My son's preschool teacher banned him from eating his ‘unhealthy’ lunch box

"My poor boy was so confused and hungry when I got him."

Eleanor Katelaris

2 min read

September 5, 2024 - 9:05AM

Lifestyle

Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News.

A furious mum has taken to Reddit to express her outrage after her three-year-old son was banned from eating the food she packed for him at his preschool, sparking a debate about teachers policing kids' lunches.

The mum shared a photo of the bento-style box, which included a few slices of apple, freeze-dried banana chips, sunflower seeds and a croissant.

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this.

Image: Reddit

"My poor boy was so confused and hungry when I got him"

“Today my son wasn't allowed to eat his food in preschool because it was deemed too unhealthy,” she explained in the post.

“He's a picky eater and was really excited about his lunch. Safe to say I went ballistic on the teacher. My poor boy was so confused and hungry when I got him,” she added.

She was even more upset when she found out that the preschool provided no alternative food for her son and simply left him to go without instead.

What’s worse, the centre doesn’t even give parents a list of ‘forbidden’ foods to help guide them when packing lunches.

Introducing our new podcast: Mum Club! Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

The mother insisted that her toddler was “healthy” and “energetic” and that she regularly discussed his diet with his pediatrician.

“His teachers told him he can't have something so unhealthy and that he can eat the croissant at home,” said the mum.

While she admitted that the meal was “all very beige and looks unappetising” she says she still thinks it’s a “relatively balanced meal for a toddler.”

“So basically everything I packed sucked,” the defeated mum wrote. “He had his water and a little bit of apple.”

"A subjective judgement call"

People in the comments were equally as outraged by the centre’s behaviour, with one childcare worker saying, “I would sooner starve myself than let one of the kids go hungry, especially because an adult took their food without replacing it due to a subjective judgment call regarding how healthy it is.

“And a preschool kid is a baby, how do you starve a baby and feel okay about that?”

A second suggested: “She could have let him eat it, and if it was really a problem, she could have said something later. It's a problem between the parents and the teacher, not the teacher and the kid.”

And a third quipped: “Is the teacher a nutritionist? Beyond making sure the kid has edible food, I'm not sure this is within a teacher's purview to withhold a meal.”