If this may be the case, then she needs to be going on with this, not spending time on her phone neglecting her. I suspect mostly she has neglected her daughter, or maybe ela does have SEN, but she’s is not doing anything about it. I truly feel sad for her if this is happening and she doesn’t know how to go about addressing it, but constantly on her phone, for what, half of Elas life, has stunted her, she makes her babyish opening packets for her, cutting food up. I work with adults with severe learning disabilities. Our main aim is to promote their independence. So I might get asked to open a packet of crisps, I say they try first, if they then need help I will. They try, and they can do it after all! But if we did it for them they would just expect that going forwards and would set them back so much. Whether Ela might have learning difficulties or not, she’s not helping
I know times have changed, but at the time it came to lunchtime I was so hungry, I looked forward to it. At times I had school dinners, sometimes I had ‘pat’ lunches. My ‘pat’ lunches were basic of a sandwich, packet of fruit, sometimes crisps, flask of juice. After morning of lessons, I looked forward to it. Even if something I didn’t particularly like, I would eat it. Food is good. This pandering she is doing, it’s wrong. My son has had issues at school to be fair, he had school dinners, then he became vegetarian. School didn’t provide sufficient vegetarian options (he decided this himself, I’m not vegetarian, we worked through it to negotiate foods all family could eat. I obviously established whether he was just being picky. Several years on, no, it is his choice) so, he did say he didn’t even want to take packed lunches, on questioning why, he actually did tell me that he didn’t get much time. This is year 9. At the age ela is, he did get time. I went through the issue thoroughly. He was being bullied. I’m not saying this is the case with ela, but maybe something is going on at school she needs to address directly with the school. Not just take Ela’s word, be a parent, ask, no excuse for just giving her s pat lunch ! Edited, too many typo as autocorrect x
even back then they were strict on what they could have for lunch and snack. they banned all chocolate/cake bars for snack (mine used to take a penguin or similar) they insisted on fruit or Veg sticks...My 2 did eat fruit/veg at home but they liked their fruit etc. cold from the fridge and refused eat warm cucumber sticks or a (in their words manky apple) that had been banging around in their bottom of their bag all morning... so I started giving them Cheese strings, they banned them too, said they were processed and if they wanted cheese it should be 'proper' cheese... They were not allowed ANY chocolate, cake or biscuits in the lunch box and the dinner time assistants policed this... their lunch box was a sandwich, piece of fruit, yogurt and a packet of crisps... which TBH is what they would have at home!
