PTO

The other night, I attended my first ever PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization) meeting.

In addition to wanting to become actively invovled in C's education, I wanted to see if I could get to know some other folk in our small town and start to build some friendly relations.

I also wanted to bring up the whole - encouraging obesity with stickers - policy at C's school re: finishing their school lunches.

S prepped me with her encouraging words and coached me on not only what I was going to say, but how I was going to say it -- saying it without the accusatory "you" language and suggesting alternatives to what we felt was an improper policy.

You may recall from a previous post that C came home from school one day and asked if she could take her lunch tomorrow instead of eating the school lunch.

When asked why, she responded that she wanted to get a sticker.

Seems the school rewards any student who finishess their lunch with a sticker. And since the lunches are too much for C to finish, she never gets a sticker.

She figured that if she brought her own, smaller lunch, with portions she could finish, then she could get a sticker and not have to keep eating.

Now, we've always taught our daughters to listen to their bodies, to eat what their bodies are telling them to eat, and to stop eating when they get full. Never clean your plate unless you really want to and definitely not because someone is telling you to - or bribing you with stickers.

This reward system that the school is pushing appears (at least to us) to be encouraging behavior that leads to obesity -- which we all know is a huge (no pun intended) problem in our country.

We addressed the issue by re-stressing to C the importance of listening to her body and that she didn't have to finish her lunch.

Back to the PTO meeting. The agenda was light and breezy and I was tempted to say my peace, but the numerous members that appeared to be dealing with the obesity battle (losing or totally giving up) stifled any desire I had to bring up the subject.

Maybe some other time. In the meantime, we also stocking up on stickers for C to play with and enjoy when she gets home from school.