<p>My child who is boarding a couple of hours away told me that the school will not allow fruits to be brought into the dorm. Is this normal for boarding schools? I am annoyed because of the obvious reasons of eating healthier and not snacking on garbage like chips, etc.</p>
<p>You could get dried fruit for your child - there are some brands that are just fruit. I don’t know what the rules are in different schools, but I could see kids bringing back fruit and forgetting it. That could get kind of gross - rotten bananas under the bed. At my son’s overnight camp they don’t allow any food in the cabins because of potential animal issues. </p>
<p>Hopefully others will chime in here to answer.</p>
<p>Have you ever unwittingly brought fruit flies home from the market, or worse, pantry moths (basmati rice in burlap is a common culprit)? It’s a nightmare. I suspect that is what the school is concerned about.</p>
<p>That seems unusual. I checked my kid’s school handbook; while it restricts a number of things from student rooms (primarily things that can cause fire), it doesn’t restrict any food. If your kid’s school handbook doesn’t say anything about it, you could call or email one of the dorm parents for clarification and to provide your feedback on the policy.</p>
<p>Is there any chance your child is making excuses for keeping junk around rather than healthy food, or misinterpreting something that was told to him/her? I would make sure that this is actually a rule before making any waves about it.</p>
<p>Organic food brings with it potential insect larva and when the fruit quickly goes bad there will be an infestation. You don’t want to be calling up the school about this trivial matter.</p>
<p>Oh, thank heaven this thread is about food! I was alarmed.</p>
<p>Neato - that explains it - I bought a large burlap bag of Basmati rice from Costco, which my D loves, and immediately put it into airtight containers. When I opened one a month later, all manner of winged insect - which should have suffocated - flew out. Explains why Costco doesn’t sell it anymore.</p>
<p>We’ve been buying freeze dried fruit, and also fried apple chips - both of which my D has become addicted to. :)</p>
<p>The dining hall should have fruit available.</p>
<p>Just thinking out loud…mice? Although I don’t think mice are more partial to fruit than chips. They strike me as adaptable vermin.</p>
<p>Don’t dorm heads set the rules in their dorms? Perhaps the OP’s child’s dorm head had a Very Bad Experience with Fruit in the Dorm.</p>
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<p>Thank you for making me laugh this morning.</p>
<p>Lol! Kids do keep food in their room. It’s pretty much a norm at my D’s school. But there are also mandatory room checks which you can’t refuse. They are random and unannounced (given the number of “infractions” for messiness I saw on my daughter’s door 
She keeps the food in tight containers and locked drawers and the school is meticulously clean - almost retentively so. So we’re not too worried about the mice. Although I did mention the possibility to make sure D had that in her mind when she was thinking about her snack storage options. Better safe than sharing with a rodent. Her previous dorm was equipped with a kitchen and a refrigerator which was useful.</p>
<p>Although - when you think about all the friends that run in and out of our kid’s rooms, the snacks don’t last long anyway. I sent a case of fried Apple chips and she had to hide a few bags to guarantee a few were available for her own consumption.</p>
<p>A school, which will remain anonymous, sold mouse traps in the book store. The students had contests which only exasperated the issue by leaving more food around to increase their quota, Finally, enough was enough and Mickey was no longer.</p>
<p>Friendlymom was right. My child was indeed making excuses. I checked with the advisor. The feedback was that no food needing refrigeration is allowed. Fruits are ok. </p>
<p>Another thing that bugs me about this school is 24/7 Internet access. I asked them if they would consider cutting off access at say 2230. Answer is “it is being talked about.” Am I making waves? Will they hold my queries/concerns against my child?</p>
<p>I can just hear Mr. Advisor saying to Mr. DormMaster, “hey check that pcotten kid’s food stash and while your at it make sure lights off and not on her computer after hours in which case Sunday work squad”. Sorry if I come off a little rough around the edges but yeah I hear the rotaries.</p>
<p>At my kid’s school, Internet access is disabled when lights are off. Of course, anyone with a smartphone still has access during that time.</p>
<p>As for making waves, that depends on the school. I expect that most schools welcome discussing concerns with parents (though your child might not appreciate it).</p>
<p>Oh good, glad I wasn’t off base, I was a little worried that I was slandering your kid! Mine would come up with exactly the same kind of story, as would most teens.</p>
<p>As for the internet access - I assume that this was the policy when you applied, and you chose the school with knowledge about this protocol. If that’s the case I don’t think you can make a big stink about it, but I do think you should give feedback to your child’s advisor along the lines of “it seems like my child is staying up late and doing stuff online, can you work with pcotten jr about this?” Then you’ve given the feedback that the advisor can pass along in the faculty-wide review of this. You can even ask advisor if they mind your passing this observation on to the class dean or whomever is overseeing the advisors. </p>
<p>Internet access and cell phone policies were definitely a noticeable difference from school to school. I love that my D’s school wants people to stay off their phones in public areas of school. Also, they turn the internet off at midnight. There’s griping about it, but what my D found out after a couple of months was that staying up to use every last second of internet time meant she wasn’t getting enough sleep, so she had to cut herself back further. Maybe the lack of a time limit means that they don’t have the temptation to stay up as late as possible…?</p>
<p>I am laughing a little about the fruit as it takes me back to my own boarding school days. I grew up in a warm country, and apples were not common. At my school, one of the teachers also owned an apple orchard and sold those small bags of apples in the school store. I discovered the Macintosh apple, and ate about 7 a day for a few weeks. Wonder I didn’t turn into one. LOL I bet my parents were confused when they saw charges for “apples” from teh school store. We all used to eat them in class… and no one minded. I had forgotten all about this until I read this thread. Good times.</p>
<p>One of the many things I like (nay, love!) about St. Andrew’s the ABSENCE of internet in the dorm rooms…and only a few iMacs and an octopus of ethernet cables in the common rooms. We knew this going in and it was definitely a selling point.</p>
<p>At Emma the Internet is turned off at progressively later hours for each year. And cell phone use is pretty strictly limited. There is a cellphone closet or two on each hall (an erstwhile phone booth), so that girls are not walking around talking on their cell phones. Use of phones is severely restricted during school hours. When GG’s graphing calculator bit the dust, she downloaded an app and was permitted to use it until we could get her a new (used on eBay) one – rather than spend double at the school store.</p>
<p>‘Fruit’ is both singular and plural – using it may have prevented some misconceptions.</p>
<p>Just chiming in to say emphatically that NO, teachers and administrators do not hold parental behavior against the child. Remember, we see your kid every day and have a separate relationship with him/her based on who s/he is. Teachers do tell each other horror stories of parents being incredibly rude, demanding, or condescending, and those stories generally end with an incredulous listener saying “Skippy’s mom said that to you? I love that kid!” and the teacher replying “I know, he’s great!” </p>
<p>That said, your internet concern is reasonable, and you are not the first parent to ask about it. Schools talk about technology concerns all the time with passionate votes on both sides, so you were not making waves to ask about it.</p>