Are you worried your fussy eater won’t eat anything all day at school – or secretly hoping that sitting down with other children means they’ll eat better? Either way, here’s my advice!
🍓 Play it safe …. but not too safe!
Nobody wants their child to go hungry all day. So don’t put yourself through the worry. If you’re very sure your fussy eater won’t touch the cooked school dinners, then opt for the packed lunch – at least four days of the week. And make sure there’s food inside it they’ll eat! At the same time, don’t make them exactly the same packed lunch every day! Add new foods as ‘extras’. If the only sandwich they’ll eat is a ham sandwich, by all means put that in – but add a piece of Cheddar cheese, Babybel or a Dairylea triangle…. If the only fruit they reliably eat is strawberries, put those in – but add a few blueberries or grapes too. If you had sausages for dinner the night before, and there were a couple left over, put in a cold sausage too. If they eat both ham and tuna sandwiches, but prefer ham, be sure to alternate between ham and tuna, rather than just putting in ham sandwiches day after day. And cut them in different ways too. The aim is to make sure there is enough food your child will reliably eat – but not to be predictable! Keep their mind open and flexible to what they might find in their packed lunch. Your child should be totally in charge of whether they eat something or not – but not in charge of what or how food is served in the first place!
🥝 Don't over-discuss school menus!
If you do choose school dinners at all and your child is at a school where they have to pre-choose from the weekly menu, don't make a big deal of it! If you interfere and steer your child's choices with comments like, "Macaroni cheese....but you don't lke that," or "Why don't you have the fish fingers? You love fish fingers," or "Are you sure you want the baked potato?" you will putting your expectations of what they will and won't eat onto them – and limit the chance of them actually eating something new and different at school. (Children live up to expectations!) You will also be showing them how much you care about what/how much they eat at school, givng them something to react against! You told them they'd eat the fish fingers happily, so perhaps now they won't! Instead, keep the conversation short and simple. Just tell them the menu for each day, let them the choose – whatever it is – and go with it!
🍊Don’t have high expectations!
The idea that sitting down to eat with other children at school will have a positive effect on your child’s eating is a bit of a myth. What happens at home is the most important thing. Peer pressure can actually have quite a negative effect. Maybe your child loves egg sandwiches but the other children complain they smell – so your child no longer wants you to put them in their lunch box. Perhaps your child loves gherkins but the other children say “Urgghhh….what’s that?! It looks disgusting!” – and again, they no longer want you to put them in their lunch box. There is also a lot of food-swapping goes on! I know of a case of a girl who gave away all her sandwiches and had three satsumas for lunch! Yes, sometimes children do eat better at school, but that’s because the root cause of fussy eating is the power and attention they get from YOU when they don’t eat something – and you’re not at school to give them that!
🍏 Be aware of the Dinner Ladies!
Dinner ladies have the best intentions in the world. They want the children to eat – because they know their parents want them to eat. But because they do not receive training in the up-to-date, research-based approach to take with children around food and mealtimes, they tend to take a very ‘old school’ stance and put a lot of pressure on children to eat, tell them what order to eat things in – and sometimes even use techniques like not letting them out to play until they have eaten something. I hope that this will start to change (I was recently asked by a Headteacher to train their dinner ladies which is a hopeful sign!) but until then, I recommend that you put a note in your child’s lunchbox (or pocket if they are having school lunches) for them to show to the dinner ladies – read this to find out how!
🍒 Let bygones be bygones!
When you pick up your child from school, you will be desperate to know what and how much of their lunch they ate! If they have a lunchbox, you may look inside straight away. If they have school lunches, you may start interrogating them! “What did you have for lunch? Did you have vegetables with it? Did you eat them?” Don’t! They ate what they ate at lunchtime – you can’t undo the past! But you can make things worse. Remember, the root cause of fussy eating is the power and attention a child realises they get for NOT eating something. Don’t add to this! By all means, have a sneaky look in their lunchbox when you get home – but say nothing!
If you found this useful, you might like to read Should I give my fussy eater a snack between school pick-up and dinner time?