Get Your Child to Eat Lunch at School: 5 Practical Tips

Sometimes we parents need help getting our kids to eat their lunches at school. Here I share 5 practical tips that will help prepare your child for lunch time at school. When your child starts eating lunch at school they will feel better and be able to focus and learn more.

How to encourage a child a child to eat at school

This is a huge worry I hear about from Kindergarten parents. Most K teachers give their students LOTS of extra time to each their lunches but still, sometimes their lunch kits come home with a lot of food left in them. Here are a few tips:

Teach them how to open their lunch containers

I talked about this one in my post about getting kids ready for Kindergarten.

If I had to ask someone else to open my containers every single day I would not be happy. The same goes for kids! When they can do these simple things for themselves it boosts their confidence. Some kids, especially at the beginning of the year, feel shy asking for help for the same thing every day. It’s empowering for kids to be able to do simple things like this for themselves.

Pack them foods they like

If your child did not like last night’s dinner, do not pack that for them for lunch. If they hate bananas, do not give them a banana for a snack. You get the idea. I encourage my own children to try new foods at home, but school is not the place to try new lunch foods. I have learned this the hard way by giving my daughters leftovers of a meal they “sort of liked” for lunch. At the end of the day I found their thermoses full and their bellies hungry.

Let them help pack their lunch

Have a section of your fridge and pantry stocked with healthy snacks. Yogurt, cut veggies, pieces of cheese, healthy granola bars (my kids love Kind bars and Lara bars), fruit, crackers…

Let them choose which snacks go in their lunch kits. For some reason, kids are so much more likely to eat something they helped prepare. One year I grew lettuce with my Kindergarteners. When the lettuce was ready, we brought in other veggies and the kids prepared a salad THAT THEY ALL ATE. Magic!

Cut out distractions

There ain’t gonna be no lunchtime TV or iPad at school so make sure they are able to eat lunch without screens or toys at the table. This will hopefully help them eat their lunches in a shorter amount of time, which leads us delightfully to the next point…

Practice using time limits

All of the Kindergarten teachers I have ever worked with give their students an extended period of time to eat their lunches, around 30 minutes. However, the children don’t have an infinite amount of time to eat. When eating time is over, they will need to get ready to go outside. One way to practice having a time limit is to use a visual timer. I love this timer because it shows in red how much time they have left so the buzzer going is not a surprise. You can also use the timer in so many other ways at home!

I hope these suggestions help and that your kids eat their lunches so they can feel and do their best for the rest of the afternoon! You parents rock. Happy lunching!

-Breyen

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