Daughter buying lunch for skint school friend.

jenhug

Our daughters school has this system in place, we can set a daily spend limit. Can you do this on yours?

I can only echo everyone else. Inform the school of what is happening. It is not fair for you to subsidise another woman's hobby! (Lets face it, thats what you are doing!)

meritaten

Please do inform the school - no child should have to go hungry at lunchtime and no child should have to pay for another to eat!
I really think it is up to the school to take care of this problem - perhaps the child would be entitled to 'free meals'?

jason1231972

I'd continue to pay for the food for now (not wanting a child to go hungry, sounds like a pretty messed-up situation), but definitely inform the school. You wouldn't necessarily have to reveal who you were, if you didn't want to (though it may be easy to figure out).

Is the family on means-tested benefits? There may be a possibility that free school meals are in receipt...

...when I was eligible for free school meals, my parents wouldn't allow me to 'take' them, and scraped together the cash one way or another. This is because the poorer kids actually had to queue up in a seperate line in order to collect a voucher for the day. It was pretty degrading. However, this was back in the day before cashless systems - the embarrassment factor of FSMs has probably diminished somewhat these days.

londonsurrey

peachyprice wrote: »

What's the difference? OP is still paying to feed someone else's child which just isn't right and packed lunches aren't cheap.

The difference is between taking the official stance, and getting the officious perfect world solution, which is highly unlikely to happen, although it shouldn't stop one from trying to make it happen,

and being a pragmatic human being, and making sure that a child doesn't go hungry in the meantime on account of sheer principle if you can afford for it not to, and taking the opportunity to guide a nice girl through how to help someone else by putting some thought and effort into it, and not by just dipping into mummy's purse.

System

Maybe i am looking through rose tinted glasses but no child should go hungry at lunch time.... whilst not really very nourishing, jam sandwiches wouldnt cost a lot.

Maybe her Mum expects her to do her own sandwiches and she cant be bothered.

I think you ought to explain to the school whats been going on. If you talk to the mother and theres a perfectly good explanation she is going to be either very defensive or embarressed. Let the teachers deal with it.

j.e.j.

I would definitely do a bit of digging. Why has the other girl not had lunch and/or no money for lunch for a few months? So many possible things going on here, we can only speculate.

The only sure thing is that OP is (understandably) no longer prepared to pay much more money into this card system than her daughter needs.

Can you have a quiet word with someone at the school?

peachyprice

londonsurrey wrote: »

The difference is between taking the official stance, and getting the officious perfect world solution, which is highly unlikely to happen, although it shouldn't stop one from trying to make it happen,

and being a pragmatic human being, and making sure that a child doesn't go hungry in the meantime on account of sheer principle if you can afford for it not to, and taking the opportunity to guide a nice girl through how to help someone else by putting some thought and effort into it, and not by just dipping into mummy's purse.

All the while relinquishing the parents of their responsibilty to feed their child and/or contact the school to discuss their situation.

It's not OP or her daughters job to parent this child. She has siblings, will the parents expect someone else to feed them too?

londonsurrey

peachyprice wrote: »

All the while relinquishing the parents of their responsibilty to feed their child and/or contact the school to discuss their situation.

It's not OP or her daughters job to parent this child. She has siblings, will the parents expect someone else to feed them too?

Not relinquishing, as I mentioned about trying to get the perfect world thing to happen. The feeding of the child happens in the meantime.

It might be that your view is that the child can go hungry in the meantime. It happens not to be mine, nor how I what I would wish to teach a child in a position to prevent it.

peachyprice

londonsurrey wrote: »

It might be that your view is that the child can go hungry in the meantime. It happens not to be mine, nor how I what I would wish to teach a child in a position to prevent it.

No, the child shouldn't go hungry, however, OP's daughter isn't in a position to prevent it, her parents are footing the bill.

It's for the school to deal with not a child. The right thing to do and the right lesson to teach the child is that she should be comfortable to go to her parents and the school for them to take the appropriate action, not shoulder the responsiblity for feeding this child herself.

Valli

billa_champion wrote: »

Kudos to your daughter for being thoughtful..! But I'd raise this with the girl's parents. Are they approachable? If they are not then I'd think about raising it with the school. Are you also sure that your daughter is not being forced to do so?

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