25 Healthy Lunch Ideas! Whether you have kids going back to school, or you just want to cook and pack more lunches for yourself, we’ve got 25 fabulous recipes and more for you down below!
At what age did you throw in the towel and give your kids lunch money and call it a day? I shouldn’t say throw in the towel because for us. . this is how it went down: Phoebe my oldest doesn’t like sandwiches. She, back in the 5th grade, was very particular about what she wanted for lunch. We would rotate between 2 or 3 things and finally one day, she asked me if she could buy the hot lunches at school. I thought about it and ended with this: she’s a good kid and can make smart lunch choices and she eats what we have for breakfast and lunch. For us, it was kind of an independence thing. . Phoebe got to choose her lunch from the school menu and was happy about that. Fast forward to now, she’ll be starting 7th grade and at a new school so we’ll probably have the lunch discussion soon. I’m thinking she may want me to pack lunch for her the first few days only but we’ll see.
There’s no shame in letting your kids buy their lunch from school. Some of us simply don’t have time and are 100% ok with the hot lunch choices at school. I’m not here to judge. I’m simply here to help.
HELPFUL LINKS
25 Healthy Back-to-School Lunch Ideas
25 Breakfast Ideas for the School Year
School Lunch Advice
I will say this about packing school lunches for kids. I do recommend you do it for younger children. Having a lunch packed from home might be comforting for them. You know what they like to eat and can pack special treats and notes for them, or stickers.
At some schools, the kids only have 20 to 25 minutes to eat lunch so standing in a lunch line can take away their eating time. I’ve also found, with my own children, that sometimes, they don’t actually eat that much. When my kids were younger, they would come home with a sandwich that maybe had 3 or 4 bites into it and that was it. So, for me, packing lunch was the only option. It saves money and I could see how much they had eaten.
Whatever you decide, you are the parent. Every family is different. Wishing everyone a happy and productive school year!
