Post by lavandulagirl on Mar 10, 2008 10:54:43 GMT -5
Just an idea for those parents out there who's kids go to school every day...
Our kids don't generally buy the school lunch. As we've seen in the news recently, the quality of those meals is sorely lacking. To eliminate morning arguments regarding what is appropriate for lunch, this is the method we use:
I make a sandwich for each child every morning (our kids are currently 12 and 9, soon to be 13 and 10). I can control the kind of bread (wraps or homemade wheat, usually), the protein ( nut butters, tuna, chicken) and the amount of mess (ketchup, dressing, jelly, etc). On the days when I've run out of bread (sometimes the baking takes a backseat to, say, internet time.
) I send a tupperware of cereal, which they can pour milk on at school, or thermoses (thermii?) of soup. The kids then get to orchestrate the rest of the lunch... veggie or fruit (we always have a variety of fresh and dried in the house), drink (fresh juice, water, milk), dairy (cheese, yogurt), and then we have.... THE SNACK BIN! After loading the other stuff into their bags, they can take something from the bin. This is basically a container full of granola bars, trail mix, homemade treats like cookies, that kind of thing. The kids have a lot of autonomy over what they eat, but I ultimately control what's in the house.
We've used this method for a few years now, and it works really well. The kids are concious of what the nutritive value of their lunch is, and I have more confidence that the whole thing isn't being dumped in the trash in the cafeteria. Last year the local paper did a write up on the method, which caused a flurry of phone calls at my house (mostly for recipes, but a few who told me I needed to stop being supermom - I think the latter had kids taking lunchables to school). The kids take paper bags to school- we tried the lunchbox/bag thing, but it was SO uncool for the older one, and the younger one kept losing them. I draw on the bags, or tape pics of stuff they like so they can recognize their own stuff.
Our kids don't generally buy the school lunch. As we've seen in the news recently, the quality of those meals is sorely lacking. To eliminate morning arguments regarding what is appropriate for lunch, this is the method we use:
I make a sandwich for each child every morning (our kids are currently 12 and 9, soon to be 13 and 10). I can control the kind of bread (wraps or homemade wheat, usually), the protein ( nut butters, tuna, chicken) and the amount of mess (ketchup, dressing, jelly, etc). On the days when I've run out of bread (sometimes the baking takes a backseat to, say, internet time.
) I send a tupperware of cereal, which they can pour milk on at school, or thermoses (thermii?) of soup. The kids then get to orchestrate the rest of the lunch... veggie or fruit (we always have a variety of fresh and dried in the house), drink (fresh juice, water, milk), dairy (cheese, yogurt), and then we have.... THE SNACK BIN! After loading the other stuff into their bags, they can take something from the bin. This is basically a container full of granola bars, trail mix, homemade treats like cookies, that kind of thing. The kids have a lot of autonomy over what they eat, but I ultimately control what's in the house.We've used this method for a few years now, and it works really well. The kids are concious of what the nutritive value of their lunch is, and I have more confidence that the whole thing isn't being dumped in the trash in the cafeteria. Last year the local paper did a write up on the method, which caused a flurry of phone calls at my house (mostly for recipes, but a few who told me I needed to stop being supermom - I think the latter had kids taking lunchables to school). The kids take paper bags to school- we tried the lunchbox/bag thing, but it was SO uncool for the older one, and the younger one kept losing them. I draw on the bags, or tape pics of stuff they like so they can recognize their own stuff.