1st grade boy never eats his packed lunch...need other viewpoints, pls - DH is so frustrated
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Anonymous
| Pack 1/2 pbj sandwich, some cubed cheese and fresh fruit or veggies. All in ziplocks. See if your kid changes his routine. |
Anonymous
| Your DH serves the nice soup, quesadilla, etc. for breakfast and dinner, and packs pb&j for lunch. |
Anonymous
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In the younger years, they really don't have much time to eat. Everything that needs coordinated hands (ie, opening containers and eating with a fork or spoon) just takes too much time. When my kids were this age, I quickly learned that if I wanted them to have enough food-fuel to make it through the afternoon happily, I needed to make things as simple as possible. This meant just a sandwich and water. I usually put something else in, for the interest factor, but it needs to be something quick and easy. (ie, a few cherry tomatoes, or a few pretzels). If I put in too many "extras", then only the extras would be eaten and not the sandwich.
Ask your DH to go volunteer at the lunchroom and he'll see why it's hard for your child to get lunch eaten. Time is short, your child's friends are rowdy and distracting. It's loud. The staff is shouting at them. (Or was that just our school?) |
Anonymous
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Maybe let the kid pack his own lunch, with your DH's help? That way, he can make sure its healthy and DS can get what he wants. If he doesn't eat it, then address that.
A six year old should be able to make a PB and J to their personal specs. |
Anonymous
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Your kid may not like the taste and texture of cold chicken. And cold melted cheese isn't really that great - tell your DH to try it sometime. People - even kids - get to have tastes and textures that they just don't like.
On the thermos, is it possible your DH can't open it himself because it's too tight? This happened to my kid a few times when she was younger. She was not allowed to get up and ask for help and by the time she raised her hand and waited for someone to help her, lunch time would be over. |
Anonymous
| oops! meant "is it possible your DS can't open it himself...." |
Anonymous
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I agree with comments about how hard it is for kids to open things (particularly younger boys who may not have great fine motor skills.)
A few weekends I packed my son lunches in his lunchbox (this was August) and gave him the lunch box at lunch time. I pretended to be busy making my own sandwich to see which items he struggled with opening. It was interesting. In his case, the thermos as it cooled had a slight vaccuum seal and he could not twist it open. The cheese stick took him 7+ minutes to crack open. The yoghurt stick, forget it. The tab broke off and he never got to the yoghurt. And this was without all the chaos and distraction of other kids around! He was pretty fast at opening his sandwich box and pretty good with zip locs. So for right now, I send him cubed things or cut up fruit or baby carrots in a zip loc bag and a sandwich in his sandwich box. I include a fruit squeeze with the butterfly top that he can open (but can't include a mashup yet that has the little twist off cap). If I put in a cheese stick, I actually start it and put it into a zip loc, so he'll get the time to eat the cheese stick and not spend all his time trying to peel it open. This is all a way of saying that DH needs to find containers and ways to get DS food that do not involve utensils and involve few hiccups in the opening front. Your DH's food sounds delish, but time consuming for a little guy to manipulate... |
Anonymous
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If your DH is this rigid on every relatively small thing, life is going to be harder than it needs to be.
You are sending too much food. The food is too complicated. The food is probably not appetizing (e.g., a cold quesadilla, which is not any healthier than a good PB&J). There is little time to eat, especially if you're wrestling with a thermos. Send a PB&J made of healthy peanut butter (no added sugar or hydrogenated oils) (no added sugar). Send easy-to-eat fruit. Send easy-to-eat veggies. Let your son choose the fruit, veggies, and flavor of fruit spread. Send a healthy snack like a Kind bar. Done. |
Anonymous
+1. I get your DH's point of view - he's packing these great lunches; where's the gratitude!? But, you're dealing with a kid who gets to exercise the final decision over what he will actually eat, and he wants an unfussy, sugary lunch like most of his friends probably have. Your DH can be right but also wrong, which I think he is here. Right that he's packing a great lunch; wrong to have an emotional power struggle over what to pack a little kid for lunch. He can't win. For his own sake, he needs to let go, but I'm not sure how you can help him do that. Just tell him in soothing tones that you know he's 100% right, but just try a trial period of PBJs and see what happens. |
Anonymous
This is the report we got from DS, now grade 2. I'm one of those gourmet-lunch-making dads, and when he was in Montessori kindergarten he loved loved loved it. When he switched to public school first grade, lunch barely got touched. I learned that too many choices in that limited amount of time were too daunting for him. Same for too much quantity--a full serving, even a full sandwich, is too much. Now he gets half a sandwich each day, and a container with about 7 or 8 bites of fruit. That's what he can manage in the 5-7 minutes he gets to eat. Anything more, and it all comes back untouched. He's otherwise a great eater. One dad to another: put the effort into breakfast and dinner. For lunch, give yourself a break and send what works. |
Anonymous
| My 7th grader has eater PB&J everyday since K..with a very occaissional pizza slice. Whole grian bread, unsweetened jam, 100% peanut peanut butter. |
Anonymous
No, no, no. It's not a 6-7 yo's job to show gratitude by eating food his father wants him to want but he does not. It's a huge mistake to try to "force-feed" gratitude that way. Rather, you want child to learn to feel GENUINE gratitude -- for the fact that his dad loves him -- and to start to understand that his dad shows his love by packing a healthy lunch. However, this is a big concept for a 6-7 year old to understand. Punishing him for rejecting food he does not like or want is certainly NOT a way to teach him to be grateful. DH needs to step back. He is trying to impose his preferences on his child and then feeling angry and resentful when his child does not appreciate or like them. Parenting fail. Our kids are not us. They are separate people with their own likes, dislikes, preferences, motivations and moods. So DH needs to stop making this about HIM and instead work together with his DS to figure out a lunch plan that works for both of them. Even if it means PB&J every day (ideally paired with healthy sides like easy to eat fruit, veggies and protein-rich dairy). |
Anonymous
| We gave up this fight... Our DS wasn't eating his lunch most of the time -- after investigation - it became clear he was way more interested in the fact that lunch time was a social/fun time with his friends which he prioritized over eating (and we can't pack his fave PB&J b/c of class allergies) - we ended up giving him 'snacky' foods wheat crackers & cheese and put in apple crisps along with regular apples - after giving up on the theory that if he's hungry enough he'll eat the apples (which he happily does at home) -- but he really doesn't care about the food compared to the fun time of lunch - and lunch time isn't late enough for him to feel acutely hungry. We prioritized giving him something that will attract him enough to eat it at the time since he is one of those kids who turns into a gremlin when he gets over hungry - ie. so while he might not be super hungry at the designated lunch time at school, by the afternoon it would mean he would potentially start misbehaving or getting too tired to make it through the rest of the school day.) |
Anonymous
| I agree with you. Kids at this age are often picky and like to eat one thing. It's more important that he eats something nutritious and filling than it is for your DH to win the battle. Let him eat PB&J and be happy. |
Anonymous
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I agree with SO many of the points that PP's have made.
My DD (now in third grade) has eaten a cheese sandwich for lunch EVERY day since K. Every now and then I'll ask if she wants something different- the answer is always no. So I keep making cheese sandwiches. Sometimes the bread changes (two months eating sourdough, then two months eating rye, etc.). She also gets a fruit/veggie and a sweet snack. Three easy things- period. To the OP's DH (if you're reading this)- Take a step back and realize that this isn't (or shouldn't be) about you. Your son isn't rejecting you, he's rejecting your food- big difference. Put yourself in his shoes. School is hard work for a kid- there's constant pressure to do work, be a good classmate, lots of rules to remember and follow. Lunch/recess is their only time to (kind of) relax and when you turn HIS lunch into YOUR power struggle, you're robbing him of his brief chance to relax and enjoy some down time. Fix what he wants for lunch and have fun planning an exciting dinner with him. It will be time much better spent. |