Second Grader Wont Eat His Lunch

I have a friend whose kids were the same way and didn't want to miss out on playtime to eat. She would pack snack size things and they would eat something at each recess/lunch and by the end of the day, everything was gone. The suggestion to fill the thermos with boiling water first is a great suggestion--and it works. I have one of the coleman (I think) silver thermoses and it works fantastic for us.

Good luck!!

does he like edamame (boiled soybeans in pods) - lots of kids enjoy the "fun" factor of popping the beans out of the pods before eating them. You can get frozen ones from asian grocers or Trader Joes.

We made a list and my 1st grader just chooses what he wants every morning - like ordering from a menu. There are three or four columns and he has to pick from 3 of them, two sides and a main dish basically. Some of the things we pack are yogurt, carrots, apples, hard-boiled egg, applesauce, stringcheese, bagel, pb&j or honey, egg salad sandwich, dry cereal (several kinds mixed together), peanut butter crackers, crackers, chips, graham crackers, soup, mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, noodles w/butter, hot dog (cut up, in the thermos). The point is and sounds like you may be doing this already, let him choose. Seconly, the school should have a policy about lunchtime - find out. The kids usually have to sit at the lunch tables for a specific amount of time before they are exused to go play, so what is he doing during that time? Talking w/friends? Sharing lunch w/someone else? Ask him!

This may be partly the school's fault. Do they have a policy of go play as soon as you are finished with your lunch or do they have the students stay at their lunch table for a certain period of time until everyone is done and the trash is thrown out? You may want to explore that.

Also, kids are PICKY! I suggest letting him go shopping with you and him picking out what he wants to have for lunch then have him make his lunch himself (or at least help you make it). Does he like protein bars? They are small and have good nutrition. Do they have a lunch program at school where he can buy his lunch and the hot things would be hot?

My son used to love to take salad for his lunch because it would gross the kids out that he was eating salad when most of them would not eat it!

Good luck!

My 3rd grade son is pretty picky too! He is not vegetarian, but does not care for lunch meat. He likes it when I pack him yogurt, cheese, and fruit. Plenty of protein and fiber there! Usually I will add a package of goldfish crackers or something like that for a recess snack. Quaker also makes Breakfast Cookies which are healthy and filling. I have to mix it up so he doesn't get bored!

My kids have all had this problem during the first several years of school. They are far too distracted eating with so many other kids. I give them a good breakfast, healthy snack foods that are easy to eat in their lunches and we have established a routine that the first thing they do after school is to finish their lunches. This is working for us and I have stopped worrying so much about them not eating all day! Good luck!

Have you gone grocery shopping with him? Have him pick out some healthy food choices at the store, string cheese, fruit salad, carrot sticks with ranch dressing, whole wheat pretzels or peanut butter pretzels, hummus and crackers, something that he can "play with" to eat before he plays- the action of dipping carrots or crackers may entice him and keep him interested. Other ideas may be to cut his peanut butter sandwiches into shapes with cookie cutters. Oh maybe try different nut butters for sandwiches: almond butter, cashew butter for example. Maybe try different breads for sandwiches, like pitas or wraps. what about cold pasta salads- just pasta with a little butter or oil and some peas and parmesan cheese in a tupperware.
Be assured this will not last forever and your son will not starve himself, so have faith and keep feeding him good breakfasts, dinners and healthy snacks.
good luck

I know your worries as I have had them for a long time. My daughter is 13 and she eats when she is hungry. Lunches come home half eaten and when she buys lunch, I know she is only picking off the pepperoni and cheese and avoiding the tomato sauce on that pizza altogether. Maybe she eats a little crust, too. When she was a toddler, her doctor told me "Food wars are a battle of wills and she will win every time, because she controls what goes into her mouth". It took me a long time to accept that, but with daily vitamins, soy milk (best for nasal allergies), we have a Star Softball Player in great health! Please keep offerring new foods - Lunchables are always popular in second grade. Hope this helps! Patti

Hi J., I thought you were writing about my 2nd grader when I read your question. My daughter is starting to eat much better and I think it has to do with her friends. She tries their food and likes it and asks for it at home. Last week she was invited to an outing with her friends and they stopped at Fresh Choice for lunch. (I take her there often). She came home and told me that she just loved Clam Chowder. She would never try it when she was with me, but since her friends were eating it......

My daughter would also prefer to play than eat, so I do have that issue at school too. What I do now is pack 1/2 sandwich and let her choose the rest. Luckily, she likes fruit and vegetables and will add those to her lunch. She will eat more if I have fresh strawberries or grapes.

Good luck with your son....It may be just a metter of time before he wants to explore more foods.

It sounds like you have great advice. Just double check and make sure it is not because he is getting teased for bringing his lunch. I know it sounds silly but this happened to a neighbor of mine and although she said that she brought her son up to not really mind what other kids said, this seemed to bother him. They did have vegetarian choices in the cafeteria so he would bring his lunch 3 days and buy two days. Just a thought.

Hi J., I found a thermos at target, It keeps the food warm enough. I usually cook and pack the lunch at 7:30 and my son says its still warm at noon. I'm not sure of the brand but they come in pink or blue. I also bought a charactor one but the food didn't stay as hot. My son enjoys raviolis, mac n'cheese. Although the thermos looks small it really holds a lot of food. Hope this helps

You could ask the school to make sure he eats before play or just let him decided that he gets too hungry and wants to eat on his own. Both my kids are picky eaters and they also like something on day, dislike it the next. Try taking him shopping for food and allow him to make some of his lunch choices.

Maybe he's being teased at school for bringing food from home. Sometimes that happens. He feels embarrassed to eat his food in front of other kids. Kids at school eat meat alot and your son is not aloud to have it, that could cause a fuss. You can ask your son why he does that. I drive a hupty and my son is embarrassed by my car, he ducks in the car or he has me go on another road. There will be times he will tell me not to park in front of the store for me to pick him up. My son is a picky eater too, so I know what you mean.

my daughter is in 4th grade and is still picky. but somehow if she buys lunch at school, she tends to eat it. it is rough being a vegetarian and sometimes they want to give her yogurt as a main course if they don't have anything. i just asked her advice and she said to try buying lunch so maybe she's right. ???

Everyone has said a lot of great stuff already! I just wanted you to know you're not alone. I have a 2nd grader, too, who would rather go play than eat. I pack him a lot of healthy snacks instead of a sandwich. He likes V8, too, and that makes me feel better. If I put the little V8 in there with a yogurt tube or two, some kind of fruit, some crackers with peanut butter or cheese, between snack and lunch he usually eats most of it and then a good snack when he gets home from school. I guess it's not too bad. He also really likes dried seaweed and I'll cut that up in little squares and put it in his lunch sometimes. My mom says it's too salty but it isn't any saltier than chips and seaweed has a lot of nutrients in it.

Just a suggestion: if your son wants a hot lunch in a thermos. What I do is boil water, put it in the thermos first for abour 1/2 hour so. This will get the inner wall of the thermos hot. I then slightly over-heat whatever I'm putting in the thermos. I've been doing this for 2 yrs now for our older son in 1st grade & ask him every day if his lunch was warm enough & he says every day that it is. Also, don't stress about his lunch. Kids will eat when they're hungry & won't eat if they're not. Just keep packing him what you'd usually pack him & it's his choice to eat it or not. For kids, the only thing they have any control over is their food intake. Since he's a picky eater already, exerting his control over his food, let it alone so it doesn't turn into a bigger struggle. Don't become a short order cook for all meals, cooking to his likes or it will just get worse. Ask him what he wants in his lunch but leave it at that. Don't start a conversation about what you pack & how it's not being eaten. That could just makes it a bigger battle of wills. Or another thought, have him pack his lunch the night before. So, like I said, if he eats, it he eats it, of not, it's his choice to go hungry. Hope this helps & good luck!

My son also hated to eat lunch at school. I started packing him a healthy protein bar and a box of real juice. He would also eat a bigger breakfast so he had enough food in his tummy.

Hi J. -

Two of my four kids never eat lunch at school - they eat when they get home - I don't worry about it - if they are OK with it, then I'm OK with it - they won't starve- :)

Kids really do eat when they are hungry -

Hi J.,

Kelly V said it very well. I think sometimes we give our children too many choices and it's just overwhelming. I use to joke about getting my son to eat (AND IT WAS JUST A JOKE)...because he was such a good eater and would try t about any food. People would say, "how in the world do you get Paul to eat so well"? I would say, "Well, my theory is, EAT IT OR WEAR IT"!

In reality, I would ask my son to take a taste and if he didn't like it, he didn't have to eat it, but if we were at someone's home, he should never make a fuss or be rude. I also started him out (as a baby) on rice ceral with baby food veggies instead of baby food fruit.

A grown man today, he still eats everything, leans toward the vegetarian side, but has some meat, fish, fowl. Not an ounce of body fat...and I'm not even bragging.

I am interestd in the responses you get! My son is 6 and I go through the same thing with him. I couldn't figure out why he was so hungry every day after school, so I asked the teacher to make sure he brought home everything he wasn't eating, well that was pretty much the WHOLE lunch! I even bought Lunchables for him, because he wanted them and I thought well maybe he will finally eat! WRONG he only wanted them because they had SPIDERWICK CHRONICLE stuff on the packaging!!! Hope other moms have better answers! Thanks for posing the question..

J., hi:

i have three boys who take their lunch to school...
my husband makes their sandwiches,,which will always have a fruit a yogurt or.go-gurt,,, sometimes they have baked chips.. we are very creative with the sandwiches, they are not vegetarian entirely, so we have more flexibility, like making cheese with lettuce, tomatoe, and sprouts, if is white monterrey jack , we just add pepper, if its yellow cheese then we add cucumbers salt and pepper....
we also make them sesame seed bagels with cream cheese, cucumbers onions and tomatoes... with juice, and a cup of mixed fruit... and their yogurt... my three boys play soccer after school, and are ages 17, 14, and 12... they always take their lunch because they do not like the food at school...
sometimes when the school has cheese pizza then we give them money, a yogurt and a fruit..
we also give them water, not on plastic because of the artificial estrogen like hormones that the plastic releases when hot... since they all play sports they have special metal bottles that fits in their back pack...
hope this will help....

a good breakfast and early dinner are the main dishes of the day, so lunch and snacks are small meals that is why we pack them yogurt, fruits and some chips, or healthy bars...

as long as your child has a healthy weight, is happy and does not have health related issues, just remember that at that age playing is more important then eating all his lunch...ay lunch time...
warmly,
sandy

My kids were always drawn to lunchables. I was not a big fan so I would make sandwiches and use cookie cutters to cut the sandwich into shapes. The same can be done with some veggies and fruits! Finger foods went over fairly well!!!

Good luck!

T.
Founder
www.theparentpack.org

I have the same experience with both my son and daughter. They go to school 2 days a week and they would always come home with most their lunch untouched. So I keep making smaller and smaller lunches. They tell me they really are not hungry. I have them tell me just how much food they want and what and they have been pretty good about eating what I pack since doing this. It's not much. A typical lunch is 1 rice cake in half with peanut butter on it and a apple sauce or grapes. They do get a snack offered to them and their day is shorter, 9:30- 2:00. They eat a good breakfast and dinner so I figure they know what they need. I'm amazed at how little they need. This was a problem for most kids at school and so the school did something to address it this year. They do a reverse lunch hour. The kids go out to play first then come back to eat and have a quite reading time. This has worked out really well, the kids like it and has helped kids not rush to go play. Maybe you could suggest it to your kids school. This is just a regular public school.

I worked for the school district for a long time, kids usually trade lunches or eat very little, they throw most of what their parents pack away, they all want to go play.

Hi J.!

Yep....those picky eaters can be tricky! But mostly, I just worry that they are not getting enough to fuel their bodies for a day.

My "award winning" snack lunches were ever changing to keep from being "boring". Here were some things that worked:
celery with peanut butter
graham cracker with marshmellow cream (sandwich style)***
grapes
Go-gurt***
Peanut butter "sticks" (PB inside press 'n seal Glad) so he can squeeze out the PB out of a "tube" shape..
Flinstone Vitamins
Oatmeal Cookies
Kix cereal with milk

Anyway, that's all I can think of at the early moment :o)

Question: You said that your son is "too busy" to eat and just wants to play on the playground. If this is true, double-check with your school for his lunch time. In our District, they MAKE each student stay in the cafeteria for "scheduled" amount of time. Nobody can be released from the cafeteria until after 20ish minutes. Mostly to make sure the kids have enough time to eat, and partially so they don't "share" the playground with too young or too old of kids. Keeps everyone safe.

Anyway, Good Luck with that. If all else fails, give extra "food attention" at home for awhile :o)

:o) N.

J., I have two thoughts:
1) Involve his teacher - ask about the school lunch policy, do they have to sit at the table for a set period of time? Are other children bringing Spiderman while he's bringing Barney? Is he waiting in line in the bathroom? Is he being asked to finish his work inside and doesn't have time to eat lunch? (This has happened to my son before, but he's learned to do all his work). Ask his teacher or lunch monitor to observe the group your son usually sits with and get a feel for what is happening.
2) Involve yourself - is there any way you can get a sitter for your two younger children and volunteer at your son's school during lunch one or two days a week? If you can do that, you will be able to observe what goes on. Talk to your son, maybe something or someone is making him uncomfortable and he doesn't want to eat in front of them, (my daughter is also picky and some of the children have asked her why she brings the same thing for lunch every day).
It sounds like he is willing to eat the food you pack (he wolfs it down in the car), but there is another issue preventing him from eating during the lunch period. Once you figure out what's going on... then you can try to "fix it".
Good luck, and let us know what you find out.

You hit it right on the money. My grandson has the same problem. It's the time factor. He wants to play but is hungry so the play factor takes over and yes, he's hungry when he hopes in the car so maybe you can bring something hot for him to wolf down on the way home making energy to play once he arrives home. Does he eat a good breakfast? If so give him a snack, quick, easy, for lunch and then the hot food on the way home until he passes through this stage.

My husband is a 3rd grade teacher. The children are required to stay in the classroom for 15 minutes (or something) to give them time to eat. They show him what they've eaten before they are excused to go play (i.e. there is no sandwich left, etc). Perhaps this is something your son's teacher would be willing to consider.

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