Packed Lunches for School

redfox

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tessasmum

I think another part of your question needs answering as well - about limiting the access your children have to the food you have set aside for the lunchboxes. There are families where the children are not allowed to help themselves to anything beyond fruit from the fruit bowl or something basic like bread, and there are others where the kids help themselves willynilly to everything - and you need to find a balance that works for your family.

Personally, I have a stash place that the children don't know about, and if there is something that I don't want raided, then I put the packet/tub etc away and they do not have unlimited access to it. I bring the items out as and when I think they are appropriate. They know that there are things that they can help themselves to, but generally they come to me and tell me that they are hungry and ask what they can have. They are 13 and 16, and this has been our way for years.

You can't control the food shop and the budget if you don't "control" the children, to at least some extent! Good luck.

cutestkids

tessasmum wrote: »

I think another part of your question needs answering as well - about limiting the access your children have to the food you have set aside for the lunchboxes. There are families where the children are not allowed to help themselves to anything beyond fruit from the fruit bowl or something basic like bread, and there are others where the kids help themselves willynilly to everything - and you need to find a balance that works for your family.

Personally, I have a stash place that the children don't know about, and if there is something that I don't want raided, then I put the packet/tub etc away and they do not have unlimited access to it. I bring the items out as and when I think they are appropriate. They know that there are things that they can help themselves to, but generally they come to me and tell me that they are hungry and ask what they can have. They are 13 and 16, and this has been our way for years.

You can't control the food shop and the budget if you don't "control" the children, to at least some extent! Good luck.

I agree with this approach, if you were to leave my kids to help themselves as and when to whatever they fancied then the cupboards would be bare.

Mine are allowed to help themselves to fruit and generally when they come in from school will have a snack of toast or crackers and cheese, if I have been baking they may have a scone or pancake.

The stuff I buy for packed lunches is not to be touched without asking first.

I find that packed lunches are cheap to make usually either a sandwich or wrap with any of the following cheese, tuna, ham, chicken, egg with salad.
Or I do a salad with cubes of cheese or cooked chicken.

They have a yogurt, 2 bits of fruit and sometimes a pack of crisps or other treat but not every day.

Drink is water or very dilute squash which I make up in their sports bottles.

BAGGY

I have 4yr old twins who take pack ups. I am also getting bored of the sandwich route but chic drumsticks, pasta in sauce, yoghurt etc is messy and time consuming to eat. Anyone know the best crackers to pack buttered, that wont go bendy by 12?
My boys have a s/w, 1/2 pack crisps, 1 piece fruit, 1/2 granola bar and a drink. They must get bored. Sometimes i do buttered french stick with cheese and cold meat slices and that goes ok apart from DT1 who leave most of the crust. I did think fish stix would be ok in winter as the pack are not refrigerated but wouldnt risk them in summer. Cold sausages seem to go ok. Wraps remain untouched.
With DT2 any amount of fruit and veg gets eaten 1st and they get the government fruit scheme piece each day.

trulymadlydeeply_indebt!

Luckily I don't have fussy eaters, but I'm sure they would be bored with the same thing everyday so I have started changing the type of sandwich. One day might be a roll, another a traditional sandwich, another day a bagel, another day a wrap, another day a baguette, another day a pitta, another no sandwich, but chicken drumstick and veg sticks etc., - you get the idea.

I found in the early days that the pack-up foods bought at the weekend were gone by Tuesday thanks to snacking on a whim. I countered this by putting the largest tupperware box I could find on the top shelf of the fridge with a sticker on it - "packed lunch items - do not touch!" with the understanding that anything else in the fridge was fair game. It actually worked!!! I now have no problems and perhaps it could work for you too. I baulk that school want £11.50 per week, per child (I have 2).

We also have a banned list at school - no nuts, no fizzy drinks/cordial. It's milk or water. As another poster said, Schools can be hypocritical when they are producing stodgy puddings every single day.

BTW, my daughter has always been on the hefty side (not fat, just bigger than all her skinny friends!). She's a tall 9 year old in size 11+ Next trousers. Since stopping school lunches 6 weeks ago, she has lost a little bit of her roundness and her school trousers are constantly being hitched up!:T

Buttonmoons

Im lucky in a sense as my daughter recieves free school meals, but most days she doesn't like anything on the menu (she is fussy - doesnt like things like pizza, burgers, beans, soups, sausage rolls etc) and the days she does eat there she is usually starving when I pick her up and the food combos are odd.

She is P2 so she is almost front of the queue so should be ample choice, last week one of the options was fish & chips, so she went, when I picked her up she got fish and naan bread (?????) There wasn't even curry on the menu that day so no doubt using the leftover naans from the day before and I don't know where the chips went.....The puddings are her fave *rolls eyes* They constantly deviate from the menu GRRR.

Packed lunch she has ham or tuna sandwiches, either in seeded bread or a tortilla wrap. Sometimes she has falafels in a pita bread. With that she gets a carton of apple juice or squash, some mini breadsticks/or crackers (she doesn't like spread) carrot sticks/couple of chunks of pineapple/melon/apple whatever, and a little biscuit.

Better than fish and naan with carrot cake lathered in cream (although I'd deffo agree with her that carrot cake sounds more yummy than a custard cream lol)

winniepooh

my little boy takes packed lunch cause the school dinners are so expensive, he takes sandwiches or bagels or pitta bread, pasta, cous cous, tomatoes, grapes, strawberries, cheese, crisps, yoghurt or rice pudding and a drink, he always eats everything

xxlouisexx56

I have one DD who is in yr2 and nearly 7.

She normally has a roll or a bagel with cheese or ham. If we have pasta in the week I will always keep a small portion aside to give her for lunch the next day too.
I only buy packed lunch stuff on offer. So cereal bars, mini biscuit packs etc. my own rule is that I won't pay more than £1 for 5 items so it will last the week. The same goes for yogurts.
I have a tuppawear box in the cupboard with the packed lunch snacks so she doesn't have to have to same things all week.

tessie_bear

i have enjoyed reading this thread....very eye opening...if a school frisked my kids packed lunch i would be telling the head where to place his bill for a school lunch....how do you make a tray of flapjacks for 1 quid ??? the recipe i use has a block of butter/oats/syrup/brown sugar/pumpkin seeds
does the poster who gives their child a filled pitta bread not find that they go soggy ?

my kids have a sandwich..granary bread with a filling such as ham/cheese/tuna/chicken (from the sunday lunch)
a packet of crisps (bought cheap in home bargains)
a bit of hm cake/flap jack
sometimes veg sticks red pepper/carrot
a bit of fruit apple/satsuma/some grapes
a drink (fruit sh00t bottle filled with low sugar squash)
sometimes leftovers...a bit of pizza/chicken/a sausage roll

i think the key to a reasonably priced packed lunch is looking out for the constituent parts reduced or on special offer and staying away from branded stuff....the laughing bovine springs to mind as an overpriced non essential...hth

Poppy9

tessie_bear wrote: »

i have enjoyed reading this thread....very eye opening...if a school frisked my kids packed lunch i would be telling the head where to place his bill for a school lunch....

When my DD was in primary school (she is now Y13) the Head called a meeting of parents to discuss healthy eating etc. Only the parents of 10 children turned up (school had 200 children).

The small group of parents who were there were in agreement. The consensus was no sweets at break time, no junk, including fizzy drinks, in the lunch box. School meals had already become balanced healthy meals a couple of years before.

The head sent out a letter outlining his requests that parents do not send their children to school with:
sweets
chocolate bars
fizzy and other sugary drinks
with the date of the next meeting so any parents who had concerns and were unable to make the first meeting could attend. No new parents came to this meeting so the policy was introduced.

In return the school fitted a water filter/cooler to the mains and each child was given their own water bottle. The children could drink water throughout the day, including in lessons, to keep them hydrated.

He was then subjected to some angry phone calls from parents saying "my little jonny only likes junk food basically". The Head's response was he had called 2 meetings, he wasn't banning junk food from the child's diet just the 6 hours that they were on school premises.

Teachers did not police the lunch boxes, the lunch time supervisors who supervised the sandwich children did this. Parents still sent their children in with crisps and chocolate but with no fuss they were placed back in the child's bag to go home with them. Eventually they stopped sending them in. The children seemed to accept they were not allowed quite easily.

Teachers noticed a huge improvement in the children's behaviour after break and lunch.

My DD mostly had hot school dinners which always had a minimum of 3 veg on offer. Dessert was usually yogurt, fruit or a fruit cake (only allowed on menu a limited number of times per menu rota). Water was the only drink offered. In the summer children could opt for sandwiches or salad instead of a hot meal if they wished. I found my DD tried a lot more different foods when she was eating school dinners as children do copy one another.

I really don't see why parents fight against the banning of junk from lunch boxes. It is beneficial for their children's health. Children are only in school from 9am to 3.30pm. When they walk out of the school doors they can stuff their faces with whatever they want, junk has not been banned from their diets but merely the time slot for eating it has been reduced.