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Post by simple on Apr 29, 2024 20:21:08 GMT
My boy is in reception so was getting decent free lunches until the council closed its kitchens to save money at Easter. Now the kids are given a free packed lunch but we had to choose the sandwich type at the start of term and they get that choice every day with no option to change until half-term.
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Post by eleven63 on Apr 29, 2024 20:29:06 GMT
Hot chocolate with the headteacher...? Riiiight...
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Post by Dougs on Apr 29, 2024 20:33:26 GMT
My boy is in reception so was getting decent free lunches until the council closed its kitchens to save money at Easter. Now the kids are given a free packed lunch but we had to choose the sandwich type at the start of term and they get that choice every day with no option to change until half-term. That's bonkers. They'll be bored shitless
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Post by simple on Apr 30, 2024 17:47:37 GMT
Son very determinedly gave me the finger at afterschool club pick up this evening. I told him that he shouldn’t be doing rude gestures like that and after giving out this advice/telling off I realised he was just showing me a small cut on the end of his finger.
The whole time since we’ve got home he’s been giving the finger and asking about giving the finger and basically I’ve taught my 5 year old how to flip people off. Wife is not impressed.
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hedben
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Post by hedben on Apr 30, 2024 17:50:49 GMT
Son very determinedly gave me the finger at afterschool club pick up this evening. I told him that he shouldn’t be doing rude gestures like that and after giving out this advice/telling off I realised he was just showing me a small cut on the end of his finger. The whole time since we’ve got home he’s been giving the finger and asking about giving the finger and basically I’ve taught my 5 year old how to flip people off. Wife is not impressed. Lol, I had a very similar situation with my daughter and the distinction between forwards V (that her older sister does in photos) and backwards V
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Vortex
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Post by Vortex on Apr 30, 2024 20:38:24 GMT
Excellent. Young children are sponges and pick up stuff so easily. An innocent sore finger has been a learning experience for all. 🤣
Hopefully, they'll forget soon.
Or tell everyone else at nursery about it.
Definitely one of those options... 🤣
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Post by simple on May 1, 2024 9:28:47 GMT
I just figured he’d seen another kid doing it and was copying without knowing what it meant. So went in with a where did you learn that / you should do it because its rude. He had no idea what I was on about.
Like when he wanted to know what “a mungus” was and wanted to draw “munguses”. Turned out it was Among Us and some of the older kids where playing/talking about it.
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dam
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Post by dam on May 1, 2024 19:46:26 GMT
My boy is in reception so was getting decent free lunches until the council closed its kitchens to save money at Easter. Now the kids are given a free packed lunch but we had to choose the sandwich type at the start of term and they get that choice every day with no option to change until half-term. That would have suited my youngest. When we got access to what they were ordering each day for lunch, from an impressively varied daily choice he went for a cheese baguette every day. Coming to think of it, he's nearly 16 and has exactly the same lunch every day at school, takes in a cheese sandwich, tomatoes and 2 carrots. Can't really complain about that.... My eldest seemed to be buying bacon rolls for half the school at lunchtime, saving a packet now he's left. Apart from subsidising his rent obviously....
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hedben
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Post by hedben on May 1, 2024 20:03:06 GMT
My eldest daughter (16) doesn’t eat lunch at school. As in, nothing at all. We got a referral to CAMHS last year for suspected disordered eating but nothing came of it, and they ended up releasing her because she wasn’t actually underweight and wasn’t responding to the sessions they offered. She’s never really opened up to us either, she’d admit her eating wasn’t what you’d expect, but never what led to it or acknowledging that it could be bad for her.
It’s weird, she basically starves herself all day then comes home and has 2 meals instead of one. Today she had leftover pasta, strawberries and a bagel when she got in at 4, and still ate a full meal with the rest of us at 7.
We were obviously really worried at first, freaking out about what she must be seeing on social media, wondering where we’d gone wrong and so on. But over time, as it became clear her health and her grades weren’t suffering, it just became this thing in the background we keep an eye on.
I’m still quite worried about her relapsing or slipping into worse habits when she leaves home and isn’t under constant scrutiny, but we just have to hope she’s over whatever the underlying cause is by then.
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on May 2, 2024 17:29:00 GMT
Our eldest has recently gone through something similar which also led to self harm. We've been through counselling, doctor visits for bloods weight check ups, mental wellbeing talks. We knew there wasn't an underlying eating disorder because he scoffs like a mofo at home after school and he would sit and eat meals with us.
It's been a really eye-opening rollercoaster of emotions and I've just deleted everything I typed because its frankly depressing as shit.
We are sorta out the other side and he's no longer harming himself and eating better but the reason I was replying is because one of the things we did discover. There seems to be an unmentioned stigma at the school he's at where you're derided for having lunch, to the point that most kids just don't eat for fear of being singled out and essentially bullied about it.
The daughter of friend of ours has recently moved schools (to be with friends more than anything else) and has now started having meals at lunchtime.
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on May 2, 2024 17:35:20 GMT
I only came to whinge about having to be at another birthday party, 3rd in about 3 weeks with another at the weekend.
Its an indoor football setup and we don't do foozball but it is interesting to observe the other 'highly passionate' football dads lambasting their kids for not doing football right.
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Post by Dougs on May 2, 2024 18:49:35 GMT
Crikey fellas. Glad things have improved crash. And definitely one to keep an eye on hedben. It's not something I've experienced with my 14 year old - he loves school dinners and eats most of his packed lunch when he has them (as far as we know). Will enquire gently at some point whether that's a thing.
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hedben
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Post by hedben on May 2, 2024 19:38:49 GMT
Yes, it did occur to us that maybe there was some kind of bullying / shaming going on at school. If there was, it was strenuously denied, but I doubt she’d have admitted it while also saying we were being stupid for even worrying about it. She seems ok at the moment, and she’s definitely not let it affect her GCSE revision, that’s full steam ahead so we’re thankful for that.
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 7:09:29 GMT
I experienced some stupid culture stuff at school myself. Stuff like if you wore your rucksack on both shoulders or didn’t make your tie look like you were in the scouts you would get tw*tted.
I never experienced an ‘eating is for nerds’ culture though. WTF?!
That school needs to get an URGENT grip of their sh*t there.
I keep seeing Andrew Tate posting rot about how eating is unmanly. Sort of semi seriously wonder if it comes from there maybe?
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Vortex
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Post by Vortex on May 7, 2024 7:12:43 GMT
I keep seeing Andrew Tate posting rot about how eating is unmanly. Sort of semi seriously wonder if it comes from there maybe? Glol, whaaat? Maybe he should stop eating then. The cunt.
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 7:23:19 GMT
So my thing this weekend is absolutely small-fry compared to any of the above so apologies in advance.
Daughter is going through an absolute arse phase. Luckily no outright feral stuff but just this pervasive passive aggressive rudeness and hard headedness that at 13 is no doubt a tale as old as time.
This includes a ‘she always knows best’ thing even in the face of ridiculousness. She’s had an on-off insomnia thing that is always on a Sunday before school and always happens in particular at the end of a hol. Convinced there is nothing happening at school. It’s to do with the hours she keeps and a complete salted earth approach to her body clock at weekends.
So not only was it a bank holiday this week but today she has picked up some extras work for a TV show today, and I knew it was going to happen.
Sure as sh*t at about 1 am as I’m finally drifting off (it was hot here) the room starts lighting up as our phones receive about 12 messages from her each saying she can’t get to sleep and is too hot.
I ended up grabbing and replying on the Mrs’ phone (yes I did sign it from me) telling her that she is 13 and needs to get a grip and stop making it so that the whole house gets no sleep. I told her to open the window and told her this is the most obvious thing in the world.
Eventually Mrs ends up going in and finds her with the window and vent firmly closed and child under the full heavy duvet (we’ve already trained her to go under a sheet on top when this happens) and loses it a bit.
She’s still not sleeping and I turn on my lamp and start getting the fan down off the top of our wardrobe to take in. This causes a row in our room.
The fan is switched off by the child after about ten minutes.
It’s like she will NOT take advice or try anything different even in the face of what she is doing clearly not working. She will NOT ventilate her room at any time of the day and will close the window if you open it the second you are out of that door. I am now trying to get her up at the weekend no later than 10 am (she will sleep in until lunch unchecked) and she will KEEP going back to sleep until you end up rowing - and then can’t sleep at night.
There’s a root cause of some arachnophobia that just came out of nowhere when she was about 11 with this window thing.
Driving me mad and I think it’s either therapy time or more likely mosquito net time. Aesthetically Mrs will hate the latter so that’ll be another argument.
Sigh.
Knackered.
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Post by Dougs on May 7, 2024 7:29:19 GMT
Some of that sounds oh so familiar. Especially the pass agg and attitude. We're now getting it from both, youngest is nearly 12 and ramping up it up too. She had a meltdown last night, saying she couldn't sleep as she felt unwell. Convinced it's stuff at school (probably worried about sats as she finds school super tough). Eldest is definitely doing his best to emulate Kevin the teenager. And when they're together, all they do is fight. It's exhausting.
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 7:34:30 GMT
And honestly the worst thing about the unventilated room is that it stinks! I’m of course told that it doesn’t and that there is nothing wrong with it!
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Vortex
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Post by Vortex on May 7, 2024 8:28:14 GMT
Sorry drake, this is kind of how it is for the next few years. Our lad still burns the candle at both ends through holidays and has no self-regulation whatsoever. He did the same the over the last few weeks of study leave and even fell asleep through the day yesterday when he should have been studying for the next exam (thursday) because he was up all night.
I lock down the mesh wifi at night, but think he has discovered how to hotspot off his laptop (which i didn't feel i could block) as it is also a study/homework machine.
It's maddening, especially since his room is next to ours so we end up sleep deprived too, but all we can do is hope the eventually learn to have some consideration for others eventually.
I keep telling him when he's flat-sharing, his flatmates will be a lot less tolerant than us if he keeps the noise levels up, but the penny hasn't dropped yet!
sigh.
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 8:44:02 GMT
Thankfully there isn’t much noise.
I’ve been running an incentive scheme for spends since about autumn last year and I think I need to change it.
Basically she gets an allowance from the pair of us that is set but I top up by up to 20 quid. 10 of that is for meeting the weekend routine I’ve asked for (I.e up and about by a certain time, teeth done for a certain time, etc etc). 10 is guaranteed but is subject to deductions for rudeness or bad behaviour.
I think I’m too soft on it. For example giving her the weekend allowance when in fact we’ve absolutely drill sergeant-ed the whole morning and had to ask three or four times for things.
I’m going to have a talk to her about attitude and that from now on I’m going to grade her daily and that money will be based on that. I also think that she will now only get top money if she spends a reasonable amount of time with us as a family on the evenings at weekend (half an hour should not be unreasonable) as the disconnect is becoming a bit remarkable really.
I reckon a month or two of hitting her in the pocket might hopefully have an effect, as when I’ve done reduced amounts previously it’s really neither been here nor there.
The main thing that bothers me is stuff like walking in after school, avoiding all eye contact, no hello, raiding crisps and just walking off. Or, you actually have her in the living room and then she just stands up and steams upstairs without saying anything, with RBF. Not answering questions. Just this pervasive attitude that you are not wanted and in the way.
Drives me mad as she’s given loads, given loads of freedom and as modern schools seem to finish at about 12pm* she has about 19 hours of freedom **per day anyway.
*Exaggeration for effect **See above
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Vortex
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Post by Vortex on May 7, 2024 8:54:19 GMT
The main thing that bothers me is stuff like walking in after school, avoiding all eye contact, no hello, raiding crisps and just walking off. Or, you actually have her in the living room and then she just stands up and steams upstairs without saying anything, with RBF. Not answering questions. Just this pervasive attitude that you are not wanted and in the way. Are you sure this was any different for you? Shutting yourself away playing c64/amiga games and listening to vinyl etc was standard teenage behaviour in my day. It's just karma, so long as they are a reasonable human being with other people and fine when you're out and about as a family, you're doing fine!
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 9:19:41 GMT
Yeah, it was different. No problem at all with ‘me time’ for her. We even let her eat her meals upstairs a lot of the time. It’s the rudeness and sometimes almost hatred in the interactions when we pass like ships in the night I’m not happy about. I will have done that from time to time sure because hormones, but not in the majority of interactions, which is how I feel it is now.
I am aware that she will be subject of course to a different level of hormonal experience than I had. But just to be clear 95 times out of 100 we end up just rolling our eyes for an easy life. We are not at her all the time, at all. And she gets great feedback from school, family of friends and family when she stays with them. It’s just us she saves the Sith stuff for!
I may be an outlier btw but yeah I did used to spend time in my room but would also just sit and listen to my Discman with a book in the living room whilst the folks watched shite TV. It was mixed up a lot more.
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Post by gibroon on May 7, 2024 9:22:22 GMT
The main thing that bothers me is stuff like walking in after school, avoiding all eye contact, no hello, raiding crisps and just walking off. Or, you actually have her in the living room and then she just stands up and steams upstairs without saying anything, with RBF. Not answering questions. Just this pervasive attitude that you are not wanted and in the way. Are you sure this was any different for you? Shutting yourself away playing c64/amiga games and listening to vinyl etc was standard teenage behaviour in my day. It's just karma, so long as they are a reasonable human being with other people and fine when you're out and about as a family, you're doing fine! Its one of the things I had to remind myself and my wife more often. Remember what it was like when you were that age. I remember being fairly depressed going through puberty, hormones, other school kids being dicks, teachers being unreasonable/shit, unrelatable parents. It's enough for anyone just to shut yourself away from everything. If you get the odd grunt and hello and they still sit down and have meals with you, this is a win. Changing up to secondary school is hard for every kid I think. Chuck in the Covid madness when growing up, its easy to see why kids struggle these days. Add to that the fact that most world leaders are pure assholes as well, makes it easier to understand why kids are like "what the fuck is the point". So much negativity online, social media bollocks. This is the first generation where kids have always had mobile phones. Can't switch off. I really feel quite sorry for them in many ways. If it helps, it will pass. My son was particularly monosyllabic between 11-16, now he's happy, got a girlfriend, has mates, plays warhammer, intelligent, empathic. Still eats like a horse and treats the place like a hotel, haha. But he is happy now, that's the main thing.
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Post by Dougs on May 7, 2024 9:23:33 GMT
Yeah, to a certain extent, we need to accept that as parents we are only there for 2 reasons. To provide food and shelter, and be a taxi service when needed. We know nothing about anything, and certainly not anything teenagers are interested in. The entitlement just drives me mad!
Did get a glimmer that things are sinking in though - he announced mid-afternoon that he needed a lift to a cadets quiz night and also wasn't in for dinner. I refused on grounds that he hadnt told us and I wasn't going to plan the day around him. But the soft touch wife gave in so took him and his mate, and picked them up. He was very grateful though, so that's a start I guess. Little wins...
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alastair
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Post by alastair on May 7, 2024 10:54:24 GMT
Something that was suggested to us in our 'parenting adopted teenagers' course which you might like to try is to commit to spending at least an hour a week in one on one time where you are doing something suggested by your child. It could be watching TV together, playing a board game or some other hobby of theirs. I go swimming with my boy (16) each week, and we also have dedicated TV time as a family on Sat and Sunday evenings. The swimming is great as it's good for him and I can see his mood improve after every session. The TV time is one of those things that doesn't seem like much but he gets quite huffy if it doesn't happen one week, so it's clearly important to him.
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alastair
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Post by alastair on May 7, 2024 11:00:47 GMT
And just to be clear, there is plenty of huffing and bickering etc in our house. As well as the self-assurance that he knows how to do everything.
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 12:01:49 GMT
It used to work that kind of thing Alastair, but now if I offered it her on her terms what she would want to do is go to her room on her own 😂
We do kind of have a thing where she watches the 1 per cent Club with us at weekend, but she stormed out of that with one of her signature flounces when I questioned whether she could read a compass after a question. I probably could to be fair have been perceived as giving her stick but I actually just wanted to check and quickly teach.
I’d hoped she’d have gotten into Gladiators with us and that could have been a thing whilst it ran, but no. Couple of years back she’d have been all over it.
Just been speaking to a colleague who has a step son at a similar age and he is given lists of chores (I’m sure she runs the house off child labour) and is mandated an hour a night, every night, with the family, so at least I know I don’t sit there on this spectrum!
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Post by Dougs on May 7, 2024 12:08:28 GMT
It's sound advice for sure, but agree it's easier said than done. We've had pizza and movie night every Friday since they were wee. But now, unless it's a shitkicker that the boy wants to watch, he either moans like a drain all the way through or disrupts things to the point he gets sent out. We do eat together at least once a week and each have separate things to do with them (although conscious it's become a bit of a boy/girl split - I watch football/take him skateboarding, wife takes the girl to ballet and swimming lessons etc). Work to do on that for sure.
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alastair
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Post by alastair on May 7, 2024 12:45:02 GMT
We have it easier as there is only one know-all teenager to manage. He bickers with Mrs Alastair over what to watch though*. We just finished Alex Rider and not sure what's next. I thought we were going for Fallout but they are turning their noses up a bit. I may force them through episode 1 and we'll see what happens.
*And indeed over pretty much every aspect of his life!
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drakesmoke
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Post by drakesmoke on May 7, 2024 13:56:24 GMT
We have it easier as there is only one know-all teenager to manage. He bickers with Mrs Alastair over what to watch though*. We just finished Alex Rider and not sure what's next. I thought we were going for Fallout but they are turning their noses up a bit. I may force them through episode 1 and we'll see what happens. *And indeed over pretty much every aspect of his life! Fallout’s first episode has a scene you will not enjoy watching together, heads up!
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