In the spirit of the back to school season… Let me tell you about Emily’s first ever kindergarten teacher.
The only person who might remember her would be Joelle who was Emily’s specialized educator back then but I don’t remember her name and it’s really not that important!
Emily started kindergarten in the fall of 2002 in a tiny school in the province of Québec.
We had meetings prior to her first day to be sure she was ready.
On her first day, she was the cutest kid out there!
She had been walking for 5 months and was ready to start school.
On the first day, Emily’s really pregnant teacher told us the rules for the approved snacks to send to kindergarten with our kids.
She had quite a list of don’ts… No candies, if you send a granola bar, it can’t be the chocolate covered one, no mini cookies, no this.. no that…
We got the list of approved snacks…
We got the full speech about our kid’s health and how it is important to give them good eating habits right from the start.
The talk was patronizing but it made sense and the teacher sounded like she had all the kid’s health in mind.
Before it’s time to leave, we got the “snack” policy reminder and were told that if we sent an inappropriate snack, our child will not be permitted to eat it and the other kids will be asked to share their snacks so everybody gets to eat something…
This whole snack thing was serious!
I imagined that teacher being a health nut considering the lecture we (parents) received.
That night, we bought kindergarten approved snacks for Emily.
The next morning as I dropped Emily off at school, her extremely pregnant teacher was standing by the door having a cigarette…
And out the door went her credibility about children’s health!
I don’t care that she smoked, really, that was her call but she was no longer in position to lecture me about chocolate coating on a granola bar in my 4 year old daughter’s snack.
…..
…..
Have you ever been lectured by someone who really was in no position to do so?
Lessons from my daughter 
oh my goodness!
😊
Isn’t it interesting the choices and priorities some people dwell on? I’m very much afraid I would have called her on her inconsistency. But then, maybe the emphasis was by the school or administration. Our students cannot bring any treat to school that is not a prepackaged, commercial product. No homemade foods. This seems to me both good and bad. Good in that you avoid foods coming from homes where the sanitation and preparation could be questionable. Bad because some homemade snacks are much better for the student than the prepackaged, enriched, bleached, purified, over salted, over sugared things that we can fix at home.
I love the kindergarten pictures. She really was (and is) a doll.
How about “that we buy at the store”? Sorry for the mistake.
🙂 I got hat you were saying
I didn’t call her on it for a couple of reason. 1. The rules were most likely school wide 2. She was Emily’s teacher and quite frankly me saying something would not have helped the parent-teacher relationship.