Funny Kid Phobias….The Things That Eat Our Sanity

We all have phobias, right, cos we’re all a little strange. Some are stranger than others. There’s the obvious ones, freaked out by buttons, can’t eat a banana out of the skin, like to sit in tight spaces, can’t poop in public. Petrified of rodents, snakes, spiders. There’s thousands of them. Google it and you may never get anything  done again.

MY kid, you know 12… Grand Master D, won’t eat at school. Now this kid loves to eat, he has an adult appetite, can wolf down a 10 oz steak and 2 sausages with his dad and will eat almost everything you give him, he’s no fuss pot…..He’s always been a good eater.

But when it comes to lunch at school, FORGET IT! We’ve tried everything for many years. We don’t qualify for free lunch, so if he wants school lunch I have to pay for it, now I have no problem doing that if he eats it, the thing is he wont,  it’s crap, we all know that, it could be really good, there’s plenty of staff, it’s a commercial kitchen to die for but the food is crap, the kitchen is perfect because it’s unused…unless you call warming prepackaged foods cooking… but that’s a whole other post, I digress.

He won’t eat the school food, so we opted for the home lunch thing and everyday since for about 5 years, the lunch bag came home with food in tact. He wouldn’t eat it, he didn’t like it.

I’ve  tried, sandwiches, plain or toasted, wraps, bagels, quesadillas, chips & salsa, muffins, chicken wings, mini sausage rolls, fruit, yoghurt,  finger foods, take out left overs, home left overs, soup…………… you name it I’ve tried it.

Nothing works. I’m ready to give up, I have no idea what it is but his kid WILL NOT eat lunch at school. The best I can get him to consume is a variety of snack things, but even then, not all of it. He exists during the day on perhaps a handful of cashews, peanuts or, pistachios… maybe a granola bar. Sometimes not even that. Even on the days when the school meal night be nice (it happens)…. he won’t eat it.

I can’t wait til next year, 8th grade when at least he can come home for a nice home cooked, fresh lunch or go to the store to fill up on junk.

He needs to eat and it drives me crazy! He needs the energy, his body and brain need fuel to get through the day.

I ask him for ideas, for things he thinks he’d like to eat and I buy them, regardless of how I feel about their nutritional value. I pack them, the things he’s requested and when the bag lands on the counter at 3.15, it’s hardly touched.

I changed tact for a while and started cooking a big breakfast for him but all that did was give him stomach pains and a need to eliminate at the exact time we needed to leave for school. He’s an efficient processor, food in , food out within about 20 mins. That then fuelled the ‘I feel sick’ thing that he would put on so he could get out of school. Mornings became a total nightmare.

I’m lost, I’m stuck, I’m out of ideas. Short of delivering a steaming hot cooked meal at 12 midday (and I’m so NOT doing that) the kid eats before school, and straight after school, lunch at 3.30 pm, it’s our new thing….

I’ve tried getting him up earlier but that is just not happening. We’ve tried eating before the shower, after the shower, on the way to school but that only causes the ‘I don’t poop at school’ dilemma.

This is an odd quirk, he can’t explain why he won’t eat at school, I wondered if it was embarrassment but he says not, so the mystery continues and meanwhile I rack my brains for new ideas for packed lunches that he’ll eat at school.

Got any cool lunch ideas? Send them over, I’m listening.