t think there was any criticism of providing snacks for children when they get home.

Mine have a snack when I get home from picking them up. They are starving at that point, and have to wait for Mum to pick them up, take them home and then for her to make the evening meal. I do not think a snack is out of order at that time of the day.

I suppose it depends what it is - but fruit does not seem yo fill the gap - so they have pom bears (low fat).

I have to confess that when I collect DGS aged 5 and one week, I do give him something when we get back to the house at around 3.30
He'll have had a good cooked school lunch at 12.15 and will have tea with his parents at 6. He's always peckish when he gets back so he usually has a biscuit or a piece of bread and jam. He is like a whippet, not an ounce of spare flesh on him as he's always on the go and loves being outside playing. I don't think it does him any harm as he eats a healthy meal at school and has healthy food at home - he loves veg, particularly broccoli, peppers and cucumber! DH has lunch at 1.30 & dinner at 7.30 & he can't go all that time without something at 5 as it can set his migraines off. Arent we supposed to eat little & often?

When I read topics like this I sometimes think we look at the past with rose tinted glasses. I was often given sugar sandwiches as a child, I also used to add a lot of salt to my food and cooking. Neither overly healthy.

My ds went through a period of eating only biscuits for breakfast. He actively refused anything else, I was rather worried. I even spoke to his school nurse about my concerns. Her advise was ‘it’s better than nothing’, sure enough he grew out of it, and is a fit and healthy adult today.

The odd snack after school is not the cause of obesity, there are far bigger issues. It sometimes feels like topics like this are used as an excuse to excessively criticise today’s parents.

I worry that too much emphasis on food - what’s acceptable, what’s not, what’s good, what’s naughty, could lead to a worrying obsession in some with what they eat. I read the other day of someone being lectured about giving his toddler a rice cake on the bus. A rice cake!

My mother would bring treats after school for my siblings and I

And I do the same for mine

We are all very very slim and active and healthy.

A little treat, every day, marking the end of school time. I loved it as a child and my children love it now.

Lots of 'experts' on children have now recognised the 'hangry' mood when children come out of school.
If I'm not armed with food and drink when my granddaughter comes out, I'm in deep trouble.
Obviously it's not all children as my grandson was never like this.

Everthankful Things have changed a lot since our children were small - and one of the biggest changes is the amount of Mums who have to work full-time (either because their income is necessary to keep a roof over their family's head, or because they have built a satisfying career that they don't want to abandon).
If you work until 5.30, have a 30-minute commute - and it's a lot longer for many - before you pick up your child/ren and then go home -- and then you've got to cook tea, of course it'll be 6.30 or later before you can eat - it's physically impossible to do anything else

My daughter sneaked one little sweet into her daughter's lunch box. She thought it would be a nice surprise. However 6 year old GD went straight to the teacher and told her she had an unhealthy item in her lunch box. Poor children are having healthy food drummed into them at school.

Ever thankful , you're lucky . Not all children have grandparents or family living nearby . As a forces family both my husband and I worked and our children went to childminders after school as did a lot of the children at their school . The dinners were quite good but neither son or daughter liked them so we compromised with school dinners in winter and lunches in summer . Snacks after school were often controlled by child minder and occasionally if we were going to be late picking up they even had there tea. Bed was 8 pm at the latest. I don't think you can make assumptions about diet and backgrounds and obesity isn't always a result of childhood diet but more likely to happen in teens when less control is taken and more peer pressure occurs. I really don't think Jamie Oliver is a good role model when his recipe books have food cooked in cream etc . It's not a case of stopping all sugars - even too many bananas can be harmful !!!! End of rant?

It was peanut butter sandwiches with me jacky, mum made them every day for my lunch and I enjoyed them all. I was a chubby child and remain an overweight adult who has spent a lifetime struggling to shift those excess pounds. Hence my concerns.

This has made me stop and think about what is just routine :-)

I think after school snacks have a their place. But filling children full of junk or feeding them when they aren't really hungry just because it's a particular time/activity isn't healthy and won't help a child form a healthy relationship with food.

DGD 7 years old, takes fruit and/or veg snack for between end of school and after school club. Drink is only water.

She finishes after school club at 4:15, has a 15 min drive home so DD or us always have another fruit/veg snack for pick up just incase she is hungry.

She's usually hungry again after the physical club activities, after French or art her between school/club snack is often enough.

Evening meal is 6:30 ish and I don't think she'd make it from lunch without something.

Sweets/chocolate aren't for everyday nor are puddings/cakes.

DGD's school, on the Chatsworth Estate, are ok with snacks but they have to be fruit/veg or other healthy snacks. But NO NUTS or nut products.

I thought about what I did for DD's and I think I did take snacks for some school to home journeys and not for others where we lived very close to school. Difficult to remember as both girls went to a number of schools.

I don't think after school snacks are the problem. I do think children having unhealthy diets and/or an unhealthy relationships with food is a real problem. I'm sure unhealthy, uanessacry snacks add to the problem.

School lunches are not very big (I worked in a primary school for many years) also often if children are late getting to the dining hall, some items / choices have run out, child has to have a salad or jacket potato. I collect GC from school and always take a snack and drink (water) or give them one as soon as they get in home. Sometimes crisps /fruit/carrot sticks etc. Rarely sweets. And yes lots of parents/grandparents etc do the same. Like other people on here their evening meal is often not until 5.30-6-30pm. Long time to wait for food as lunch is 12-1 pm. A packed lunch is usually sandwich, yoghurt, few raisins or banana etc. (Chocolate/biscuits etc not allowed) . I don't believe it will hurt them.

When I was at school I would come home and have a cup of tea and at least 4 chocolate digestives - I wish my mother had told me to cut down or to just eat fruit. Those extra snacks do make chubby children (I'm still trying to lose it at 63!)

I absolute agree with Jane.So sad for the child who then generally runs off getting into mischief.

My DGC eat the remains of their packed lunch on the way home in the car. Being in Year 6 and last to go into lunch, they always complain they don't have enough time to eat it before afternoon school begins.

When my children were at school, they had a cooked dinner including dessert as did I in my schooldays. Now my GC's school decided not to have cooked hot meals so my GC has a packed lunch. She always feels hungry and thirsty when she comes out and I have either a cheese or a fruit snack for her plus squash, not sweets.

Children have to until 6 or 7pm to have a meal after school?! My grandchildren are usually in bed around 7.30 - 8pm so this is a little late to be having a big meal. We’ve always had ‘tea’ around 4pm and then a light supper before they go to bed

I have noticed that too Jane, always find it sad.

When I was in Senior School, I had an 8 mile bus ride before getting home and many of the children on the bus would be eating something, bearing in mind that we had been at the bus stop from 8.15am and arrived home at 4.30pm. School dinners were, well, school dinners - I'll say no more (but parsley sauce on cooked ham, ugh still can't stand the smell of parsley sauce). My brothers went to school in the local town so always left after me and arrived home before me. We were all very sporty, didn't eat many sweets or crisps (couldn't afford it) and ate healthy meals made from scratch, even though my mother worked until 5.30pm. As I got older I cooked so a meal was ready for mam when she got home. My brothers had very healthy appetites and I remember an aunt saying to my mother one day that they had 'hollow legs' as they ate so much. I tried to carry this through to my own children and it was a very rare occasion when they had sweets or crisps on the way home from school. They were mostly quite sporty and all of them were thin as rakes when they were growing up - a height spurt, put on a bit of weight, then another height spurt and so on. They all appear to have carried this on with their children and don't provide sweet or crispy snacks after school.

Hello. First time I have written anything here but often read. I am an infant school teacher in a school in a fair affluent area. Some parents bring a snack occasionally but not a major problem. The real bug bear for me is how many parents are on their phones when they collect their children. This is a daily occurrence for some parents. No interaction, smile, kiss, conversation, contact with their child, who then trots out of the gate behind them. Very sad situation