A New Way to Do School Lunches
We’ve been trying out a new way to do school lunches. For years, Matt or I would decide what to pack for the boys. The boys would get the same lunches as each other. When I was in the thick haze of launching an organization, the boys and I used to make all of their meals on Sunday.
But our old system was making everyone feel pretty blah—myself included!
So we decided to test out a new way to do school lunches.
We started by making a list of several different options in several different categories:
- Protein
- Vegetable
- Fruit
- Carbohydrate
- Dairy
- Extra Snacks
Every Friday morning, I ask the boys to select what they want for the upcoming week. They are welcome to add new ideas to the corresponding category as they come up with things.
Now that I write it out, I’m realizing how simple our new way of doing school lunches is and potentially not interesting enough to share?
The thing is, it’s making the process so much better in our home! I guess it’s the element of choice and variety. Yes they eat pretty much the same thing all week long, but they can make entirely new choices the following week. And they get to choose what I consider to be fancy/exciting things like meatball subs or sautéed green beans.
We’ve been implementing this new way to do school lunches for more than a quarter of the school year. So far, none of us is tired of it yet!
What has been working for you these days?