Stop worrying if your child is a picky eater

One parent in our class WhatsApp chat raised a pressing concern: her daughter was coming home every day with a full water bottle. Were other parents faced with the same unsettling discovery?

There followed a lengthy discussion of how much water was left in each child’s bottle. Some children, when confronted, testified that they had drunk water during the day and then filled up the bottle at school.

This was not good enough for the concerned parent. She took the matter to the teacher. ‘I am concerned my daughter is not given enough opportunity to drink water during the school day,’ read her message. She shared it with the group – and the teacher’s response.

Mrs S explained why children are not allowed water bottles on their desks, referring to pertinent clauses in the school’s water consumption policy. She also reassured concerned parents that all efforts would be made to encourage more water consumption at school in future.

No wonder teachers are jaded. My daughter’s school is a state school, the type preoccupied with data and procedure. Perhaps it’s because they’re all too polite to tell parents to sod off.

In my elementary school in the US, we had water fountains, where children could press a button and drink if they were thirsty. These have probably all fallen prey to post-Covid anxiety about germ-spreading.

While parents’ monitoring of their child’s water bottle level is concerning, it is hardly surprising. We’re pelted from all angles with panic-inducing information. Take this: ‘Researchers have not yet determined the point at which dehydration begins to affect brain function,’ a 2011 review of studies says, so children must drink 1.2 litres of water a day just to be safe. Who measures out 1.2 litres of water a day for their child to drink? Maybe the mother in the WhatsApp group, but it’s not a healthy habit.