Lunch Time

As I was making lunch for my kids I began to think about school lunch. Did you know that most of your child's school lunch is either traded, or thrown away? It's true. I've watched it happen many times. As my second graders would walk down the hall to the lunchroom I would hear the whispers of "I have grapes and I'll trade you for the twinki." The kids that were the best traders could end up with all junk food for lunch if they played their cards right. Most schools have a lunchroom monitor that is suppose to be watching for this, but with all the budget cuts many have done away with it to save money or only have 1 or 2 in a huge lunchroom with up to 3 or 4 hundred kids. You can help. Go have lunch with your child. Your son or daughter will love it. You can then help with the monitoring process and make sure everyone eats their own lunch.

**With all the allergies that kids have trading lunches can be dangerous for some kids. If your child does have an allergy make sure they know what they can and can't eat and how important it is that they don't trade their food with other kids.**

If you can't go eat lunch with you student for whatever reason they are some other tricks you can do to help make sure your child eats all their lunch. Even the healthy stuff.

1. Ask them what they ate for lunch - Talking about it is a great way to open the door. Make sure they understand what you expect of them. If you don't mind that they trade their sandwich for another one let them know that. They will be more open if they know what you expect.

2. Let them help with the whole lunch making process from picking what will be in their lunch box at the store to making it the night before. They will be more likely to eat it when they have a choice in what goes in it.

3. Hide something special in their lunch - This can be a note, hide a banana in their peanut butter sandwich. When they get home ask them if they had anything strange in their lunch that day. If they tell you then you will know they at least ate some of their food. If they say no you can remind them where you stand on trading food and throwing food away and the importance of eating healthy.