OT school lunches

[Steph9072]

It is hard to believe but my baby starts first grade in less than 2 weeks. I was needing suggestions for her to take in her lunch. I have already reviewed the menu for August and I think I counted maybe 3 or 4 days that she will eat what they are serving. She is very picky. Please give any suggestions that you have!

 

[Barbers2005]

Teach her to be less picky. Pickyness leads to a self centered moronic satanic teenager if proper parenting skills aren't enforced and established. Trust me, i have a docterate in child psychology. Teach your child to eat what is given if you want a well behaved child/teenager later down the road. Hey, when your child calls you an inappropriate name and takes ur car out hotroding and gets knocked up, dont come crying to me. I wrote and tested my doctorial thesis on this...the University where I live did some tests on it, and I am right. Hey, if you want your word over a guy with a docterate, go ahead Professor.

Too bad they didn't offer a course in tact as part of your doctorate. Maybe instead of blanket criticism the OP was looking for something a little more...practical.

Steph9072- I have two picky eaters in my house (dh and dd) so I have lots of experience. To get ideas for lunches, start by making a list of foods your dd does like. Divide the foods into categories (fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains, etc) and list absolutely everything dd will eat. Then sit down with your list and think of different ways you can combine those components into lunches (try flipping through a couple of different kids cookbooks for ideas). One simple thing you could do is take a couple of favorite veggies and a little meat and make a basic soup or casserole. You could also try mixing some fruits dd likes into yogurt to make a fruit salad, then packing a whole grain muffin and some cheese or nuts to round out the meal.

For getting dd (and dh) to be less picky one useful trick is to make new foods more familiar. As an example, dd liked sweet potato casserole, but not carrots. So, I made carrot casserole, just substituting carrots for the sweet potatoes. Then we branched out to candied carrots. Now that carrots have been making a regular appearance at the dinner table dd eats them without complaint in a variety of dishes.

Hope this helps.

 

[cancer_survivor_06]

My dd really isn't a picky person thank goodness but we have to send a lunch everyday b/c her school doesn't offer lunch. She likes to bring peanut butter and honey/jelly sandwiches, mandarin orange slices, cheese sticks, fruit snacks, roast beef sandwiches, spaghetti O's, pizza, and leftovers depending on what it is. I found at our local store mini hoagie rolls (less than half a hot dog bun size) this makes her sandwiches fun. One night we had hamburgers for dinner and I made some small enough to put on the bun and she loved that.

Teach her to be less picky. Pickyness leads to a self centered moronic satanic teenager if proper parenting skills aren't enforced and established. Trust me, i have a docterate in child psychology. Teach your child to eat what is given if you want a well behaved child/teenager later down the road. Hey, when your child calls you an inappropriate name and takes ur car out hotroding and gets knocked up, dont come crying to me. I wrote and tested my doctorial thesis on this...the University where I live did some tests on it, and I am right. Hey, if you want your word over a guy with a docterate, go ahead Professor.

You must be a picky person.

 

[powellrj]

Teach her to be less picky. Pickyness leads to a self centered moronic satanic teenager if proper parenting skills aren't enforced and established. Trust me, i have a docterate in child psychology. Teach your child to eat what is given if you want a well behaved child/teenager later down the road. Hey, when your child calls you an inappropriate name and takes ur car out hotroding and gets knocked up, dont come crying to me. I wrote and tested my doctorial thesis on this...the University where I live did some tests on it, and I am right. Hey, if you want your word over a guy with a docterate, go ahead Professor.

LOL thanks for the advice Chuck, but as the DM of a past, present and pre teen, I can tell you somebody lied to you. My best/least picky eater is also my most self centered teen! I am sorry they didn't teach spelling at your University, it may help people to take you serious!

Invest in a wide mouth thermos. It will get lots of use over the years and pay for itself. My kids like to take things like soups and pasta dishes in theirs. One of their favorite things was to take a tupperware bowl of cereal and buy milk at school. Add some fruit and maybe a yogurt.

http://hillbillyhousewife.com/lunchboxfood2.htm Here is a link for some ideas for lunches.

 

[Sazuburns]

You might be pleasantly surprised and find that your little girl becomes less picky as she sees friends eating things she never would have eaten. Both my boys have become better eaters since starting school. Peer pressure isn't always bad...

Sarah x

 

[Tikicampers]

You might be pleasantly surprised and find that your little girl becomes less picky as she sees friends eating things she never would have eaten. Both my boys have become better eaters since starting school. Peer pressure isn't always bad...

Sarah x

I teach Kinder. and can tell you this may happen. I always have some kids that start out wanting nothing to do with school lunch, but suddenly they start begging to buy. If your child's new buddy gets school lunch, she's going to want it too.
For the times she wants to bring, or if you just don't want her eating certain school lunches (which I wouldn't blame you for), pretty much any typical lunch food that can be eaten cold or kept warm in a thermos is fine to send in (sandwiches, pasta salad). Remember to send in forks and spoons if she needs them (you'd be surprised how often this is forgotten).

 

[Ariel8676]

Teach her to be less picky. Pickyness leads to a self centered moronic satanic teenager if proper parenting skills aren't enforced and established. Trust me, i have a docterate in child psychology. Teach your child to eat what is given if you want a well behaved child/teenager later down the road. Hey, when your child calls you an inappropriate name and takes ur car out hotroding and gets knocked up, dont come crying to me. I wrote and tested my doctorial thesis on this...the University where I live did some tests on it, and I am right. Hey, if you want your word over a guy with a docterate, go ahead Professor.

DON'T FEED THE TROLL PEOPLE....
Your post was completely innapropriate and uncalled for ...

 

[MSSANDRA]

Well my VERY well-behaved son was very picky in early elementry and we carried lunch quite a bit. What worked well for us was to get him involved. We had four groups, his main food,a side , a fruit or veggie, and a treat or desert. We went from there and he helped each pick the items he wanted at the grocery store. I admit I spent more buying the individual packages but it was so easy. He liked taking leftover pasta dishes in a hot thermos, he liked crackers and cheese or ham, string cheese and crackers, SOMETIMES he would eat a sandwich. Sides were things like packs of goldfish crackers, wheat thins etc. Fruit cups were good as well as grapes or cut up fruit. Whole fruit got mashed and waisted. Treats were fruit snacks most of the time. Some times a rice krispie treat or a few cookies. Sometimes he bought milk and sometimes I packed a frozen juice box that kept it all cool and thawed by lunch.

 

[stefffe]

just give her what she enjoys the teachers will like you more if you DONT put chocolate or sodas in the box...but you know your kid the best im fortunate that my dd has never really been picky....so most anything i put in her lunch box she will eat and the other kiddos are always jealous of something she has so....i think it works out

 

[Tikicampers]

the teachers will like you more if you DONT put chocolate or sodas in the box...but you know your kid the best

Some schools have rules about what a child can bring for lunch so be sure to check that out. Chocolate is usually fine, but I know soda is not allowed at our school.

 

[ldo]

I am very disappointed in the constant high-fat fried selections that are offered on a daily basis---no wonder so many kids are overweigh!
The "healthy" option is yogurt EVERYDAY--sometimes a veggie burger---we go from fried popcorn chicken to babybackrib sandwich to gorditas to fried chicken sandwiches all in 1 week--typical. I thought that schools werew under a mandate to be healthier???
We are going to make a point to pack at lesat 2-3X a week.

 

[hildarumpole]

My DD9 is a picky eater and is also put off by too much food. We have to pack her lunch every day, due to food allergies. It's been a challenge at times, because she doesn't like sandwiches. Some of her favorites: hummus and wheat crackers, cold pizza, cheese and crackers, yogurt, and soup in a thermos. We got a divided Lock n Lock container with 3 sections. We fill the big one with the main dish, and the other 2 with some sort of cut up fruit or vegetable and a small treat.

 

[mickeylove2]

We've been really lucky..the school my 2 dds go to is a lot healthier in the food choices than what I hear from others, but one thing that we do is let them buy 2 or 3 days a week and then pack the other days. Lunch options at school are things like tuna on a whole wheat roll, grilled chicken breast, lunch meat and cheese in a pita, every other Friday they can have pizza, they can have chicken strips, turkey burger (kids don't have to know right!) chef salad...the sides are always a fruit, veggie or pasta salad, applesauce with teddy grahams, carrot sticks or cucumber strips with purple, green, or orange ranch, side salad with goldfish, they can have graham cracker sticks with yogurt, apple slices with yogurt, dried fruit and nuts. They always get milk and juice. When we pack it's pretty comarable with what they serve at school anyway so it's a no brainer for our family.

 

[PrincessHeart]

I think you will find that your dd will experiment with foods as she see others eating the food. My kids were very picky eaters and they now will eat many more foods. How many choices does you lunch offer? Ours offer 5 - two that change daily, peanut butter & jelly, yogurt or grab & go (basically crackers meat & and cheese). I never make lunches b/c with 5 choices and sides they can find something to eat.

 

[Becky2005]

You might be pleasantly surprised and find that your little girl becomes less picky as she sees friends eating things she never would have eaten. Both my boys have become better eaters since starting school. Peer pressure isn't always bad...

Sarah x

We were on the free food program for a bit & since the kids pretty much *had* to eat what was given -- unless I knew for certain they didn't like it, then I would pack but that was only after they at least tried it once. Our school has 5 different choices (2 hots, 2 salads; sub sandwich) though & out of those, there is usually at least 1 thing they will eat.

Amazingly enough, they ate things that *I* won't eat! I'm actually a picky eater though (and contrary to a quoted post -- I was actually a boring teenager as in the song "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant comes to mind), so I liked the idea of the hot lunches so they could get to try foods that they would never be exposed to here.

For that matter my kids like ketchup & I don't, so a lot of the things they like if they can dip it in ketchup.

As for packing, as long as PB is allowed at your school & your child likes it. I have one who isn't allergic, just doesn't like PB&J sandwiches or much of any type of PB sandwich. I have another that doesn't like PB at all & a 3rd who loves it but had kids that have allergies in his class last year, so I just make him jelly sandwiches & he's OK with that.

My kids like summer sausage so we did sandwiches with that. We mostly did sandwiches though as my kids don't care for soup type things.

I do usually just ask them what they want. Fruit works well too if they aren't big sandwich eaters, etc... I know my kids love grapes so if I figured they were a little light on a main meal type thing, I would overpack the amount of grapes, etc... If they didn't eat them all that was fine but at least they would get full.

 

[PiperPizzaz]

I highly recommend the book The Sneaky Chef.

Also I know a lot of kids like dips, so you could do fruit with fruit dip, veggies with hummus or some veggie dip.

 

[mjantz]

I pack a lunch just about every day. The kids school does a catered lunch but we only get it 2 times/week & it seems they rarely both have hot lunch on the same day so I'm usually packing at least one lunch every day.
First, pack the night before. It really does make a difference.

My kids like kabobs. I've done both fruit & meat/cheese ones & both have been hits. I get a package of about 100 skewers at a local asian market.
Another big hit, believe it or not, is bacon. I fry it up the night before & they eat it cold the next day. Apparently, nothing says love like cold bacon!

 

[Worfiedoodles]

Please do check to see if anyone has a nut allergy before you send peanut butter. That is my best advice. Especially since your daughter is starting school, I would avoid it the first week until you get the lay of the land. It might not be an issue, or it might be a big hot red button. It varies in our school every year, depending on who's attending. I always wait until week 2 before I let it out of my house (or not). Since it can be so serious, I would rather err on the side of caution.

As for what to pack in lunches, my ds will not eat most sandwiches, lunch meat or cheese, so there's no chance of that happening. We have 5 categories of items that go into each lunch -- entree, fruit, veggie, crunchy, yogurt and treat. DS knows he's getting one of each, and he's expected to eat the entree, fruit & veggie before he goes for the treat. Crunchy usually means pretzels. Entrees are the hard part for us. I will do a jelly sandwich, leftover homemade pizza (he likes it cold), homemade chicken tenders, hard boiled eggs, soup, ravioli, etc. The hot thermos advice from the PP is invaluable.

I'm looking forward to getting great ideas from this thread, I've already seen some really good ones!

 

[SmallWorld71]

Hi,
Many of my 1st grade students brought cereal in a tupperware container and then bought milk at school. (And, if you pick a fortified, low sugar cereal it's a healthy alternative.)
Other things I saw a lot besides your regular sandwiches: yogurt, bagels, macaroni, homemade "trail mix" like concoctions, grapes, watermelon, cheese and crackers.
Don't worry about trying to pack a traditional lunch. You just need her belly to be full so she can concentrate on her work! I think more of my students brought lunches that were "unconventional" than those who brought what we adults consider lunch. Also, when my kids start school each year, I tell them not to throw away their uneaten food (except the drinks) so I can gauge if I packed too much or not enough.

As a side, congrats on your DD entering 1st grade. It's such an exciting year! Every year I am astounded by how much my students learn!