I work as a nurse for Head Start. This year we have started to allow 3 to 5 year olds to pass food. I personally find this disgusting and very unsanitary.
This is how we do it. We put fruit, bread, and sometimes pasta on the table with a serving spoon. The children are supposed to take a small amount and then pass the dish to the next child.
Between the sneezing, coughing and general fingers in the dish, by the time it gets to me, I refuse to take any food. I am REQUIRED to eat what the children eat, but I just can't make myself eat after them.
I have tried to get my food first, but most of the time I am serving milk or the hot food and don't get the opportunity.
In one center we had an outbreak of Rotavirus and I instructed the cooks and the teachers on NOT allowing the children to pass anything at the table. Plus I had each child use hand sanitizer after washing their hands. I also used clorox wipes and wiped down EVERY surface in the building.
My questions are:
1. How do I present the dangers of this practice to my Director?
2. What kinds of illnesses should I prepare for next year?
3. How long do you think it will take before the centers are shut down due to food borne illness?
The thought of eating after the children is enough to make me look for another job!
Here is a part of the situation I am facing right now. In one of the class rooms there are 5 chidren who do not mind, do not listen, do what ever they want to, and are not on any meds. The parents refuse to acknowledge that the children have problems.
The other 15 kids are pretty well behaved but they tend to cause problems/do things they wouldn't ordinarily do because we [teacher, teacher assistant and me] are distracted with the 5 who are hyper.
We have tried to explain and demonstrate the correct way to use the serving spoons, how much is a serving [2 peach slices], to sneeze in their elbow, but they don't listen. They grab the food with their hands.
We had one little girl when we started the year who used her fingers to eat EVERYTHING! I sat next to her, and ended up with food all over my uniform. Not a major problem, and she has improved to using her fork and a napkin. We would sit down as a "family" after we put the food on their plates and talk. We eplained how to use forks,napkins, etc. Now with them serving themselves, they aren't getting the teaching. Instead we are busy supervising to make sure they aren't putting the serving spoons in their mouths.
One of the problems is they can't manipulate the tongs [even though they are small]. They can't pour milk. We can't put the hot food on the table so we have to get up to get the hot food and they play with the food on the table. I think we need alot more help. Maybe that is what I can tell the director.
When we started the year, the cooks would bring the food into the classroom, put it on the kids plates, and we would all sit down and eat. To me, this is family style dining. I didn't let my kids serve themselves until they were 7. They have impecable table manners now...so it has nothing to do with teaching them at 3, 4 or 5 how to pass food.
I do not want to eat after any kids [other than my own] and if you were honest you wouldn't either.
______________________________________
In His Grace,
Karen RN
Failure is NOT an option!!
Those are other issues and it perhaps your facility does need more help at meal time. And maybe you can offer a special course and they need to work at getting accepted to your course. Most kids like to feel special this way. You are working in an environment that is needed because the kids do not get the supervision at home. One person alone, who takes the time to really get thru to them, can make the biggest difference in the world.
They do not need tongs, they need something that they can handle. you cannot expect them to have the grasp that an adult has.
Another suggestion would be to make the table sizes smaller and have only about five children per adult, that way they are getting more one on one attention. And make it an honor to be able to sit at your table. They need to feel special and that you care, not that you are trying to police them, they get that at home.
There is no reason that they cannot help with serving, but it has to be with something that they can do.....and are watched closely. This is something that they really need to learn from you, they are not going to get it at home.
Specializes in Geriatrics, Pediatrics, Home Health.
A few things to think about:
I am sure that every one of you has eaten as a salad bar restaurant, or from some type of buffet. Whether it is at a wedding, or just a local restaurant, or even your hospital at work. Have you even wondered about the person that was touching the utensil that you use to take your food with, and where their hands were before they came into that facility?
Every time I eat out I think about just those things. In fact, I grossed out my teacher friends by pointing out that I hoped the workers had washed their hands. They made me shut up.
I don't eat out very often because of this. I am so anal when it comes to food. I want to teach these kids but at the same time under the conditions I am working under, I don't want to cause anyone to get sick. Right now that is what is going to happen!!
PLEASE give me some advise on how to present to my director, the means to make family style meals healthy and safe!! Even if it means spending money to make it work!
Specializes in OB/peds (after gen surgery for 3 yrs).
Oh dear, I'm not going to be very helpful. I'm the Nurse Manager of a large daycare/preschool (>1100 kids, with ~300 EHS/HS). We do not have food borne illnesses. I've been here for 9 years. We do serve family style and I know what you are saying about sneezing, coughing, touching, etc. Our teachers are excellent. Teaching the kids right from the first day, how to cover their mouth when they sneeze/cough. How to use the utensils. Anyone who can not use the utensils properly at the beginning is "helped" by a teacher's hand over theirs, until they master that skill. The family style service helps with their fine motor skills. Watch as the kids progress, you will be able to tell the difference from the "old way". Sure, kids get sick. But I haven't seen any illnesses that I can attribute to family-style food service. Good luck with this.
Like the kids aren't sneezing and horching over everything else the rest of the school day...they spread those germs around school whether they pass food or not.
My kids' elementary school used to do the family style lunches, until there was a crypto outbreak in the district (not at any of the schools that served family style, ironically enough), and the district decided to change to only pre-served plates. There is definitely something lost there, lunch doesn't seem like a community event it once was.
Maybe a compromise could be that things that are light and easy to pass (a basket of bread, for example, or the bottles of sauces) could be passed by the kids; but the things that are difficult or messy to pass, and would encourage kids to put their fingers on the brim to pass, or have items that slop onto their fingers and encourage them to lick them between passing items; maybe the teachers or lunch helpers could serve these things.
I agree w/Suzanne & others ... this is a valuable activity for children already identified as needing extra intervention due to home/family situations. Every child needs these basic life skills.
Common sense applies -- everyone washes their hands & then pitches in to help with their assigned task. No, you can't be sure that every single child's hands are microbe-free, but this is real life. Three year-olds can set out napkins & do other tasks requiring less dexterity. Five year olds are a little better equipped to start handling utensils. This progression would also give them a sense of accomplishment as they progress through different tasks. Alternatively, maybe the children could be divided into groups including children of different ages - together they would collectively be responsible for their table's meal.
Children who are having difficulty staying on task, waiting their turn, etc. need to be guided using the facility's defined policies on progressive discipline.
My daughter attended a private church-run daycare center for 2 years which employed exactly the same techniques at lunch time for children ages 3 and up - passing out napkins at each place, serving fruit, etc. Even toddlers 2-3 years of age were guided to pass baskets of bread, throw away their own trash, close up their lunch bags, etc.
This is a big issue with me - when self-sufficiency is instilled early in life, it's not such a shock to the system as it is with, for example, children who are never expected to participate in even the most basic household chores & are then lost when they leave home, having no concept of cleaning up, basic food prep, etc.
As a parent...I'll be honest...if I found out my children were eating family style and not being served by the staff, I would move my children.
I teach table manners at home, and my children that are 3 (and I have two), put things that are non-food out on the table, but they don't get food and pass it over.
There is a difference between eating out with your own family and eating in a facility where you are being paid to provide your child with a safe, healthy, and sanitary environment. There is no comparison.
They are not allowed to do it at school...for the SAME sanitation reasons. They are too young to understand how germs spread. I know some people do this at home...at home, that's ok...but to demand this at a daycare/headstart facility is nutty. There are too many children vs 2 or 3 to keep track of.
I don't eat at restaurant salad bars or buffet's for the same reason. I have actually witnessed children and even adults, put the serving spoon in their mouth to taste something, and then put it back. It's disgusting. If I want a salad, I order it from the menu.
When my children were in daycare, there was a policy, that if they had a birthday party, etc...the food HAD to come pre-made from a grocery store or a restaurant...nothing could be homemade...the reason? Sanitation.
Why is it that your facility Director insists on this? What prompted the change? I totally agree with you....it's almost making me gag just thinking about it.
Specializes in Happily semi-retired; excited for the whole whammy.
I'm of two minds here. The first is, yuck, a bunch of three year olds messing with each other's food. The second is, as pointed out a few posts above, they spread those germs all day, passing food really isn't any different.
I do think it's ironic that there are programs (not saying that this Head Start is one of them, though) that don't even allow homemade treats be brought in for parties and yet they allow the children to pass the food. At my son's preschool, they had to pack their own lunch, so I never had to confront how I feel about the family style meals and now I pretty much just choose not to think about it, lol.
I never understood the "no homemade food allowed" rule. Every case of food-borne illness I've dealt with involved public eating places, not homes.
Our school allows homemade treats, but not in classes with allergic children. I think that potential exposure to allergens is more of an issue than sanitation.
Specializes in Happily semi-retired; excited for the whole whammy.
Our school allows homemade treats, but not in classes with allergic children. I think that potential exposure to allergens is more of an issue than sanitation.
I think that is probably the case more now than it used to be. When I was growing up in PA, my aunt and cousins lived in Eureka, CA and even then they had a hard and fast rule about no homemade treats. It was hard to imagine that, for us, because rarely did a week go by in our school that someone didn't bring in cookies or cupcakes.
My son's school still allows homemade goodies. I guess they just have to be careful to let parents know about what, if any, ingredients can't be included.
Okay, that makes sense. Can the allergic child's mom provide something for the class, to ensure that her child is not in danger?
I don't see why not.
There is a child in my daughter's class who has Celiac disease. Her mom is the first to admit that it is expensive and difficult to supply treats that her daughter can eat, so she sends in goodies for the the teacher to keep on hand for her daughter to have when someone brings in cookies or cupcakes. It also makes it a little easier that her allergy is not immediately life-threatening, like a peanut allergy can be, so it is not necessary for everyone in the class to abstain from home-made treats, just her.
suzanne4, RN
26,410 Posts
Those are other issues and it perhaps your facility does need more help at meal time. And maybe you can offer a special course and they need to work at getting accepted to your course. Most kids like to feel special this way. You are working in an environment that is needed because the kids do not get the supervision at home. One person alone, who takes the time to really get thru to them, can make the biggest difference in the world.
They do not need tongs, they need something that they can handle. you cannot expect them to have the grasp that an adult has.
Another suggestion would be to make the table sizes smaller and have only about five children per adult, that way they are getting more one on one attention. And make it an honor to be able to sit at your table. They need to feel special and that you care, not that you are trying to police them, they get that at home.
There is no reason that they cannot help with serving, but it has to be with something that they can do.....and are watched closely. This is something that they really need to learn from you, they are not going to get it at home.