We all pack together the night before. It can get a bit chaotic and there’s some negotiating on who gets what from the fridge but it’s generally a fun, family activity that leads to a line of lunch boxes in a garage fridge. I do try to meal plan during the week to have a selection of lunch-size leftovers and make sure there are enough fixings for salads.

Do whatever works best for your family, OP, and have no regrets.

Yes I pack their lunches (but they’re in 1st and prek).

My 1st grader has adhd so maybe he’s less capable than most kids his age, but he absolutely cannot pack his own lunch. For many reasons. Lol.

I don’t wake up and cook food though. I pack lunch boxes the night before

Anonymous wrote:I really wanted my kids to make their own lunches (K, 3rd and 5th) but whenever they do they just pack junk. No healthy food and hardly any real “main” meal. So I just stopped and now wake up earlier and make everybody food in the morning so it’s hot and ready to go.

I sort of like it - knowing I am providing them nutritious healthy food during the day even when I am not with them. But am afraid they will be losing some sort of responsibility that might stunt them later in life.

You have to do “something” for your kids other than giving births.

I want my 6th grader to make his breakfast and pack his lunch. But DH, on his mornings, enjoys making him breakfast and packing his lunch. Cooking is his love language.

He says DS doesn’t have time todo above. He has a point because it would mean waking up a lot earlier. He has a point. So this is goal is something I’ve given up on. I would rather DS get more sleep.

I pack the main and the fruit, they pack the crunchy and the dessert.

I like packing my 8th graders lunch. She could pack it but it doesn't take that long, I like doing it, she has other things I would rather her focus on and she will be making her own food for years to come.

There is another thread on here re: chores - the truth is you don't have to make your own lunch for years or do laundry every week to learn to do these things before you move out. They are life skills for sure but they aren't that hard to acquire.

I posted above that a checklist worked for us. But I thought about it some more and I wanted to come back and say that I think in an ideal world, kids need three kinds of experiences. They need experiences where they feel cared for. They need experiences where they care for or provide service to others. And they need experiences where they care for themselves.

I think as long as, across the week or month then it doesn’t really matter which one school lunch is. If you want to pack lunch 100%, as an act of love or because school mornings are hectic or because the only things your kid will eat are too complicated for little kids to prepare, that’s fine!

If you want them to provide service to the family by washing and cutting fruit for everyone’s lunch. That’s fine!

If you want them to pack their own lunch that’s fine!

Just make sure it’s balanced. Maybe you 3rd grader doesn’t help at all with lunch but they do service by taking out the family trash and feeding the dog and they are practicing independence by getting their clothes from the dryer folding them and putting them away. You’re good.

I also think kids should be involved in some way with food prep. So they develop skills.

This is why we do school lunch. I do make a good breakfast.

My kids buy their lunch at school

Do I make my children's lunches? No. The nanny packs what our PC has prepped.

Do I tell the other parents that I pack them? Absolutely I do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really wanted my kids to make their own lunches (K, 3rd and 5th) but whenever they do they just pack junk. No healthy food and hardly any real “main” meal. So I just stopped and now wake up earlier and make everybody food in the morning so it’s hot and ready to go.

I sort of like it - knowing I am providing them nutritious healthy food during the day even when I am not with them. But am afraid they will be losing some sort of responsibility that might stunt them later in life.

Keep making their lunches! I have no shame in telling you that my kids are in high school and it is one way that I show them that I love them. They’re responsible and good kids. They do the chores, mow the lawn, do their own laundry. Them not making their own lunch. Is it going to stunt them in the future. That’s reading a lot into lunches.

Another one whose mom packed her lunch through high school and is now a functional adult. Yet my kids' pack their own. However when I was their age, I was cleaning the entire family's bathrooms and doing my parents' laundry (yup). Different chore allocations work for different families. I prefer to do my own laundry and scrub my own toilet and let my kid make her own sandwich.

Anonymous wrote:My mom made my lunch until the day I graduated high school. She always said it was something she could do for me to remind me that I am loved in the middle of the day. It was really sweet. She even ended up packing lunch for my friend who had a super chaotic homelife when she heard that she rarely had lunch and was usually eating chips out of the vending machine and a frutopia (RIP) for lunch and my friend still will mention that.

I am a perfectly functional adult.

I love this. I don't think of it exactly the same way (I'm not sure how loved my kid feels opening her lunch -- I do try to give her a healthy meal that includes things she likes, but I also know she rolls her eyes at the veggies and only eats the protein begrudgingly after finishing whatever crackers or other kind of junky food I've included.

You don’t have to force specific responsibility! Work on their strengths.

I make my 8th graders lunch and she has healthy food she eats. What is wrong with that. I would make my wife’s lunch too.

They do other tasks.

My mom made my lunch until the day I graduated high school. She always said it was something she could do for me to remind me that I am loved in the middle of the day. It was really sweet. She even ended up packing lunch for my friend who had a super chaotic homelife when she heard that she rarely had lunch and was usually eating chips out of the vending machine and a frutopia (RIP) for lunch and my friend still will mention that.

I am a perfectly functional adult.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what would happen if my kids packed their own lunches. My high school son would say he doesn't need lunch and then be a hangry monster later in the day, which would be my problem. My daughter would pack random things, maybe. And unlike organic homemade mom, we sometimes have crap in our house. She's in middle school.

They'll figure it out in college. I plan to pack for them until they leave.

I only have two kids. So, I did have the energy to do more for them.

Sorry, no junk and crap food in our house. BUT, my kids were also not the school kids who would eat basic meals. They needed variety, taste and the homemade organic food needed to taste way better than commercial slop. If they wanted pizza and fried chicken, burrritos or sushi - I was making it at home. The taste is a million times better.

I think most kids will not figure out in the college how to eat healthfully and delicious meals. Cooking meals require a number of steps - planning, shopping, storing, prepping and cooking. If they are not raised with great tasting homemade meals - they will gravitate towards what they grew up eating. That is why there is an obesity problem.

Your kid is the one coming over to my house eating all my crap (not in moderation) and making me go out and buy more groceries. My kids have access to both healthy food and some crap food. They eat in moderation. Actually eat the healthy food not in moderation (a whole watermelon in one sitting?!?!) but the crap food is usually in moderation. And they are all healthy not obese kids - more boarding on too skinny.