Lunch Odyssey

For any mother of a picky eater, you could probably relate your experiences with getting your child to eat to Homer’s Odyssey.  For me, the journey or adventure (depending on your point-of-view that day) has been over his school lunch.

When John started Kindergarten he ate the school lunch like most of his classmates.  This was going fine until I discovered he was throwing the entire contents of his lunch tray away and only drinking the milk.  Well of course this was unacceptable so we started to see if he could be responsible with a lunch box.  Needless to say he was delighted since it was a soft printed one with Transformers all over it and he was careful not to throw it around or forget it somewhere.  Everything seemed fine so when he started 1^st grade I was confident that lunch would continue in its normal routine.

This silly expectation of mine ended when it was brought to my attention that John was giving his lunch away to other classmates that were “guilt tripping” him into this.  John is required to put all of his wrappers back into his lunch bag (so that we can see what he ate).  For a while, I thought that he was eating all of his lunch because everything was empty.  When I asked John about this, he admitted that he was giving all his food away even though he was hungry because he wanted “to be their friend”.  Well this turned into a learning experience about friendships.  John now knows what he can say to the guilt trips and what he can and cannot share at lunchtime.  Still, I battle what to put into his lunch that he will eat.  So many sandwiches have gone uneaten, fruit untouched, and other items ignored.  My mom and I decided that anything we can get into his stomach at lunch would be better than not eating at all…even if it wasn’t very nutritious.  Our rationale was that John is a great “at home eater” most of the time.  He eats good nutritious food at home better than anywhere else.  So what he misses at lunch during school time will be made up at home.  At least until he gets more mature and his pallet enjoys more lunchtime food items.  Trying to get him to eat at lunch has lead to many different items and combinations of food in his lunch.  Sometimes we have felt like the “lunch box scientists” with all the things we have experimented with.  Some days we are great lunch box packers and other times it seems like a mess, but the goal each day remains the same…please eat something, anything from your lunch box.  Please!

What happened next was a sucker punch to the stomach.  John came home recently and told me that a “teacher” who monitors the lunch time took a picture of the contents of his lunch with her cell phone.  He said that this lady would look at his lunch sometimes and tell him what to eat an not eat.  Well, after an evening of being upset at the gall of this woman and wondering what the core issue really was, I talked with his regular teacher the next day.  She told me that this “lunch lady” was an Educational Assistant (EA) that monitors lunch and that she had concerns about the Nutritional Value of John’s lunch.  John’s regular teacher also said that she chose not to burden me with this situation because she felt that it was not anyone’s business as to what I put into John's lunch…that I am his mother and know what he will eat.

I went straight to the principal’s office.  Many people were already gathered in his office for a different meeting and reason in which they thought I was there for.  They were not expecting me to bring this situation to their attention or use the tone and emotion in my words.  I was honest and made it clear that this was wrong.  A sincere apology from the principal on behalf of the school was offered and I was ready to accept it, but then the nurse decided to start quizzing me about the contents of John’s lunch.  Before my senses kicked in, I replied that one item was a flour tortilla (something John can hardly resist – he favorite thing is to watch them being made at a local restaurant that has a tortilla making machine) in which she wanted to know if it was white flour or wheat; that a better choice would have been wheat.  Before this went any further, I asked which was it going to be?  An apology or an inquisition into the personal choices of items?  The principal stopped the meeting, apologized again, and said he would talk to his EA and that she would no longer inquire about John’s lunch, that no more questions about its nutritional value would be made, and that he would make sure the picture was erased from her cell phone.  NOTE: My son is not mal-nourished or over weight and his doctor is not concerned with either of these issues. He is also very active and loves PE.

In the spirit of tying to see the “gifts in the trials” or if you prefer, “seeing the glass half full”, I am going to process this situation as an exercise in speaking up for myself as a mother, being more alert to how outside organizations try to interfere in our personal lives using bullying or wrong methods, and even look for more ways to get John to eat more types of food.  Still, this question as to Nutritional Value made me feel like I was failing as a mother at different times during this experience.  I think that if this EA is passionate about the Nutritional Value of lunches, she should have gone about it in a different way.  I think that mothers struggle with many different things in their journey…nutrition being one of them.  From the moment our babies are placed in our arms and we decide to breast feed, use a bottle or both, I think that we as mothers need support and encouragement, not bullying tactics or guilt trips in navigating this nutritional road.  I am glad that this experience has not had a negative effect on John…he still feels great about his lunch box.

LINKS
Great Resource for School Lunch Informationhttp://www.livestrong.com/article/255577-school-lunch-nutrition-information/

7 Picky Eater Solutionshttp://www.parenting.com/gallery/7-picky-eater-solutions?tier1=yhoo-picky-eat1

A great website resource:  Books for Picky Eatershttp://www.neatsolutions.com/ChildrensBooks/PickyEaters/PickyEaters_01.html