Why are kids being forced to eat lunch in silence?

[Jilly_in_VA]

When my son started kindergarten, I wondered how he would adjust to a seven-hour school day without an afternoon nap and how quickly he would make new friends. I never imagined lunch would be the worst part of his day.

I was horrified to learn that his A-rated public school in one of North Carolina’s best school systems forced my five-year-old and his schoolmates to endure 15-minute silent lunches. Talking in a whisper would lead to a swift reprimand by the lunch monitor. He could even lose precious play time for excessive talking.

My son found this very stressful. Kindergarten meant much longer stretches of concentration. By lunchtime, he needed time to decompress. He continually mentioned his fear of getting in trouble, even though he was never singled out as far as I know.

When I questioned this policy, his teacher told me the short lunches allowed more time for electives and special academic programming that made their school best in its class. The intent was to maximize instructional time for the school’s prized technology and Spanish lessons – in theory, a good idea. That meant shaving minutes off other activities, and the school found that 15 minutes was not enough time to eat if the children were allowed to talk.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/04/silent-school-lunch-kids-mental-health

15 minutes for lunch? Really? And in silence? What is this, a monastery?

[bucolic_frolic]

1. My guess is somebody in authority wants to get the kids used to being watched

and next year they'll change the lunch monitor to Jesus, Watching Over You!

[CloudWatcher]

2. Missing

Sigh, missing from the essay was any indication that this parent had removed her son from this abusive school.

[Phoenix61]

3. I subbed at a school that had a 25-30 minute lunch.

The first 15 minutes were silent to ensure the kids actually ate. It worked out very well.

[Irish_Dem]

4. One of the points of kindergarten is peer interaction/ social skill acquisition.

Lunch time is a great time for that.

Also making young children be silent while eating seems like a punishment.

Maybe between talking and eating the kids couldn't eat in 15 minutes.
But I think it would be better to lengthen the lunch time then.
Yes it is too short.

[dlk]

5. Play, unstructured and structured is the most important developmental task for children kindergarten age

Their development is actually being thwarted by this age-inappropriate, over structuring of their time.

[MadameButterfly]

8. My mother, an experienced preschool educator, was hire to consult for an "underpriveledged" preschool

The well-meaning adults were teaching the kids math and reading at ages 3- 4. They were predicting that the kids would get to grade school and fall behind, as kids in the community had in the past. They were trying to give them a head start.

My mother explained that socialization and basic following of directions was what was appropriate at that age. Forcing them into skills they were too young to learn would not teach them the skills they needed most and would make them feel like failures before they even reached grade school.

It's interesting that the adults had internalized past children's failures in their community and were projecting the same result on children who had not (yet) failed. And they were potentially creating the result they feared.

[dlk]

18. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, but expecting different results

Just look around and it’s clear, too many of Americans have very poor social skills.

[MontanaMama]

10. Play is so important.

Excellent comment.

[Biophilic]

6. So which is it?

On one hand the educators child psychologists are worried that young people don’t know how to engage in social interaction and on the other hand they pull a stunt like this in kindergarten. Give me a break. Kindergarten!! So yeah, these kids will be very good at passing tests, but will be very stunted emotionally and socially. What kind of adults are we hoping to develop?

[dlk]

19. The goad is to create obedient automatons who are incapable of thinking for themselves

We see them all around us.

[snot]

7. I'm sorry, but this is just plain sick;

or at least, it's a sign of sickness.

What is it that we're teaching, that leaves so little time for lunch? I'm skeptical, when as far as I can tell, kids coming out of school today are no better educated – if anything, less.

Something is very seriously wrong, and the adults in charge are either in denial about it or possibly are part of the cause.

[IbogaProject]

21. But hey the school might be able to score higher on some kind of measure

Whew, what a mess corpotizing education has become.

[twodogsbarking]

9. Do not question the rules, just obey or you will regret it. School.

No one questions the school. If school were so great they wouldn't punish you by giving you more school.

[pnwmom]

11. Same kind of thing with my kids decades ago. If the lunchroom talking got too loud,

in the opinion of whoever was in charge, then they would delay recess time.

And I'd been in that lunchroom -- it was much quieter than a typical restaurant.

[louis-t]

12. Sounds like a Republican idea of 'freedom' to me.

[ShazzieB]

13. This trend of turning kindergarten into a full day sitting at a desk doing worksheets has gotten totally out of hand.

This is what happens when academics are prioritized over everything else, including letting kids be kids.

This stuff has been going on for a while now. My daughter started kindergarten in 1990, and even back then, it was a full day of seatwork, from what I could tell. She was SO not ready for that!

She barely made the age cutoff to start that year, and I would have waited another year to send her kindergarten if I'd had any idea what it would be like.

This school sounds even worse. At least my daughter was allowed to talk to the other kids at lunch time!

[JoseBalow]

14. It takes me that long just to open and assemble my Lunchables

[PatSeg]

15. And for a five year old???

That is insane!

[patphil]

16. So they make it impossible for the kids to interact socially at luinch time.

I'd prefer to have my kids go to a lesser school that provided more time for socialization, and didn't put so much pressure on the kids.
School should be more than just course work. It's where they learn to be part of the community.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. I teach in an elementary school

If kids are allowed to talk the entire time at lunch, you would not believe the amount of food that is thrown away. Then, parents are upset that their child didn't eat. It's a catch 22 situation.

[Jilly_in_VA]

20. Then

you give them a longer lunchtime. For heaven's sake, it's not that hard!

[IbogaProject]

22. 15 minutes for lunch especially at that age is insane

I can see maybe the first 15 min quiet eating of a 30 minute lunch before a 30 or more minute recess. Finland is the happiest country and they don't even start school until a year or more after our kindergarten age.

[CRK7376]

23. As a retired NC High School teacher

One of the best things about retirement from school is now I can go to lunch with my wife or spend 30 minutes at home and not worrying about the kids coming back to my classroom or skipping the last period of the day....25 minutes was our lunch time. Just enough to wolf down a sandwich or nuke leftovers from home. hit the bathroom before the kids come back to class and sometimes run off a few extra copies of assignments or missed work from the previous day the kid was out sick etc...I can't imagine a kindergarten kid not being able to talk during lunch...but then it is NC and not the brightest lightbulb in the pack.....Save us from these idiots!