School Cafeteria

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GREAT suggestion. Thank you. I will look into this.

I never ate anything at school the first 6-7 years, so I was a very tiny boy. Also, I never used the toilets all the way from primary school to college. Never. Obviously, I had a well trained and elastic bladder and colon.

If cafeteria food is still how I remember it I would recommend you start with getting the kid out of eating it before you worry about peers.

I don't know, and don't care. But I don't like the idea very much. I just want to be treated like everybody else.
And however, in school I never go to the school cafeteria, because there's always too much people, and also because I never eat at school since I started high school.
In middle school I ate things that my mother gave me before I went to school.
In elementary school I hated the luchroom, I never ate anything, I was very skinny. The food sucked and there was a lot of noise in the luchroom, and I always tried to sit in a place away from the mojority of the people there, and then since the end of fourth year of elementary school a place just for me and my 2 friends.

I almost never used the bathrooms at school either. I hated them and any other public restrooms. I'm better about using them now but I still have difficulty asking to use a bathroom and usually won't. Within the past couple of years my toilet broke once and when I went to a fast food place to use their bathroom it was locked. Rather than ask for the key I went to other places until I found an unlocked bathroom.

I always used to eat somewhere quiet when I was at school.

More recently I was in psychiatric hospital and for meals we had to go to a dining room. There were only 28 patients, but it was too much for me. I didn't eat for 2 days. Eventually one of the psychiatric nurses talked to me about it, and we arranged that I would go and collect my food and then eat it at my bedspace instead of having to be in the dining room.

So yes, I think that your daughter should not have to eat in the cafeteria if she finds it stressful.

In high school, we had the best art teacher ever! She let all the "outcasts" eat in the art room every lunch period so we were all saved from the horrors of the school cafeteria!

We're talking about a 5yr old, right? When I was 5 we didn't even have a cafeteria. We ate lunch on the playground. If the weather was bad, we ate at our desks. Our school property bordered that of a very small nature preserve with a playground and a stream. Sometimes, on very nice days, our class and a 5th or 6th grade class would go there for lunch. We would pair off with an older kid on the buddy system if we wanted to go catch tadpoles or something, or we could stay at the playground where the teachers were stationed.

I was in a different school (often different state or even country) every grade, and sometimes twice in a grade. I only ever went to 2 grade schools that had cafeterias, and eating there was always optional if you brought your own lunch. I generally skipped lunch on the days my mom sent me with money instead of food. It was better to go hungry than eat in the cafeteria.

In the town I live in now, every school lets even the kids that buy their lunches eat anywhere on school property. K-12. I'm pretty sure even the little kids are allowed to leave campus entirely for lunch (to go home or to a friends house or something) if they have a note. Not standard, by any means, but I just thought I'd share so you could get a feel for the complete opposite end of the control dynamic you're running into. Personally, I've always considered the entire institutional school construct to be socially backward. I've homeschooled since before the kids or I were even diagnosed. It's unquestionably been the best option for my family. Even anti-homeschoolers grudgingly admit they can't think of a situation where my kids could have thrived more. I don't have useful advice for working within the system, but I certainly wish you the best of luck blazing the right trail for your own kids.

Agree! It's not even food, it's grain-based and pesticide-ridden pseudo food. I wouldn't feed school lunch to any of my pets or friends. It physically creates illness. Avoid!

In the schools I was in where they tried to force me to eat in the cafeteria they didn't supply food, you had to bring your own.

For me the lunch time experience in school was a much gentler way of interacting than recess or sports. I was terrible at games and often felt left out or inept. But if I could just sit with a group of kids while we ate and not feel that I had to speak to anyone very much, I was okay. The food was good, whether I brought it from home or bought it there, and it was comforting in a way.

This teacher needs to understand that "mainstreaming" does not mean forcing the child into every single social situation imaginable. That can lead to a billion different varieties of shutdowns on the person and will make them disconnect even more from other people.

The cafeteria can be a stressful time not only because of the noise but because of the amount of rules involved. My elementary and middle schools were strict about where we could eat our food and when we could talk or when we could stand. I asked a teacher one time if I could have my lunch away from the tables because the people I normally sit with where harassing me (long story short, I was not on good terms with these "friends" for a certain 3 month period) and she flat out refused.

In my high school, there were two cafeterias on opposite sides of the building. One was the large main cafeteria, the other was a smaller satellite cafeteria. I was often in the satellite cafeteria because it was quieter and a less hectic environment. There were some semesters when I had to be in the bigger cafeteria due to next class proximity and it was awful. (And my friends were never in this cafeteria which made it harder.) Anyone I did hang out with in the main one were people who sat in the commons area rather than in the actual cafeteria but we weren't allowed to bring food into the commons so I either had to eat alone in the cafeteria or be with people and starve. It was only like this for a couple of the semesters but it was still pretty painful.

My AS friend was a very lucky son of a gun. His mom was a teacher at his high school so he got to have all his lunches in her office.

I never had problems eating in the lunch room. My only problems were, if the lunch room was full, I had a hard time finding a place to sit. When I was on second grade, we were all assigned a table to eat at. Each class had their own table to eat at. but these boys would always pick on me so I always sat at another table and made the girls let me sit there. Luckily we had two table, one full one and a half one so I always sat at the half end at the other table.

In 7th grade, I ate in the resource room for some reason. I am not sure why I was made to eat in there. But I liked it after all because I would watch a movie during lunch period and do computer. I found recess boring anyway. I can remember getting lunch detention one time and I wondered how was it even a punishment. I had to eat in the resource room and I thought then why was it a punishment, it was sure a strange one. I think now that it's a punishment because kids love to socialize normally and why did they think it would work with me? I barely even socialized, I had a hard time fitting in so like I was going to care. I don't think it would work with someone who has autism or is extremely shy, someone with social anxiety, or someone with social issues or who is a bullied victim. But that punishment never bothered me.

But I do agree some kids should be allowed to eat outside the lunchroom, especially if they have autism and it gives them a sensory overload or stresses them out. In high school, it gets easier because you don't really need to eat in the cafeteria. Kids are allowed to leave the school for lunch and they can eat in the halls if they like or outside. That was my experience in high school.

I can't answer the poll, that is because here in Germany it is obviously different and I never had such problems like sitting alone on a lunch table because we never had some.

It could depend on the mentality, but children here usually carry their lunch/breakfast box in their bags containing toast or something of that kind and eat it in the 20 minute breaks at school (of which there are two, one at 9:35AM and one at 11:30AM - additionally there is a forced free lesson at school that is the 7th lesson in the schedule, it's from 1:25PM to 2:15PM).
I didn't have a cafeteria in my elementary school and didn't have one in my Gymnasium (I don't know what the US equivalent would be to this as I am not familiar with the US school system) either until one year ago and even then you have to pay additional fees to use it and it is not that big, so there are usually only children eating with parents that are not at home to provide them something to eat and/or children who have lessons after that 50 minute break but have their home too far away to get back in that one hour to eat something.

At least in the region I am from in Germany, the trend seems to be that children just eat what they took with them to school. Additionally there is a small store at school where you can buy snacks.

We only had a cafeteria when I was in preschool. I don't recall having problems, only when I didn't want to eat their food. In primary and high school, there was no cafeteria, and I would drift away, by standing in the corner or on the side, during recess. If the teacher could set me up with a smaller group of kids, I would have been grateful. I guess in a large group like the cafeteria, you are among people but actually still alone. Where as in a smaller group, I think one would have a chance to connect to each individual and at least the child will start socialising instead of only observing the whole time.

Sounds like the teacher is being stubborn, the mentality that you just bend a crooked tree right by forceful attitude all the time. One has to realise sometimes if that doesn't work, something else should be given a chance.

iirc, Gymnasium in Germany is the type of high school that prepares or rather gives access for kids to enter college (which is the equivalent of university else where).

In both high schools I went to you were allowed to sit anywhere in the school you wanted.You could could literally walk to the oldest part of the school(they were both designed to house over 2200 students so they were huge) and sit in a corner.In my second school I was in a program for AS/HFA(long story) and unless you were controlled enough to go outside the area that housed the programyou HAD to eat in the classrooms.Of course me and my friends(all AS) were allow to go to the park next to school during lunch(open campus) so it was not an issue. /nostalga

As for your particular set of currumstances I would suggest trying to explain your childs needs to the teacher more clearly.If that that doesnt work you can always go to the vice principal or the principal.