Give em a uniform...

and they'll turn out to be a cunt!

My poor little lad. He's had so much grief from us over this, and it turns out to be the school at fault, not him.

On the days he takes a packed lunch to school he takes it in a really cool thermos bag with the Bat Symbol plastered on it.
He kept bringing it home full of crap though. Empty juice cartons, fruit peel, bits of crust... All the detritus really. Trouble is, his lunch bag can't be washed up. It has to be wiped clean. So we told him he had to remember to empty it every day. But he kept bringing it home full of crap, and we had to keep telling him off. In the end we told him we'd take away his favourite toy if he did it again. He did it again.

So, we took away his favourite toy. Any parent reading this will know how horrible you feel when you do this. But if you don't follow up on a threatened consequence then you lose all credibility in the kid's eyes.

I hated doing it, so to help him remember to empty his lunch bag I drew a little picture of the toy onto a sticky label, and stuck it inside his bag. He was chuffed to bits with this, and it helped him too. Until last Thursday when he came out of school nearly in tears because once again he'd been told by a dinner lady he couldn't throw his rubbish away.

The Breadknife was straight into the school. Had a chat with the school secretary who said that particular dinner lady was a law unto herself. My missus pointed out that as far as the boy goes, she is the law! :D The secretary agreed and said she'd have words.

Everything was hunky dory again until today. A different dinner lady stuck her oar in this time. The boy went to empty his lunch bag only to be told not to. He told the dinner lady that his Mummy had said it was okay and the way he described her reaction was to stamp his feet and shout "NO!" Now obviously I only have his word for this, but I can certainly imagine it happening.

What it boils down to, is that a lot of parents who send their kids in with packed lunches, want to be sure their kids are eating everything that's been packed, so have requested that the kids bring their detritus home. We don't need that. The boy has got a fantastic appetite and a great attitude towards food. He's not perfect but we know he can be trusted to eat properly.

What annoys me too, is that the kids who have a school packed lunch, or a hot dinner aren't made to take their leavings home. It's all a big bag of big baggy bollocks really.

My poor kid is confused as hell by all this. I know I'm ranting because he's mine, but he's just five years old and he's got adults telling him two different things.

Luckily for the school it's a) Friday, and b) half term next week. So, instead of being faced with an irate Mother for the second time in a fortnight they'll be receiving a polite, considered, but strongly worded e-mail. Hopefully this'll put an end to all the shite.

Oh, and the little fella has his toy back now.