Reasons Why I Homeschool: Schools That Tell Us What to Feed Our Children

I recently saw an article about a school in Chicago that has banned all food brought from home and is forcing school provided lunches on students. They do make exceptions for food allergies, I will give them that, but to presume that all parents make bad food choices goes too far.

The principal has stated that she is sick of seeing students eating chips and coke for lunch. She is providing healthy foods for her students…but there is a difference between providing good choices and making those choices for them.

That is not a school’s job. The job of a school is to teach children to make good choices, not make the choices for them. That does nothing more than to set the children up for failure in the future. When children graduate and move on to the real world, who is going to be there to make those choices for them?

I don’t agree with they way some schools think that they can make decisions for all families because of the way some families behave. When my children where in public school they took their lunches to school, and they were asked to bring back any food that they didn’t eat. It was my job to take care of the nutritional needs of my children, not the school’s. There were times when they did buy lunch and I never knew if they ate or not. They even told me that they were told to throw away the food that they didn’t eat, even if it was prepackaged food that was never opened. That is wasteful, and unnecessary tossing of food is basically throwing away my money. My children should be able to bring home prepackaged food that I paid for.

Is anyone at the school in Chicago school ensuring that their students are actually eating that food that is forced on them?

They are telling their students what to eat instead of teaching them what not to eat. Where is the tangible proof of nutritional education? Where are the fliers given to students that tell parents that soda is banned from lunches? Where are the classes that teach healthy choices?

When a school forces provided foods on students and doesn’t follow it up with a real reason why, they are not doing anything more than angering parents whose right to choose has been taken away. Even as a homeschool mom, I am upset that some public schools are taking away the rights of parents to choose what to feed their children.

What really gives a school the right to think that since some parents make bad choices, all students must suffer? Seems pretty arrogant to me.