Breakfast - Mc Cordsville,IN

Not eating breakfast is a parenting problem, not a sign of a difficult child. Hopefully the teacher reported this girl to the cafeteria so they could work with the parents to see if she qualified for free or reduced cost meals (including breakfast!). How sad for the little girl that she was not only hungry, but also made to feel bad for her family situation.

I think that what happens at home should have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the classroom. And if something is going on at school it's the teacher and the schools job to handle it first. If they have a continuous issue then it could carry over at home but not very often. Kids don't need consequences at both places for something that happened at the other place. This teacher was out of line.

It could be that this child had parents who overslept or were perpetually late. So they didn't feed their child.

I think normally this child would have simply learned to lie. To say yes, they ate breakfast. They could have always just said they had cereal and if asked they could always say Cheerio's or something. I would have lied if I was losing a privilege each and every day, wouldn't you?

Poor kiddo.

The other side of the coin could be that she refused to eat and her mother talked about it with the teacher and they thought that this would be a way to get her to eat. She may have not wanted the prize just as much as she didn't want to eat.
I have a non-breakfast eater. She prefers to have a breakfast bar or a half of a sandwich at snack time instead of breakfast. She is older now and still doesn't like to eat early in the day UNLESS she knows she will be expending a lot of energy before lunch. Then she will choke down an egg and some bacon - pure protein.
So - don't judge or jump to conclusions....

As a teacher......

You have 1 side of the story. I am not familiar with that type of system as I wouldn't want cubes all over the place which could get misplaced and then you end up with kids arguing about who's cubes belong where vs what you are trying to teach in the classroom. teaching.

We have a different system for the positive discipline. We also stash healthy snacks for those who do not have breakfast or bring in a snack for the day. A child is never denied a snack unless parents have sent in a note saying they can't have something.

The best way to understand what is going on is to ask the teacher. Maybe your daughter is confused as to why this child was losing a cube daily. IF the teacher is indeed doing this, she should stop it because it only makes things worse for the child consistently losing a cube.

Well, in my county, every child has the option of doing breakfast in the school cafeteria free of charge regardless of parental income so there is no excuse for a child to ever go to class hungry.

That being said, perhaps there is more to this story. It cannot possibly be the way your daughter is describing. I have a 5 year old and a 7 year old...there perspective of an event is often quite skewed from reality.

I can't either. Since you can't believe she'd do this and it sounds ridiculous, time to consider that daughter is a kid and didn't truly understand what was going on - no matter how many questions you ask she misunderstood because as smart as our kids are, they are still children and don't get everything that is going on or interpret it through the mind of a child.

If you are concerned, go talk to the teacher (maybe next year if school is over) tell her that your daughter said something so off-the wall you had to come ask the teacher yourself because you were curious. You'll at least get to hear it from the horses mouth:)

I would still ask the teacher, even if your daughter is "sure" that just doesn't sound right. There may be something more to it than that. If not, and the teacher IS punishing kids for not eating breakfast, then it should be brought to her supervisor's attention immediately. That for sure sounds like cruel and unusual punishment.

My first thought to this is the teacher didn't realize that we have starving children right here in America...in front of us.

You can handle this one of two ways. I always like to confront people with my concerns personally, however, this is huge in my book. I think you should contact the school principal and address it with him. Not only is this not fair, I am SURE this was embarrassing on so many levels for this little girl.

The only defense I have is the little girl qualifies for free breakfast from the school and she chooses not to eat it. I get it, she is trying to make them all eat a good breakfast to start the day, but it is time to make that question stop.

Hmm...that does seem odd. But are you sure that your daughter was getting her story right. Maybe the girl happened to be getting a cube pulled for another reason but also happened to be around the time when she asked about breakfast.

Also, if the girl was indeed getting a cube pulled for breakfast you'd think she'd either lie and say she did or you can bet she went home and said something to her parents about needing to eat breakfast.

Although, I'm not trying to say your daughter is lying, I do find it odd she would punish a child for not eating breakfast. It would seem the cubes were in place for discipline. If it were me and It was bothering me or had me really curious I might just drop the teacher an email asking about it. If its not that bothering I'd just write it off like my daughter just must be mistaken.

Inappropriate!

Sounds like a metaphor for a lot if what is going on politically right now.

I'm surprised that after the first week, that little girl didn't start saying "Yes, I did!" :P

(We don't know whether this little girl's household was food insecure or she just didn't like eating breakfast though...can't assume her family didn't have the money for food.)

I agree that's inappropriate.
For all that teacher knows, that family can't afford breakfast each day.

Or maybe the teacher's definition of breakfast is different from the family's...
Whatever. Either way, that's not fair to the girl.

My daughter would have lost a cube pretty much every day too, not because I couldn't afford to feed her breakfast, but because she often didn't like to eat first thing in the morning. Sometimes she would grab a granola bar on her way out the door, sometimes not. I left it up to her - she knew if she was hungry or not.
If my child had a teacher who dealt out rewards and punishments based on what the kids ate or didn't eat at home, I would be pissed.
What's next? The teacher asks who drank a soda the day before and pulls a cube?

ETA: Canuck, even if the child was offered breakfast at home and refused it, it would still be overstepping her authority for the teacher to punish her for it.

Breakfast is important so you can look at it as something negative, a punishment, or look at it as something positive, trying to get the girl to badger her mom into making breakfast part of the morning routine.

Another thing you need to consider is the girl never raised her hand. If it bothered her she would have raised her hand regardless of whether she had breakfast. Clearly that child was not cube driven. If the child was even slightly upset, she would have told her mom and things would have changed, ya know?

So clearly the child didn't care so why do you?

I think that was her way of trying to get them to eat breakfast. But I don't make my kid eat it. When I was younger my mom would make me eat it and it would make me sick to my stomich then she figured out it was best not to make me. That to me is wrong. she should have talked to the parents

Perhaps the teacher had talked to the parents, and the issue is not that they don't provide her with breakfast, but she is refusing to eat it. I doubt she is being punished for her parents not providing her with food.

I think there is much more to this than what you are hearing from your 5-6 year old. This may have been something to offhandedly inquire about during a parent/teacher conference.

That's horrible! If I had heard about that I would have emailed the teacher and told her that wasn't fair! My kids don't always eat breakfast; not because we don't have any food but because they just don't feel like eating when they have to get up so early. It's never been a problem for them; they've never passed out or anything from hunger!!

I guess I would have lost a cube every single day - I never eat breakfast when I get up early - it literally makes me sick to eat so early in the morning. If I eat a couple hours after I've been up, then I'm ok.

Even if your child is finished with her, someone should still say something to that teacher if she's going to continue doing this. It's not fair!!!

That sounds kinda loco.

That said, I take everything my 6 y/o tells me about school with a grain of salt.

I don't think there's anything you should do at this point. It was that little girls family's battle to fight with the teacher. The years over right? Its a little late now to go taking up arms for someone else's case in the classroom.

Why didn't that little girl learn, after 185 days of school, to just say "yup I had breakfast". That's my question.