School lunch

Here's a thought: Do your kids have enough time to eat their lunch? When I monitor lunch at the elementary school level, I'm reminded of my days as a picky eater. Young pallates are discovering what they like and don't like and if no one is there to tell them "Clean your plate" .. then they won't. I see lots and lots of full plates when it's time to clean up and leave. Kids know what they want to eat and don't want to eat. It reminds me of a time when I was in the hospital (for a short time) and the nurse told me to take some pink medicine. I told her I didn't like it. Now, I don't know how I knew, but I knew, and when I made an attempt to take it, I threw it up.

Keep this in mind. There's only a handful of adults to monitor several tables full of kids. Talkative kids will spend the majority of their time talking. Some kids will spend a lot of time playing with their food, and of course the pickiest kids will spend most of the time picking over their food. Food is the fuel to get them through the rest of the school day. It is in their best interest to eat as much as possible. Parents should remind their kids how important lunch is and to use that [short] time to eat. Typically they will have less than 45-minutes. There's the commute time to get to the cafeteria, the time in line, and the clean up time. Not to mention the disorganization and chaos that happens when there's a sub.

Something else I noticed was that some schools have recess after lunch and some have recess at another time. I'm in favor of not having recess after lunch. It allows the food to digest and also the kids won't burn off all the food's energy so fast.