When it comes to school, there’s so much to think about. From social relationships, to grades, to having the right clothes to wear and taking the right classes as your kids get older.
What your kids eat at school can easily get pushed onto the back burner because either that’s the school’s problem, or you hurriedly throw together what you have in the pantry each morning.
Making sure your children are eating well and are reasonably full at school is something that deserves a little attention and some planning, for a couple of reasons.
First, the school day is pretty long, and we all know how cranky kids can get when they’re hungry, which for many of them is all the time, when they’re home at least.
If they’re hungry throughout the day, it can affect their mood as well as their ability to pay attention in class.
Second, what your child eats can also affect her emotions, behavior, and attention span. This one depends somewhat on the child, but generally for everyone, a high sugar lunch can cause a crash by the end of the day. Artificial flavors and dyes can cause behavior problems and make your child restless and inattentive.
Fact is, what your child eats at school plays a big part in setting her up for success in all the other things that are important throughout the day.
When considering whether you should stick with the lunch offered by the school, or pack your own, there are four basic questions to take into account.
1. What’s on the Menu at School?
An obvious place to start is looking at the school lunch menu. Most all schools are now required to follow some nutrition standards, but you still might find your idea of nutrition differs from what's offered.
Also, as kids get older, they're offered more choices. And while many high schools have a salad bar as a daily option, will your child opt for that over a prepackaged, processed choice that's clearly not what you'd want her eating?
For the younger kids, some schools allow you to have control and limit your child's purchases of snacks and less desirable choices.
If the menu does seem acceptable and the choices are either limited or you have confidence in your child's ability to make good choices, also consider whether the school consistently serves things your kids actually want to eat, and whether the portions are big enough to fill him up (because they often aren't).
One option is supplementing school lunch by sending a snack along that your child can eat at lunch, or another time if allowed.
2. What’s the “Cool” Thing to Do?
While this certainly doesn't matter to you, your child might see the decision to bring her lunch as either a "cool" or "uncool" thing to do.
And yes, this should factor into your decision at least to some extent.
The older your child gets, the more social pressures she'll likely feel at school, as you may well remember. There are enough of them that are beyond your control, and hers.
Whether she brings her lunch or buys it at school is something you can control, so if it's a big deal to her, try to accommodate her wishes here. There'll be plenty of other times you can teach her how it's actually "cool" to be different.
3. What’s the Cost Difference?
While the price of school lunches is certainly less than we could eat out for, it's almost always more expensive than what you can get by with if you prepared lunch every day.
This won't necessarily be true however, if you're buying a lot of prepackaged single items to make lunch prep go quick.
Yes, it's easier to buy single-serve bags of chips for lunch, but it's about three times more expensive than buying one big bag and putting some in your own smaller bag each day.
Whether cost is a big consideration for you will depend at least in part on your own financial circumstances, but if you can make a bigger lunch that is more filling and do it for half the cost of the school lunch, think about how that could add up and the things your family would rather do with that extra money.
4. What’s the Most Convenient Option?
Finally, reality requires that we look at what's most convenient for the busy mom.
Sure, growing all your own food and preparing a fresh lunch for your child each day may earn you the supermom label but really, who has time for that?
There's a lot to be said for doing what works best for your family and results in the least amount of stress and greatest amount of satisfaction when it comes to what your kids eat at school.
So maybe it is more expensive to buy your lunch, or maybe the choices aren't always what your child would pick, but the craziness of trying to get everybody out the door with a better lunch in hand may cause you to choose buying as the best option anyway.
Most schools publish the lunch menu for the entire month, so sitting down and making a calendar of which days he'll buy and which days he'll bring is another option.
As with so many things when it comes to parenting, there's no right answer here.
But, it is worth doing your research, looking at all your options, and discussing it with your child so he can best get what he needs in his body to have a more successful day.
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Hopefully these questions have made you take a fresh look at the options your child has for school lunch and whether you’re doing what best serves him considering his age and school lunch program.
The good thing is, once you’ve worked through this, you can establish a routine that doesn’t require any daily debate or extra effort on your part.
If you’ve found some value in this article, make sure to join us on Facebook to keep up with our daily updates that include our best tips and strategies for raising happy and healthy kids.
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