Okay, let's not beat around the bush, and just start with a question to the parents who are reading this post. However, why only parents? In general, all readers. How do you feel about chips? I bet you think they're quite good, right? And what about chips for kids?
As for me personally, I don't see a problem if some of my children ate, for example, Pringles from time to time. And the heroine of today's story, the TikToker @peaveymegan, didn't see the problem either. But the employees of the nursery school that her three-year-old son went to saw just that as a problem. And this is exactly what our narrative will be about.
More info: TikTok
This author of the video once gave her 3 Y.O. son a pack of Pringles to his nursery school
Image credits: Dids (not the actual photo)
"Okay, so look at what happened to me today. I sent my son to school with Pringles, which is a very age-appropriate snack for a three-year-old"
"And this is what his school said. 'Please help us make healthy choices at school.' They wrote that on his Pringles cup. They snack-shamed my three-year-old, they snack-shamed me by writing that passive-aggressively on his trash. Well, what would you do?
I messaged the school personally and said that that was snack-shaming and that we at our house do not label things as healthy and unhealthy because that starts eating disorders. And I'm just curious, what would you do? Do you think that's ridiculous? Because I, again, do. Thank you."
Image credits: peaveymegan
Image credits: peaveymegan
"So some of you know that I went viral the other day for sharing my son's Pringles cup that the school had written on sharing that we needed to make healthier choices with the food being sent to school.
I've since deleted the video because I didn't want my son to be negatively affected at all at his school. And it was just kind of stressing me out how much attention it got because of that, but I regret deleting it now because of how things have panned out."
Image credits: peaveymegan
Image credits: peaveymegan
"So I dropped my son off at school today, I checked him in and I saw that the director was there"
"So I initiated the conversation. So I just shared how I was disappointed with how, you know, it was handled. I wish they had reached out to me directly. I said it was kind of passive-aggressive to, you know, write it on his empty Pringles cup. And she shared that, you know, it was passive-aggressive of me to keep sending him Pringles after they did share, and yes, some of you asked, yes, they did share to send healthy snacks."
Image credits: peaveymegan
Image credits: peaveymegan
"But I didn't consider Pringles to be like this unhealthy, you know, snack"
"I considered things like Cheetos, Doritos, Milky Way bars, like things like that to be like, an unhealthy snack. So I would, of course, pack, like, Pringles with a granola bar, yogurt, fruit, all that kind of stuff. So I didn't really think it was applicable to me, I didn't think that those messages applied. Regardless, do I think it was appropriate to write it on my son's empty packet of Pringles? No, I wish that a phone call had taken place. I wish that a message had been sent directly to me. Anyways, there was just no apology, there was no taking responsibility for that behavior."
Image credits: Personal Creations (not the actual photo)
"And you know, my son's been there for quite some time and we had him registered for their summer program for three days a week"
"And at the end of the conversation she shared "we no longer have a part-time spot for your son this summer." And it just it just felt so uncalled for and disrespectful and yeah, it was it was very, very unsettling. I'm very upset over it. But I walked downstairs and I just checked my son out and that's that, we're done there.
We're done there, we'll pay for the two weeks that he has left but he's not going, yeah, so I'm not doing this for attention. I'm not posting this for attention, I'm posting this because this is like, the truth. Parenting is like, these battles you have to fight for your children and and, you know, as a working mom, and sometimes it's easier for me to pack Pringles."
The woman got into a true confrontation with the school higher-ups and ended up pulling her kid out of the school
So, the Original Poster's (OP) 3 Y.O. son went to nursery school and she gave him various snacks, like a granola bar or a pack of Pringles. And one fine day, the boy showed his mother an empty pack, on which one of the teachers wrote: "Please help us make healthy choices at school." Mom was upset, considering this inscription rather passive-aggressive, a kind of food-shaming, so she recorded a video and told about it on TikTok.
The video immediately went viral, but the next day, before taking her son to school, the OP thought that such 'popularity' might cause an inadequate reaction from the school staff towards the boy, and removed the video. At the same time, the woman was sure that if the kid periodically eats Pringles, this cannot cause food disorders. But labeling food for a child with 'healthy' and 'unhealthy', as mom also thought, could very well cause some disorders.
In addition, the mom quite reasonably believed that if the school staff was so worried about the health of her child, then they could personally talk to her about it, or maybe call her - and not write in that passive-aggressive way, thereby inevitably involving the boy himself. This was what the OP told the school principal when she brought her son back the next morning. However, the principal had their own vision of the problem - they said that the one being passive-aggressive here was mom, as she continued to give her son chips.
Moreover, as the author says, her son was pre-registered for the summer program at the same nursery school, three days a week. And in the subsequent conversation, the principal stated that they no longer have a part-time spot for her son this summer. For the original poster, this was what is called the last straw. She took the kid home and said that he would not go to this school again. Even despite having paid for the remaining two weeks. Even despite the fact that as a working mom, she will now face some hard times. But such a disrespectful attitude towards the author and her kid should not, in her opinion, remain unanswered.
"I cannot agree with the behavior of colleagues in this situation," says Elena Orlova, the founder and co-owner of the Happy Time nursery school in Ukraine, who was asked by Bored Panda to comment on this situation. "In the end, parents are responsible for their child, and above all, they decide which snacks to give them. If the teacher considers chips to be such an unhealthy food, then it would be worthwhile to politely and tactfully talk to mom personally, in no way involving the child."
“After all, now the child can imagine that he is to blame for something, and this can really negatively affect his psyche. Well, the principal’s behavior when they simply refused the mom a pre-booked place for the summer program simply because she expressed some disagreement does not look that professional. As a parent of a kid who recently also went to kindergarten, I can fully understand this mom," Elena states.
The vast majority of people in the comments also supported the original poster, with some folks even giving examples of how their own children were also affected in similar situations. Moreover, the teacher of one commenter's niece simply threw a bag of chips into the trash in front of the kid! As for the mother's behavior in this story, people completely agree with her - except that it would be worth it, as some peeps believe, to send the child to school the next day with another can of Pringles. So what would you, our dear readers, do in such a situation?
The vast majority of commenters sided with the mom and even gave some similar stories from their own experience too
