“Chips and a rice krispie treat!” My first-grader chirped happily.
“That’s what you had for lunch?” I asked incredulously as the preschooler started the tantrum process (everything must be equal in this household) and the baby took up a chorus of “Chip! Chip!!!!”
“Oh yeah, and a chocolate milk.” (Note to self: the mystery of the two cavities before age 7? Solved.)
Normally, given the societal cacophony regarding that stuff we put into our mouth and also need to live, I try to reserve judgment on what my son has for lunch on the one day a week he’s allowed to have hot lunch with his kickball cronies. Especially since the other four days he’s stuck with a nutritionally balanced home lunch packed by me, I try to just take a deep breath and go to my happy place whenever he talks about chicken nuggies or tater tots or french toast sticks with vats of fake syrup. I may have mentioned it here a time or two but I have food issues. And I’m trying really hard not to pass those onto my kids.
But a rice krispie treat, chips and chocolate milk?!?!?
“Wasn’t there some protein? Or, say, a fruit or vegetable?” I croaked, visions of Wall-E dancing before my eyes.
“Oh yeah,” he nodded seriously. “They had that brown crumbly stuff on tortillas. You know that stuff?”
Do I know cafeteria mystery meat? Were there vegetarians in the Donner party? Some questions are better left unasked, son.
High Fructose Highway to Hell
As my mother is fond of reminding me, you can’t bubble wrap your children. Not only does it not work for protecting them from life’s hard lessons but it also says specifically on the wrap “not for use with children.” (Ironic considering I don’t know a single child who doesn’t adore the stuff.) It’s like those cruel plastics manufacturers read my mind and then stole the dream away.
Anyhow, part of letting my children grow up and develop a healthy relationship to food is allowing them to sometimes eat things I deem questionable (i.e. with more dubious ingredients than Edward Scissorhands had paper cuts). I tell myself that it’s about modeling good decision making and then giving them opportunities to make choices themselves.
Of course we are also talking about the same kid who just yesterday licked the metal frame of the bus window in -45 (F) degree temps and discovered for himself that The Christmas Story isn’t just a light-hearted holiday classic but also the harrowing tale of what happens when you gamble against the laws of chemistry. He’s six; he’s not exactly known for making brilliant decisions. (And yes, since I know you are wondering, he panicked and yanked his tongue off and his now the proud owner of a skinned tongue. Like I told my high-schoolers: Don’t mess with physics. It wins every time.)
So I tooled around his school’s website and discovered that the menu actually listed exactly what my little George Washington had said: soft taco, chips and for dessert they had a choice of a rice krispie treat or a banana. And like my son astutely observed, “We always, like, have bananas at home.” The other option listed in teeny tiny print was “green salad.” I considered calling the lunch ladies’ bluff and showing up to see if any elementary child has ever in the history of the school chosen the green salad option but, like I said, negative forty five here. I can’t even walk to my mailbox without my nose hairs forming a unique snowflake pattern.
In an attempt to be helpful, the school menu completed the trifecta of nutritional terror by providing the calories, fat grams and sodium content of each meal. I almost fainted. It makes a Happy Meal look downright sensible. Plus, at McDonald’s, at least you get a movie tie-in toy. Double the whiny fun!
So what’s a formerly eating-disordered mother to do? We’ve discussed the sensitive topic of childhood obesity here before. Do I take away his lunchtime ticket to coolville? After all, his fate as a geek was pretty much sealed the day he was born to my husband and I. Or is one school meal/nutritional train wreck a week an acceptable risk to take with growing bodies and minds?
At least the chocolate milk has protein in it, right? Oh fudge.
I say let him have it! If you don’t, he’s gonna want it more and ergo, more whining. It’s my guess that he gets very well fed the other 20 meals of the week, so a little freedom of food choice can do very little damage. Plus, he’ll learn soon enough about all the “good stuff” out there he shouldn’t eat. I say being back in the carefree days of childhood would be a dream, don’t take it away too soon.
By the way, I need some ideas on a nutritional cold lunch. PBandJ just isn’t cutting it anymore.
I’m having a flashback to an episode I read about in Isaac Asimov’s memoirs. As soon as he went out on his own as an adult, he bought an entire bottle of soda (forbidden!) and drank it by himself. And he found that he hated it. He concluded, sadly, that he was going to end up living the way his parents had always taught him to live.
I think in the long run you’re a greater influence than the school board. Thus spake the great expert (of things that you read about in memoirs).
I agree with the comment above. You have far more influence on your kids then you might realize. They are always watching you, even when you think they aren’t. If you set a good example, I think you’re kids will be fine.
– Dave
I’d agree with aboyn3girls in so far as denying it will only make the junk more desirable, forbidden fruit and all that. It sounds like the real treat here is eating food that doesn’t get provided at home (because you are caring and loving parents who do not want to poison your children!) Would it be possible to send him to school that day with some extra fruit/healthy snacks? I know that would be more calories but at least they would be nutritionally sound. He might eat some of the junk provided, but then prefer to eat the rest of the healthy snacks instead?
We were initially raised on a very healthy, wholesome diet. So even though I know I have my own food issues now, I’m glad that my Mum gave me a good foundation for healthy eating. I think your kids will really appreciate the good example you’ve set.
I think one meal a week for an active child is absolutely fine. Afterall balance isn’t just about nutrition, it also applies to life in general. And if one (disgusting in our opinion) meal makes him not get spit balls pelted at him from the other kids then no harm done. I think your meals would more than make up for anything they missed out on at one meal.
Now more importantly, are they your kids and possessions covered in paint?!?!?
Go with it – as you say, you eat really healthily at home and when you pack his lunches. I would wager your kids get more balanced nutrients than 99% of the others at their school. A meal off in the name of choice is a noble sacrifice on your part, but one which I’m sure will be massively appreciated.
As your little guy says, they get lots of bananas at home…. we didn’t even have a fruit bowl in our house!!!
TA x
I say let him have it as well. I was recruited years ago–premamahood—by a group of women to go to the school board here and protest the lunches having ‘extras’
they wanted to ban all the icecreams eat and were shocked when I said NO that I was FOR IT (different that what you are talking about but close).
That we need to teach our children about choice at home perhaps and THEN send them out into the world—but removing all ‘temptation’ wasnt the path I was for.
just my opinion after hanging out too often with a healthnunmoms child growing up and, tho skinnny, all she could talk about when out of her moms grasp was where we could go and buy sugar snacks.
I never got it then because they werent forbidden in my house….
+1 to letting him have lunch that one day, especially if it keeps him from whining to have school lunch the rest of the week. It doesn’t take many kids too long to figure out that school lunch is nasty anyway. Plus, I think he would view “taking away” school lunch as a punishment for something, and as far as I can tell, he hasn’t done anything besides be a 6-year-old boy.
Flashback to the early 80’s when my now 32 year old son was in kindergarten.
Because as an (tongue in cheek!) “enlightened” mother who wanted the perfect diet for her son, I “shared” some of my knowledge with his geriatric teacher, who gave out jelly beans as “thinking pills.”
Long story short, what she did was to single him out in anger at me. If there was a birthday party, she gave him saltines, saying that was what I wanted him to have instead of the gooey cupcakes made by another kid’s Mom.
He believed that the directive came from me and I never knew what was happening until another kid went home and told HIS mother.
I know this is about school lunches, but I just sent mean daggers to his nasty, evil, obese kindergarten teacher, who mistreated my son in many ways.
It was always my intention to allow my son to participate in what was going on, but at home, to teach him to make good choices.
He does pretty well now, making a Mom proud, calls me for recipes and is pretty darned healthy with good exercise habits. YAY!
This has been a struggle for me as well. My oldest girl was diagnosed with high cholesterol at 24 months because I fed her white pasta, white rice and white breads and crackers. (She’s also at the 25 percentile for weight – that’s not causing it.) But we just don’t live in a “whole grain” world – despite what the manufacturers of the sugared cereals want us to believe. I would have to completely remove her from society to keep her clear of the stuff.
Once a month, every member of our family gets to pick dinner. That, of course, means mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and the like. I deal with it. If my kids go to a birthday party, visit Grandma’s, sample cookies from Target, etc. I just be quiet and let them have it. We just don’t generally have it in the house. My kids know where I stand on healthy eating and they know what’s good for your body and what’s okay for an occasional treat. “Train a child in the way he should go…”
You touched on one of my biggest pet peeves with the American school system. I think that if we fed those kids better every day, we would see dramatic changes in behavior and academic skills. (I have read studies where this was done in alternative schools for children with severe behavioral problems and it worked wonders.) And you can’t even trust the school menus. Once I ate lunch with my daughter and the menu said “grapes” but what they were serving was a mix of 75% marshmallows and 25% grapes.
It’s easier said than fixed. If the menu was switched, the prices would probably double. It would cost more to buy, more to prepare and more would go to waste because it spoils much faster. Since over 25% of children have their lunch (and sometimes breakfast) paid for by the government and the other 75% aren’t going to like paying $4.00 for a kid’s meal, there’s a problem. The other backlash from the parents will be because a lot of kids won’t eat this stuff. It’s a war the public school system doesn’t want to fight.
Our school district in Texas said “no food with sugar first on the ingredients list can be consumed during school hours.” So you can eat mystery meat and chocolate, but not candy. The parents and teachers protested and had Valentines with candy passed out as soon as the bell rang and school was dismissed.
In Arkansas, they tried to be more sophisticated. “No junk food for packed lunches or snacks and only 3 class parties a year.” (I guess marshmallows in the grapes don’t count.) So the parents and teachers again protested and had such large parties ($250 party out of planning mom’s and other parents’ pocket) that the kids couldn’t eat half the junk at the party and were sick the rest of the day. Then they brought home large bags of treats. And what were the snacks parents always brought in? Fruit roll ups, fruit snacks, white crackers – all junk. It’s an uphill battle. You just have to do the best you can.
My children want nothing to do with school lunches. I used to let them pick a day for two each week for eating from the cafeteria. They’d only eat parts of most lunches, and then were hungry all after noon. It didn’t take long for them to realize they prefer the home packed lunch. They still buy ice cream on Fridays, which keeps them part of the gang.
Don’t worry about letting your son’s one day of cringeworthy nutrition. By having that day of whatever everyone else is eating, he never associates the junk food with being something mysterious and forbidden. He (and your other kids, when they’re older) gets to see it as something that’s okay every once in a while, which is a healthy attitude. As others have said, the 6 days a week you make lunch are likely to be the basis for his future choices.
aboyn3girls:
Let go of the sandwich. Send a scoop of peanut butter in a little container, with apple slices, carrot/celery sticks and pretzels, or crackers or whole wheat flat bread. Cheese cubes, cashews, yogurt are other protein options.
My younger two love the couple of “snacky” lunches I make each week. It’s usually the two days the 8th grader is eating cafeteria food. I like those days too, because I pack the lunches the night before, which means less mess during the morning rush.
Like you, I let my kid buy a school lunch once a week, and don’t stress over what it does to them nutritionally in the long run. It doesn’t make me stop worrying about the kids who have to eat the lunches every day.
Does everyone remember the series with Shaq and Tyler Florence where they were trying to get healthier choices to Florida schools? For the most part, kids threw the healthy food away because they didn’t have any experience w/ eating healthy food at home, and their palates couldn’t take the healthy choices. The schools couldn’t justify putting healthier options on the menu because it would go to waste.
I’m joining the chorus of let-him-eat-school-lunch-one-day-a-week. By asking questions (and then refraining from giving any answers or commenting yourself), you could maybe prompt him to some body self-awareness about how he feels after those lunches vs how he feels after the healthy lunches you pack for him.
Another vote for let him have it.
Besides the social aspects of lunch with everyone else, the worst thing, IMO, is to set up these “yummy” foods as a forbidden treat that he will seek whenever he gets a chance.
Now, that’s probably just projecting my own food disorders onto an innocent situation, but there’s a world of choices out there, and some day he will have to make them on his own, so it seems to me better to work on healthy choices and moderation on everything else than to make the bad stuff tantalizing and magical.
Setting a good example is the best we all can do.
Great kids, Charlotte!!
My parents didn’t buy or give me much junk when I was growing up, but my grandmother (who I spent large amounts of time with) did. Her house was like heaven. A heaven that very regularly left me throwing up because my body couldn’t handle the food/sugar overload (binge).
Fast forward to me living on my own at 18. Went crazy. Ate at Taco Bell every night for a month because it was just so wonderful to be able to do it … and gained 50 pounds.
I never learned moderation. I’m 28 and still trying.
Hi Charlotte,
I have a few thoughts on this post. My parents had no restrictions on us when it came to junk food. We ate horribly. I look back in horror at my afternoons filled with soda, candy, and ice-cream. I WILL never raise a child on what I ate growing up.
I had a friend in the neighborhood, and her parents were the extreme opposite of mine. Health food 24/7, no exceptions. My little friend would come over to my house and eat all the junk food she wanted and usually leave with an upset stomach. Yep, our house was always the most popular hang-out. A swimming pool plus an endless pizza buffet…ugh, I’m cringing.
I think it is important to find a happy medium and just do the best you can with your own food. Kids imitate their parents. We have friends who eat very well, and they LOVE their healthy eats, but they don’t have any forbidden foods either. Seems like a good balance, and their kids are the same way. They’ll beg for another spoonful of hummus or another plate full of berries, but if they go to a b-day party, then they eat some cake. No biggie. Honor your own body with nutrition and hopefully the kiddos will follow your example. If they indulge every once in a while, I think it will keep them from bingeing on junk foods whenever they get the chance. I guess I’m just trying to say…all things in moderation. I don’t have kids, and so this may be much easier said then done, but I hope hope hope that I will lead by example someday.
Allow me to speak to your inner nerd; one questionable meal out of 21 means that he’s eating a balanced diet 95% of the time (I speak fluent Nerd-ese).
Also, I echo everyone else’s sentiment that your example is more important. I grew up in a house with a stay-at-home mom that avoided almost all processed food like the plague. When I moved out I went through a brief phase where I indulged in tons of processed crap, but fairly soon realized how I didn’t really enjoy it and was soon back to eating primarily whole foods.
And I experienced the same thing as Asimov, but with Kraft Dinner. The first time I had it I was in my teens, and I was so excited only to be immediately disappointed upon first taste. How some people consider it “comfort food” I do not know.
I think it all depends on how much this bothers you… I want to say that you should just pack him a lunch all 5 days. Maybe give him one day where he gets a treat, but it’s still a healthy treat.
And here’s hoping that when he gets older, he’ll realize that school lunch is gross and isn’t really “food.” And he’ll LOVE the lunch you make him!!
It is shocking that with such awareness of the child obesity epidemic that a school would continue to serve meals with such a high content of calories, fat, sodium. I do think it is fine that you son has these tpyes of meals only once a week – definitely not enough to cause any harm, and it will give him some enjoyment. That being said, it couldn’t hurt to write a letter to the school board about the meals they serve — and knowing you, I am sure it would be a fantastic letter!
All I have to say is that I am a first grade teacher, and once every week or two, we have FUNNEL CAKES for breakfast. Just like the ones at the fair. Enough said.
My mother fondly recalls that when I was in grade school I would “trade” items from my home-packed nutriously balanced lunches. My favorite? Trading a cheese string for a Brownie. Sometimes as a parent you just can’t win and children are resourceful.
Seriously? A cheese string for a brownie. I don’t get that kind of exchange rate as an adult. 😉
I’d talk to the school about that. Suggest that they get slightly healthier options- its very rare a kid is going to choose a banana over a rice krispie treat, but there’s lots of fun and healthy treats. Or have a fruit salad instead of a banana- the colors are more exciting for kids.
But if the school refuses to change the system, I wouldn’t worry too much. I refused to eat any brown bread/rice etc until I was about 15 and I ate all kinds of awful stuff because I was such a picky eater. And now I’m all about the healthy! No lasting damage. Especially if your kids DO eat really good at home.
PS Is it strange that I still have a fascination with bubble wrap?
I mostly agree with everybody in that one small meal of utter crap a week is no big deal.
However, that’s ignoring the fact that once kids start school 5 days a week, it’s 5 meals a week of utter crap. And at that point, what do you do?
We are planning on homeschooling our boys, and while we have many reasons for doing so, one of the minor ones is the quality of the school lunches, in general. Both of our daughters (who each live with the other parent) go to public schools. The lunches are of dreadful quality (remember the meat recall recently where most of the meat had gone to schools and already been eaten?). When my daughter would take a lunch, she would be teased and picked on for what was in her lunch. There is no good solution.
And when you take into account that breakfast is available in schools now (and that meal is probably worse than the lunches), and that many schools have vending machines available before and after school, especially when the kids get older and have extracurriculars, kids are soon eating a large percentage of their food at school, whether you want them to or not. A preschooler eating one meal a week? No biggie. A teen eating half his food from the schools? Suddenly it’s a much bigger problem.
You can’t prevent him from eating bad food. If you don’t give him a pass once in a while, he’ll never be able to make choices for himself, and if/when he visits a friend’s house that has lots of junk foods, he’ll go on a binge.
It’s better that he’s okay with telling you what he had than having him try to lie to you about food.
I’m a lunch/recess monitor at a local elementary school in California. About half of the kids get the school lunch 5 days a week, and lemme tell you, most of it is crap.
Yesterday they had a choice of cheese pizza or sloppy joe, both on refined white bread, of course.
Then they get to have whatever they want on the side-dish table. The choices were: whole bananas, baby carrots so old and dry they were white, chips, cookies, and milk. Guess which items get picked and which ones don’t?
The homemade lunches aren’t much better. There are a couple dozen parents who you can tell make a real effort, but the rest of them are extremely sugar laden; “fruit” rolls and “fruit” drinks and granola bars that are loaded with HFCS, peanut butter and jelly on white bread, that sort of thing.
Forbidding the bad food “because I said so” is never a good idea (unless your secret desire is to make your child crave junk food). This leaves you two options: you can (1) allow the child to choose with no information to guide his choice, or (2) talk to him about his choice (without taking it away from him). I prefer the second option; it simultaneously respects the child’s freedom and gets him using that freedom intelligently. No matter what his choice ends up being, he will think about it more carefully after talking it through with you. It goes without saying that your information will carry more weight if he sees its usefulness evident in your own life.
As a former child (the only frame of reference I have since I’m not a parent), anything your parents forbid you from eating will be your undoing later. My parents tried too hard to get me to eat super healthy and it backfired – I refused to eat with them. I mean, I was practically vegetarian as a child and every meal was a big hunk of meat. Anyhoo, I would say that if they are happy eating one meal of utter crap and healthy food the rest of the time – I think you’re doing better than 99.99% of the parents out there, and the rest of them are just asking for disordered kids later, imo. 🙂
so they feed them crap like that, but then they cant bring peanut butter sandwhiches because someone MIGHT be allergic to peanuts. what is going on in our schools? lets ignore the hugest childhood epidemic and feed them crap, but then freak out over possible allergies. i dont get it.
The peanut allergy thing really bothers me. yes, some people are deathly allergic, but its impossible for an allergy to rise 18% in 10 years. genes dont mutate that fast. how about we focus on real issues like pumping our kids full of sugar and preservatives.
Kelly Turner
http://www.everygymsnightmare.com
We let A have one school meal a week too. I have no idea what he eats, I’ve stopped asking.
I make sure he eats healthy foods at home, and pack him healthy lunches (although today he had a cupcake that was leftover from his little brother’s preschool birthday treats).
It’s hard to find a balance so that your kids eat healthy foods but also don’t go crazy if someone gives them foods that have always been taboo.
I used to think the whole peanut allergy thing was kind of crazy and overblown, until I was diagnosed, at the age of 30, as allergic to peanuts. I didn’t believe the doctor, as I’d eaten peanut butter that very morning. But, I tried cutting out the PB to see what would happen, and a lot of worrisome symptoms that I hadn’t recognized as being allergic reactions went away. (I used to get severe nausea at night, other digestive issues, and hives.) Also, I realized that the reason I would sometimes get hives after my husband kissed me (seriously) was because of the peanuts, and this was something I’d been experiencing for years.
I never would have imagined I was allergic to peanuts, but I so clearly am. It’s not serious, but it’s real.
Why it’s increased so much so fast I have no idea. It doesn’t make sense, at all, but it’s happening, and has to be dealt with. And I can have a skin reaction hours after my husband has eaten peanuts, just from whatever tiny particles might be caught in his mustache or beard.
How it should be handled in schools in another issue. I think there’s some unfairness in singling out the peanut issue without also addressing the fact that some people have other life-threatening allergies to things harder to avoid – someone who owns a cat and has cat hair on their clothes could trigger a fatal reaction in someone allergic to cats, for example.
Anyway, sorry for the side rant, but my own experience with allergies, specifically the peanut one, have seriously changed how I view the issue and made it more important to me.
Kelly-
Allergies aren’t just caused by genes, like everything, it’s the interaction between genes and environment. So it’s possible/likely that it’s not the genetic component of peanut allergies that’s increasing, but rather the environmental component.
Lots of great commentary today. “Food” for thought. My kindergartner know what’s healthy and what is junk food, not that he always chooses wisely. I send home lunches with him to school, and on Fridays Kindergartners are allowed to go the snack shack (other grades are allowed snack shack on any day of the week). He gets $2 and I tell him to pick at least one healthy treat. Even if he doesn’t choose wisely, I’m putting the thought of healthy food in his mind.
My first grader eats hot lunch maybe once or twice a month…Partially to save money, partially because I know he’s particular about food and not much on the menu sounds that appetizing to him. He loves the “French toast sticks”, of course. That was the first hot lunch he bought. After he came home that day I asked him what exactly he’d eaten for lunch. His answer? “French toast sticks, syrup, sausage, OJ, and [get this!] broccoli” LOL! Apparently raw broccoli was one of the choices at their “five-star fruit/veggie bar”. I know, weird combo (mmm…broccoli and syrup!), but I was pleasantly surprised that he’d actually made the choice on his own to get something green… 😉
Anyway, I’m with the others – let your son have the hot lunch. I know you do a fantastic job providing healthy foods at home and in packed lunches… and I really like the idea another commenter had about the “what did you have for lunch?” question helping to start a conversation about how we feel after eating junk food vs. healthy foods. You’re an awesome mother Charlotte, and I have much to learn from you! 🙂
I think you’ve got a lot of great comments here, as usual. Of course, I’ll throw my two cents in as well.
I like to blame my mother for my weight problem because of all of the food restrictions in my house growing up. I’m sure others are aware of the “Do-you-really-need-more-of-that?” look that I often received.
Of course, as soon as I earned a little bit of freedom, I was off and running. I cringe now to think of how much money I spent on soft pretzles, ice cream, and cinnamon rolls at the mall.
I agree that restricting foods make them more enticing. If he only eats one meal a week of school lunch and the rest at home–you pack his lunch the other days? That’s what I understood, anyway–then that one day is like a special treat for him.
I know it’s hard not to shudder at the meal options on the lunch calendar. I told my daughter she could only drink chocolate milk one day a week…then I found out she was drinking chocolate one day and strawberry the other days, so I had to clarify that little rule. Chocolate OR strawberry one day and white the rest of the days.
(I shouldn’t say I’ve stopped asking, because I usually do ask, just not as often)
If my 8 year-old told me he ate a rice krispy treat and chips for lunch, I’d probably say, “wow, that sounds like a lot of treats, what did you eat that to help your body grow?”
And he’d probably tell me he ate some oranges and a chocolate milk (“because chocolate milk is KIND of healthy, right mom?”).
We talk about what foods help us to be strong and healthy, and what foods are treats, because they taste good, but that wouldn’t be healthy to eat too often.
Sometimes he surprises me with his good food choices, and sometimes he just wants the junk.
🙂
Balance.
OK, I’m just gonna add my voice to the others saying you’re doing the right thing. The more we forbid foods, the more attractive they become. When kids see their parents making healthier choices, they will too. Eventually.
I say let him have it. We feed our girls very healthy most of the time and then let them stray when they want. I think it keeps them healthy and liking to eat healthy knowing that nothing is really off limits. My oldest has recently decided to eat very healthy but does ‘fall off the wagon’ once in a while. I have told her that if she eats healthy 90% of the time, she is doing great. A cinnamon roll (her trip up last week) here and there will not hurt her. I know for me, if I ban a food, I crave it more than anything.
I expect that if you take away that one lunch, he might want it every day. When I was young, I brought lunch from home every day but my friends bought lunch (a money issue, not a health food issue – wonder bread every day). I would take the money I earned ironing my dads handkerchiefs (odd family, I know) and buy lunch sometimes and throw mine away. When I got caught by the lunch ladies, I would just bring it home and hide it in my room. One day our dog found my stack of old lunches, and I was found out. I would suggest not driving your son to my actions – the aftermath with the dog eating month-old tuna was really not nice –
I agree. Let him have it. One thing kids have to learn is how to make good choices. This, of course, extends beyond just food.
It sounds as if you’re packing his lunch most days. Giving him the opportunity to have a treat one day a week will let him have some control, and give him a “treat” day. We all need those. Myself included.
I’m another in the camp of “let him have it.”
Back when I was a tot, my mom fed us the 1970’s pinnacle of healthy food–lots of whole grains, TVP, and veggies she grew herself. I didn’t have store-bought bread until I was 10, and never had sugared cereals or school lunches. It just wasn’t done, and I never really missed it.
As I got older, I ate some processed, crappy food, but I always came back to veggies, fruits, and lean meats and legumes. *shrug* It’s what I’m used to, and what tastes best.
Mom has *zero* issues surrounding food, by the way. When Dad was teaching a night class, our dinner would be popcorn (made in a manual popper!) and OZ books. That was a twice-a-month treat, but she didn’t make a big deal about it. The fact that I was allowed to read at the table was much more exciting to me.
RELAX. Your kid is getting good healthy food 95% of the time, and he won’t pick crap *every* time he gets a hot lunch. You’re doing fine. Great, in fact.
Hey Charlotte: I am a faithful follower, but 1st time replier! I actually know you from the Y! I have to say my older child basis her lunch selection on the sweet treat available and my younger child will only eat veggies and salads! So I guess, choices are a good thing, but control is also not an answer. I feel that I offer atleast 2 meals that are balanced by me and the 1 meal choice a day is not going to hurt my child (unless they get a tummy ache or use all the money in their account on cookies) because then I will be mad! Also I as a child put my tongue on the freezer door to lick it and ripped it off in fear of being in trouble. Hard to hid the blood! Tongues bleed like crazy! But I survived!
I vote with all those who say let him have it. They’ve all covered the reasons why. Bottom line: Forbidding something only makes it more attractive.
A few days after school started, my 5th grader was assembling her healthy homegrown lunch when my husband said, “Whoa, girl! Let’s pare that back.” He surreptitiously counted the calories in her lunch and the breakfast she had set out for the next morning, and then her dinner from the night before (all average) to total more than 3,000 calories!!! She’s TEN. No wonder she put on so much weight recently. I’m all for storing up for puberty, but we were shocked. It’s back to the nerdy home lunches for her, no more of the cool prepackaged “single” serving packets. Buying lunch is a treat here because yes, I have read the nutritional content as well, which puts those lunch firmly in treat land! Who could have made such an unhealthy meal taste so gross?! Only lunch ladies.
I think your strategy of giving your son one day a week where he gets to choose his own meal is a great idea. Even though he’s making choices you may not like, I bet it keeps him from feeling deprived.
Crazy about his tongue!!!!