My daughter's is served lunch at 10 AM in school.?

Question

They have to do this so as to accomodate all the students in the cafeteria in small batches from 9:30 AM to 1PM. By the time he comes home at 2:30 PM he is starved... Has anyone else encountered this problem and have they found a solution to it?

Answer 1

Pack her/him a larger lunch I guess.

Tell him/her to take a bathroom break at like 1:30 and eat in there. lol

Answer 2

You may get more ideas on how to deal with this if you repost to primary/secondary education or even the teaching section.  Since we are mostly homeschoolers in this section our experience with such problems may be limited.

Having said that, my daughter did have times when she was in public high school when she had early lunch periods (10 a.m. or so.)  She ate mostly a low carb lunch and that seemed to hold her over longer.  Then she would carry a cheese stick and a snack bag of carrots and she had some instructors who allowed the kids to have a snack during that wasted time while stragglers arrived and before they really got down to learning.

The more carbs she ate, the more she had problems with hunger later.  (so no soda, or chocolate milk, etc.)

Answer 3

9:30 - 10:30 seems a bit early!  Wow!  I think that if they're going to be serving lunch that early, then they need to provide a snack around 1pm.  It's just too long for some kids.  And the kids that eat as late at 1pm, are going to need a morning snack.  

I would talk to the teacher.  Tell her/him your concerns.  One idea is to have parents rotate and provide an afternoon snack for the kids - since the school probably won't or cannot pay for it.  If there's 20 kids in his class, that would mean, each parent would do snacks once every four weeks (or slightly more often, as there may be parents who really cannot afford to do this).  I'm sure he's not the only one who's starving at the end of the day!

If this doesn't work, tell the teacher that you will provide your son with a healthy snack daily, and that you expect her to give him a chance to eat it - maybe during afternoon recess or something.  If she has a problem with it, I would take it up to the administrators.  

When kids are so hungry, that's their focus...not on learning.  That's why many schools serve breakfast - they KNOW that kids don't function well on empty stomachs.

Hope this helps!  Let us know what happens!

Edited to add:  I see one person mentioned not being hungry at lunch time because it was so early.  If you can, find out how much of his lunch he's eating at lunchtime.  If he's not eating much because he's not hungry, one idea is to give him a lighter breakfast.  That way he still eats breakfast, but then he SHOULD be hungry by lunchtime.  At which point, he'll eat his whole lunch, and maybe it will help him later in the day.  This might be a solution to try FIRST, before what I mentioned above.

Answer 4

No, we don't have that problem at all. The cool thing about homeschooling is you get to control the little things like when to take lunch, when to have a snack, things like that.

I don't know of any homeschool parents that force their kids to eat lunch in the morning.

Answer 5

This has what to do with homeschooling??

Think about this, by the time your child gets up at 6 am and eats breakfast before 7, and ride the bus for an hour, they are probably hungry by 10am. That said, I had my fair share of these public school issues and frankly there is not much you can do about it. You can't really send him a snack because unless the teacher has a specified time for snack-your child won't get to eat it. Try asking the teacher for special request and your child will be bullied and ridiculed for getting special treatment, that is IF the teacher obliges.

I now homeschool and my children can eat 3 healthy meals and I know what and how much they have eaten. They can have a snack when they are hungry!

Answer 6

It is one of the great things about homeschooling.  My son can go to the pantry anytime he wants to get a snack.

He can also can have exercise breaks throughout the day when he gets bored with his work.

There are better ways to build character rather than making students eat and go to the bathroom on schedule.

Answer 7

of course thats the way it is ask afternoon teacher if they can bring snacks sometimes for whole class though

Answer 8

Odd question for the homeschooling section... Anyway...

When my son was in public school in 2nd grade, his lunch period was late (around 1:30), so his teacher let them bring a snack (no chocolate or chips, but something nutritious, like carrot sticks or string cheese) and they had that around 10.

Talk to the teacher and see if s/he will do something like that, except later in the day (maybe around 1 or 1:30).

Answer 9

Yes I used to eat lunch at 9:30am too and I was not hungry that early so I wouldn't eat anything and be starving by the time I got home. I don't know if there is anything you can do call the school

Answer 10

I have to agree with most of the homeschoolers on here. My daughter eats when she is hungry.

Discuss your concerns with the school. A child being hungry does not provide them the energy their growing bodies (and minds) need.

You didn't mention what grade. . . does your son have change classes? If so you can pack him a banana or some granola bars to eat between classes. If your child does not have a class change, I'd suggest granola bars that he can keep in his pocket for a mid-morning bathroom break. It may sound gross but it is better than him being sick from not eating!

Answer 11

I wouldn't buy their explanation that your daughter has to eat her lunch at 10 am because there isn't enough room to accomodate all the kids in the cafeteria at lunchtime - to me, that is nothing more than an excuse and a cop out (and a pretty feeble excuse at that!).

Why do the kids have to eat lunch in the cafeteria anyway?

In my country, public schools don't have cafeterias or anywhere else specifically set aside for kids to eat lunch and no-one here is forced to eat their lunch at 10am!

Here, kids write their order for lunch on their (canteen supplied) lunch bag, put the money inside and drop the whole thing into the canteen before school starts of a morning. The lunches are then bagged up and delivered to all the kids to eat either in their classrooms or outside in the yard at lunchtime (12-1pm).  

Also I have cousins who go to school in Norway and Finland and, in both those countries, the schools' kitchen staff take 3 course meals around the school on trolleys and dish up the kids' dinners in their classrooms.

If I was you, I'd be wanting to know why such a system hadn't already been introduced at your daughter's school if their cafeteria was not fit for purpose.

Answer 12

That makes me feel bad for the kids. We expect them to be at school all day long; to be on their best behavior and to learn new material, yet they are hungry!?

I hope you bring this topic up and ask for solutions at the next open house meeting. You could also ask to speak directly to the administrators, although I wouldn't expect anything to happen until you had several other parents on board. Come up with some ideas to help the process. The "leaders" in your district are probably so bogged down in red tape that they might not even realize there are concerned parents out there!