Photo: Melissa
If your kids already attend school, I suggest that you pack them lunches to take with them. While most schools tend to offer a dinner service, that means that you have no control over what your children eat. If you want your little ones to be healthy and happy, you need to make sure that they eat the right food.
They need vitamins and minerals so that they can grow up big and strong. Here are some tips to help you pack the perfect school lunch.
Always pack things the night before school
Whether you are an early bird or not, there is no way you can pack your kids’ lunches in the morning. When you get up, you have loads of things to do. You need to make sure that your children dress themselves and have everything they need for school. You might kid yourself into thinking that it will be easy, but it won’t. You need to make sure that you give yourself time for the important morning chores. Before you go to bed, fix your kids’ lunches so that they are ready to go.
Find the right balance of food
When it comes to choosing what to put in their lunchboxes, you need to be as smart as possible. That means that you need to figure out what’s best for your little ones. Loads of supermarkets sell ‘lunchbox sized’ items, such as chocolate bars and crisps. While it might be easy to stick a piece of chocolate in the lunchbox, it is not healthy. Instead, ensure that your kids get fruit and maybe even some nuts. That way, you will know the lunch they eat is healthy. Yogurt is always a good idea too because most children love it.
Don’t make the lunches too large
Remember, you are an adult. Your appetite will be much bigger than your kids. Sometimes parents forget that children can only eat a little at a time. You might find the idea of over-packing the lunch tempting, but avoid it. In general, your children should have a lunch that it about half the size of yours. Overeating is a serious problem among small children, and so you need to take this point seriously.
Keep them cool during the summer
The problem with lunchboxes is that they keep heat in them. When the summer comes around, you might find that the sandwiches get sweaty and sticky in the box. Of course, you can’t control where the teacher stores the lunchboxes, but you can keep the food cool. Get some chilled packaging to put around the outside of the box. That way, it doesn’t matter how warm it is outside, the food in your kids’ lunchboxes will always be cool. Throughout the summer, you might want to include fruit in the box. It is important that you keep the fruit cool, or it tends to get sticky and horrible.
Make sure your kids get the same
Sibling rivalry is a real thing, and you need to combat it any way you can. If you have two or more children, they will always compare themselves to one another. You need to make sure that your children get the same things in their lunchboxes. Your children will likely chat about what they had for lunch. If they find out that you have given them different things, it could cause a massive argument. It is not worth it. It will save you time and trouble to give your kids the same lunch each day.
Remember, you have a duty to make sure that your kids eat well. By packing amazing lunches, you can make sure that they get everything they need from their food.