Neale Godfrey: Return to the Nest
Jill Patir: Hug Your Loved Ones a Little Tighter
Does a Teacher Really Need to Remind Kids, "Hydrate!"
Filed under: Funny Stuff, Opinions
A teacher wrote to me worried that either she's going crazy -- or her students' parents are. They've started giving their kids bottled water to keep at their desks, and begging her to remind them, throughout the day, to drink.
"Have I lost it completely in thinking that learning to drink when you're thirsty is one of the key parts of growing up?" the teacher asks. "While water is obviously important, it doesn't seem to kill kids to be without it for a couple of hours. A shocking number of parents act like it's insulin for their diabetic children. Am I crazy?"
Well if she is, so am I, because in this issue I see three societal evils converging. (Okay, like I said: We might both be crazy. But hear me out:)
EVIL #1: Bottled water itself. Somehow, we have been suckered into the idea that it is better to drink water that has been siphoned into plastic, shipped to a store, purchased with our hard-earned cash and schlepped home (or to school!) and eventually to the landfill, rather than the stuff that comes out of our taps for pennies.
(On a related note: Why didn't I start a bottled water company?!)
EVIL #2: Somehow we are also convinced that our children need to be "reminded" to do something that they'd do automatically: drink. This is part of a whole culture that assumes that this particular generation is SO VULNERABLE (and DUMB) it cannot survive without all sorts of extra promptings and precautions that never existed before. Precautions that begin with baby knee pads (for crawling) and "movement" classes (as if otherwise our kids would just lay there?), and work their way up to a frenzy of frets: Germs! Sun exposure! Drinking whole milk instead of 2 percent!
Every aspect of childhood is a BIG DEAL we are told to worry about, including the (weird) idea that our kids are going to drop dead of dehydration unless someone constantly reminds them: IF YOUR TONGUE IS TURNING BLACK, IT'S TIME TO REHYDRATE.
EVIL #3: The decline of community, as evidenced by distrust of the good ol' (albeit sometimes gum-filled) drinking fountain. When we give up and say, "To heck with it. I'll just give my kid a Fiji," we are going down a road that gives up on the public and goes private. Think: gated communities. Think: parents driving their kids to school instead of trusting the school bus, or lobbying for a crossing guard. Think of a world where it's every family for itself.
William Blake said if we try, we can "see the world in a grain of sand." Maybe we can see it in a bottle of water, too.
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 4)
6-09-2010 @ 1:01AM
Mom said...You don't live in the desert, do you? When it's over 100 degrees outside and the kids have been out on the playground they need to have water at their desks so they can have a drink when they finally stop playing long enough to realize they are thirsty. Because it's a safe bet they only paused in playing for a few seconds for a quick drink at the fountain, if that.
6-08-2010 @ 9:04PM
Rusty said..."What a terrible waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind is being terribly wasteful." -- Dan Quayle
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6-08-2010 @ 9:16PM
Fritz said...As a teacher, I much prefer my students drink bottled water at their desks than constantly get out to go to the drinking fountain. The latter option gives them all sorts of opportunity to goof off and or kick/slap kids as they go by, a not infrequent disruption at the low socio-economic school I teach at.
In any event, the hue and cry over bottled water is overblown. Water bottles can be, and often are, recycled, and the outrage many on the left feel over their use is almost pathological.
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6-08-2010 @ 9:33PM
Susan said...Water is good for the body. No one is arguing that point. Our elementary school lets the kids have bottles of water (or the reusable aluminum ones) but it is THIER responsibility to take care of it, fill it, empty it, NOT the teacher's. A local hospital did a few lessons last year on health and distributed plastic refillable bottles. It was amazing the number of bottle tops that got so chewed up that the kids couldnt' even drink out of them, or got left at school over a 4 day weekend. It should be the kids (or parents) who are responsible for the drinking, refills, and cleaning, NOT the teachers. We have enough to do without telling kids to drink water!
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6-08-2010 @ 9:36PM
jesp said...I have been a classroom teacher for 13 years. I have enough on my plate without having to "remind kids" to drink! On hot days I do remind my students to get water at recess, but I don't do this on a regular basis. I teach academics (math, science, social studies, language arts), health, manners, responsibility, physical education (which some might argue includes drinking water), nutrition....and people want me to remind kids to drink water? Please...
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6-08-2010 @ 9:41PM
Babs said...For goodness sake, why on Earth does the teacher have to be responsible for hydrating the children? If they are thirsty, take a drink. If its from your water bottle or the fountain who cares. There is NO need at all to have the bottle out on display at the childs beck and call like the drink was some kind of life saving emergency that could not wait another 15 minutes... What the heck is wrong with parents today?
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6-08-2010 @ 9:47PM
BC said...Is the generation coming up going to become known as the stupid generation? Or should that be the reserved for the generation raising them? If you listen to the so-called adults raising the children of today you would think that these kids were all born brain dead. Can't even blow their nose without mommy to do it for them. Kids today don't know enough to drink when they're thirsty? Good grief. I grew up in the '50s and 60s. We played outside in the summer. If we were thirsty and didn't want to go inside, we just turned on the garden hose and had a drink. Want a snack? We had a vegetable garden. Just grab a few carrots and maybe a couple of radishes, wash the dirt off at the garden hose and munch away. We didn't have forty-eleven alergies each and we weren't sick all of the time. Oh. Don't forget. We all drank from the public water fountains. Somehow it didn't kill us. Why grown people need to carry around their baby bottles of filtered (maybe) tapwater is completely beyond me. It just looks (and is) stupid. Children are so pampered and protected today that we are ruining their immune systems and turning out a nation of invalids.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:18PM
Sue said...Yes, remind them to drink water. Then remind them to go potty OR CHANGE their diaper. Have the teachers make them eat all their lunch packed or watch what they purchase in the cafeteria. Wipe their mouths or remind them to do so.
Idiot parents!
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6-08-2010 @ 10:45PM
Damiana said...The past school year (that just ended), I did exactly that.
Idiot parents wanted a conference because Precious Boy was repeatedly wetting himself in school (small wets, that he didn't bother reporting and weren't puddle-making enough for anyone else to see). Of course, this was because I wasn't allowing this 7-year-old first-grader to use the restroom when he asked. @@
After I went over the daily schedule with the parents and showed them how many times PB had the opportunity to use the restroom on his own, plus my policy of letting kids go when they asked since my classroom has connections to individual restrooms for both genders, IPs asked me to REMIND PB to go to the restroom whenever I could. No kidding. With straight faces and no indication that this was something that should never have to be done.
A few accidents later, I asked the mom if she had considered having PB checked by their family doctor, as second grade was just around the corner for PB and he would really be up for teasing if the wetting continued. She hadn't; I don't know if she will. Perhaps she'll just invest in large pull-ups or small Depends.
It's just part of the ongoing trend where there are no schools anymore, just government-sponsored educational daycare and feeding centers....and teachers are expected to help housebreak kids.
6-08-2010 @ 9:49PM
Babs said...Mrs Vicki, the brain also has another function and thats telling you your body needs a drink..Its called thirst. Most normal healthy people ( and I think its safe to assume most children in school are) know the feeling. As far as being in phys ed class, I have never seen one where water was not available. Thats understandable but to need water every 2 minutes because one is "thinking" is just insane.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:27PM
Jacki said...Actually, if you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated. You are suppose to drink before you become thirsty. Since it is evident that many adults don't realize that, it is certain that most children, especially younger ones, do not either. There is nothing wrong with asking an elementary school teacher to remind kids to take a drink a couple times a day.
6-08-2010 @ 9:55PM
Jeannie said...Who are these moronic parents? I know them well. As a teacher, I have no problem allowing children to keep a bottle of water at their seat. They get really thirsty and I hate to see them use the classroom water fountain because: a. every kid has his or her mouth on it and b. if you saw the color of the water that come out of it, you wouldn't let anyone drink from it. My problem here is: Why do I have to remind a kid to "hydrate?" Where are we? In the Mojave Desert? My classroom is air conditioned but if it wasn't, and a kid had a bottle of water don't you think she'd drink it??? Wise up, parents.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:08PM
bill said...I taught in the public schools for forty years. When this annoying trend started, I posted an article about the dangers of overhydration and refused to allow students to drink from their bottles during class. Students who insisted they were thirsty were directed to the water fountain. If you don't suck water directly out of the spout, it's perfectly sanitary. Bringing bottles of clear liquid into the school is a questionable practice anyway.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:19PM
Sue said...In addition to my previous note, went through 12 years of school with no air conditioning, not a thought to "hydrate" unless taking a drink after our bathroom break. I have no brain/mental deficiency unless to consider this article a serious problem. My three children have enjoyed much more than I ever did due to their parent's less than "hydrated" state through school.
Hey, I am thirsty after writing this-what do I do? I am confused.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:22PM
Dave said...I can think of two water fountains that have better tasting water than what comes in a bottle: one is in our church gym, and the other is in the hall outside my classroom at school. Our kids are taught the importance of water, and fountains and water bottles can be found all over campus. We don't have to tell them to drink, though. It's called common sense.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:25PM
Dee said...In my area schools, the teachers drive me crazy because they cater to the kids. They give the kids water bottles, especially on days when they have the state tests.
Funny, I don't know how I made it where I am now using just the water fountain and only once or twice a day if the teacher allowed it.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:27PM
Luna said...1. Drinking water is important.
2.It is important to learn these habits at a young age.
3. It is obvious that these habits are not being learned at a young age (thus the current adult population who is over weight and dehydrated).
4. This is a national health concern, when there are flu pandemics we offer shots at school (otherwise many people would not have access to them for all sorts of reasons), there is a pandemic with bad eating habits, if you drink a healthy amount of water not only does your mind work better, your body fights inflammation (which encourages unhealthy things like flu and disease), BUT you eat less when you are fully hydrated.
5. It is not hard to say to young kids three times a day to remember to drink water. Lazy people will argue otherwise. This is not teaching kids morals, it is helping their parent to ingrain habits that parents are not able to encourage when their child is at school. Like it or not children spend half of their waking hours at school, it is necessary/going to happen that they learn habits at school.
6. My son's school does not allow him to have a water bottle, they also punish him (5 minutes of recess) for every time he wants a drink from the fountain or wants to go to the bathroom. This is an argument that schools do not discipline (i.e. make the parents teach their children how to behave or kick the kid out of school) when they need to and accept/expect children to not behave when going to the bathroom or getting a drink of water, both "natural" aspects of life that they often get punished for needing to do.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:52PM
SKL said...I have read that a recent study debunked the wisdom of drinking so much and I've also read that it's healthier to let people feel thirst and quench it versus drinking all the time to avoid thirst.
Aside from the fact that the human race would have died out long ago if it were really necessary for teachers to tell kids to drink water.
Funny thing, in India you wouldn't dare drink the water from most sources. The school kids are in more crowded classrooms with fewer materials, not to mention nobody prompting them to sip water periodically. In fact, the thought of kids drinking at their desks would probably make the teachers hyperventilate. Yet these kids blow American public school kids away academically. How can this be?
I think one of the scary things here is that people are always looking for this tweak or that tool that is going to make kids smart. Kids get smart via experience, including figuring out the results of drinking water or not.
I also think it's pretty sad that these parents don't trust their kids' own intelligence enough to tell them what to do with their water bottles. I tell my 3-year-olds to remember to wipe their noses, take care of their glasses, and keep track of their hair clips during "school." They are smart enough to handle that. So I am sure when they go to elementary school, they will be able to take responsibility for imbibing sufficient amounts of water.
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6-08-2010 @ 10:56PM
SKL said...Oh, and I can just imagine my 3rd grade teacher saying "now class, it's time to sip your water." Everyone would have cracked up and there would not have been order for quite a while. It would have given me one more reason to view my teacher with ridicule. Come on, these kids are not babies!
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6-08-2010 @ 11:00PM
Adam said...Having to remind someone to drink is absurd! When I was in high school, you couldn't have a drink in class. If you were thirsty, you had to wait until class was over to get to a water fountain. If you're too stupid to have water in front of you when you're thirsty and you choose not to drink it, that's on you. It's really sad that people don't have any common sense anymore.
Case in point: Teachers have to remind students to drink when they're thirsty!
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