Please share thoughts on school lunch time anxiety

[Only me]

Hello all,
My daughter started Reception last week and is having issues around lunch time.
She has never eaten at school before and is feeling very anxious and upset.
I send her a packed lunch, so food is not the issue. She seems to worry about not being able to finish all her food on time, even though I have repeatedly told her that she doesn't have to eat it all.
One of the carers told her yesterday that she had to finish it all, I was going to send her a note, but my husband disagreed as he thought we could sound rude.
I know her teacher has also told her she doesn't have to finish it all.
She only lets me send a very small sandwich and a small yoghurt and now seems anxious about snack time too.
I send her fruit and today she asked if it would be ok if she only ate one grape!
I don't know how to make it clear that she doesn't have to finish all her food. I told her today that I wouldn't be looking at her lunch bag again, but to no avail.
She is very demanding with herself and a bit of a perfectionist so I think she is putting pressure on herself to eat it all and be 'a good girl'.
I have received good comments from the teacher about her behaviour in the class and I know she is fond of her teacher, but she cries at drop off every morning and she keeps asking me if she has to go back to 'the food school', as she calls it...
Any similar experiences or ideas?
Thanks for reading....

 

[k4th]

No similar experience but I'd definitely talk to the teacher about it. Having people at school back up your message that it doesn't matter will probably be really important to your little girl.



Eta: I'd be talking from the perspective of... "I'm just letting you know, dd has been very anxious about eating at school. Particularly about finishing thins off. It's playing on her kind a lot and she keeps talking about her worries about good at school. Do you think there's anything you can do in school to help?"

 

[OmarsMum]

I'd speak to her teacher, my boy didn't touch any food at school in FS1 & FS2, at FS1 it was school lunches, I told his teacher clearly that if he doesn't want to eat it is fine, in FS2 he started to take packed lunches at 1st , but he didn't touch it, then he refused to take any food with him. This year he started to take a sandwich, popcorn & tea biscuits with him, I explained to his teacher about his food anxieties and I requested her not to push him to finish his food, for us eating at school this year was a huge step forward.

Talk to her teacher, I did and she was ok with what I said.

 

[Quartz]

Talk to her teacher so she can feed through to unch supervisors so they know.

I remember having a similar problem with food, she was worried about taking too long. I just started with a sandwich and a drink (and everyone knew that was the plan) and worked up from there.

She is now happily onschool dinners

 

[george83]

I would definitely speak to the teacher. At my school some of the lunch time supervisors are more scary than others and if one of those spoke to a child they don't necessarily communicate in the most friendly way. The teacher might be able to reassure her that she can eat as little or as much as they want

 

[RachA]

I would talk to her teacher.
From what you've said I get the impression that the lunchtime supervisor isn't intending to be mean. It is their job to encourage the children to eat all of their lunch.
From what you've said it sounds like your daughter is worried she won't have time to finish it all. In your situation I would give her a really small lunch and once she's worked out she has time to eat it all she'll let you put more in her lunchbox.