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As most mothers I am extremely concerned about my children’s diet. My daughter (6) has been suffering with eczema her whole life and she is a bit small for her age plus a very fussy eater.
This year she started grade 1, this meant one unsupervised meal. She has to be responsible for her feeding herself (at least lunch). This clearly made me more obsessed about what I put into her lunchbox and I made sure to regularly check the contents at the end of the day.
Yesterday being the first day of school I made special effort. Cheese sandwich (crusts cut off), banana, yogurt and a marshmallow (as a treat). However to my horror she again did not touch any of it just ate half the marsh mellow.
I decided to sit her down and have yet another conversation about lunch and why you should eat it. After this meeting she asked that I please put in some salad and raw vegetables for her.
So the new lunch box content would be Cherie tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, carrots and feta plus an apple as a snack, because sweets are now banned seeing that you are not eating your lunch.
This morning I feel all inspired thinking I got a 6 year old to agree to have salad for lunch. I assemble the salad, close the lunch box. Then realised I did not put in the Feta. I got out the lunch box and tried to open it...and tried....then had to get a knife to pop it open.
Bemused I put the salad in a different container close it and put it back in her lunch bag.
As I help her get dress for school I ask her “do you sometimes struggle to get your lunch box open?” She says “Yes, I can never get it open I ask everybody to help and we just can’t get it open” . I could not help bursting out into tears of laughter.
Here I am trying every sort of filling you can get on a sandwich to get her to eat and the poor child cannot even open the lunch box. Why she always forgot to give me that information is beyond me...but it’s another lesson learnt in the art of Raising Children.
Ashlita
This year she started grade 1, this meant one unsupervised meal. She has to be responsible for her feeding herself (at least lunch). This clearly made me more obsessed about what I put into her lunchbox and I made sure to regularly check the contents at the end of the day.
Yesterday being the first day of school I made special effort. Cheese sandwich (crusts cut off), banana, yogurt and a marshmallow (as a treat). However to my horror she again did not touch any of it just ate half the marsh mellow.
I decided to sit her down and have yet another conversation about lunch and why you should eat it. After this meeting she asked that I please put in some salad and raw vegetables for her.
So the new lunch box content would be Cherie tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, carrots and feta plus an apple as a snack, because sweets are now banned seeing that you are not eating your lunch.
This morning I feel all inspired thinking I got a 6 year old to agree to have salad for lunch. I assemble the salad, close the lunch box. Then realised I did not put in the Feta. I got out the lunch box and tried to open it...and tried....then had to get a knife to pop it open.
Bemused I put the salad in a different container close it and put it back in her lunch bag.
As I help her get dress for school I ask her “do you sometimes struggle to get your lunch box open?” She says “Yes, I can never get it open I ask everybody to help and we just can’t get it open” . I could not help bursting out into tears of laughter.
Here I am trying every sort of filling you can get on a sandwich to get her to eat and the poor child cannot even open the lunch box. Why she always forgot to give me that information is beyond me...but it’s another lesson learnt in the art of Raising Children.
Ashlita
