Schools Rushing Children to Eat Thier lunches/Snacks

I would suggest that you pack his lunch. They (usually) get to go and sit down first since the rest of the class has to go through the line ... and they get about 5-10 more minutes to get than the rest of the class. It is healthier, too .... good luck!

I pack my daughter lunch every day for that reason. The "packers" go into the lunch room and get to sit down right away and start eating. 20 minutes later, her lunch is finished!

Schools have always had 30mins lunches. I remember even that when I Was in school they have so many kids who have to eat. Maybe he should take his lunch that way he would have longer that's what my daughter and son do.. good luck!

I think that just saying "pack him a lunch" is the only option may not work for all moms. I have 5 children and not only is it VERY expensive to pack them all a lunch when they need to get on the bus before 7 its very time consuming. I understand that 5 children is our choice but you also need to take in account for other moms who don't have 5 and still can't afford to pack a lunch everyday or maybe has to work very early and doesn't have enough time to do that every morning. I think there needs to be a little more consideration in this. This is bigger than just pack him a lunch and be done with it.

This has a simple fix - start packing his lunch so he doesn't have to wait in line to buy lunch. I'm not sure what the rules are in your state, but there are guidelines for how long a lunch period has to be. I think in our state it is 30 minutes. Even on special days where the day is shortened or class periods are omitted, we still always have the three lunch periods scheduled and they are always 40 minutes (when the other class periods might be 25 or so).

Pack his lunch - he won't have to wait!

Most children can eat in that amount of time, if they are staying on task. Really the best solution is to pack him a lunch. You can make sure it's a healthier option too.

This is the lunch time for most schools. The best bet is as others mentioned pack his lunch. It removes the line time and gives you and him more control over his food choices. I have my kids help me choose items that they think they both can and will eat in the time allotted. I too think the time frame is not long enough and I did petition my school to allow snacks at other times of day so that the kids would be less hungry and feel less pressured. The school teachers were responsive and were given the choice in their own classes - almost all of them allow healthy snacks later in the day, parent volunteers provide alternate snacks in the class for any kids who do not have one or who buy lunch.

Not getting into the line made all the difference for many of the kids. It added almost 15 minutes to the time they had to actually eat.

This is the norm. I am not aware of any health risk due to it. I am a substitute and I know from experience, with teachers, we barely have time to eat and have a potty break. The lunch break for our elementary is 30 minutes.

One way to give your child more time is to send lunch with him. Kids who bring lunches go straight to their table and start eating.

Sometimes the lunch line runs slowly because kids can't make a choice going through the line. One thing we do is let children know choice 1, choice 2 and choice 3 and they choose BEFORE they go to lunch on what choice they want. A teacher is usually in the line assisting with speeding up the line as well.

No one has ever complained at our schools. If it bothers you to that degree, mention it to you PTA board and Principal.

I agree with Kate--this is totally normal for most schools to only allow 15-20 min for kids to eat. Our school only allows 22 mins for the lunch period and that usually leaves 15 mins for the kids to eat.

My son graduated a year ago so I have had many years experience with schedules and every year the absolute LONGEST lunch period they ever had was 30 minutes (mostly it was 25). By the time they get through the line and seated they had 10-15 minutes (at times, if it was a packed lunch period when in high school they actually had less) to eat before the bell rang.

This is so they eat and don't have much time to talk/get loud and/or restless. Since they have then been in class and presumably sitting and behaving, have now replenished their bodies, they then allow them recess so they can burn off the pent up energy. This truly is the norm. At home, my daughter takes forever to eat but at school she stays on task better and eats so she can get up and play. The kids are really ok with it...normally.

J. this has been a problem for a long time. I will be 30 this year and my parents fussed about the same thing. They finally started packing my lunch so I could go right to a seat at lunch time instead of standing and going through the line. You may want to pack for his. I even worked in a school for awhile and I would stand in there and help the children so they could get through faster. I was lucky that my class was the last to go to lunch so if we needed it I could take more time.

For most kids, 15-20 minutes if fine. However, even if your son needs more time, it is unlikely the school will be able to change the length of lunches. In my school, our day is so tightly packed, there isn't a minute to spare. Plus, all of the lunch staff has been hired to work a certain amount of time. There are five different lunch times, so even if you only add five minutes each, that's an additional 25 minutes that would have to be staffed. It's not something that is feasible to change. Same goes for having recess after lunch. Our lunch times are split, so half of the kids have lunch first, then recess. The other have recess first, then lunch. It's all about timing.

That being said, are there foods that are easier/quicker for your son to eat? Does he start eating right away or talk to his friends? You'll probably have to look at how you can adjust his lunch.

Our elementary school just started letting the kids play before eating. Thus the kids wouldn't rush through the eating time to play. I have not heard many complaints, but I bet all the kids are really hungry when it is time to eat.

Dear J.:

Unfortunately that's a common practice. My daughter and niece had the same experience.

My suggestion is to stop buying lunch (it's usually loaded with fat anyway!) and pack a lunch. My daughter is a very slow eater, so not standing in the lunch line gave her more time to eat.

My daughter still frequently brought portions of her lunch home because she just didn't have time to eat everything, so we always started the day with a good filling breakfast and had a bigger snack as soon as she got home from school.

L. F., mom of a 14-year-old daughter

We were always super-rushed all through school to eat lunch. Even now in our early thirties, my husband and I scarf our food down like someone's going to steal it! I think eating that fast contributes to obesity. Maybe you could piggyback off the childhood obesity argument.

Our elementary school makes a point of telling us that even though the lunch period is 20 minutes the kids can have longer if they need it, they just need to tell the lunch monitor who will move them to a different table and then they can go outside with the next group. Of course they never want to do this because then it means shorter recess, but it might be worth asking your school.

Not sure of any websites but this is normal for all schools , they have so many kids to sit down and eat lunch in a limited space , that they need to stagger the lunches and give them a 20 minute slot , and I don't think you will be able to do anything about it , the only thing you can do is send him with a packed lunch instead so that he has the full 20 mins to eat rather than spending 5 minutes waiting in line to buy a lunch.

It is the norm for our elementary school. Small lunch room capacity, lunches run from 11:30 to the latest one starting at 1:40. My oldest daughter is a fast eater, so it wasn't an issue for her. But my youngest often comes home with a half eaten lunch saying she "didn't have enough time" to finish it. BUT, she also admits she needs to talk to her friends at the table too. So . . . I think she doesn't really stay on task unless she is very hungry. If your son is just naturally a slow eater, and not getting distracted with socializing, I would pack a lunch (not too big) and make it all easy to eat right away food. No oranges to peel, no packages he has to find help opening, etc. Tell him not to rush, but not to waste time either. And tell him it isn't a big deal if he doesn't finish it all, as long has he has enough to be comfortable until after school. If he brings his lunch, let him save whatever he can that he doesn't finish for after school. If he takes hot lunch, you can see if the teacher will let him be near the front of the line to minimize waiting time, since he is feeling stress about having to eat too fast. Good luck!

Have to agree with pack a lunch! Plus it will probably be healthier and contain less sodium..(no bloated / hurt tummy) :)

I agree that it doesn't seem healthy, but I don't have any information to back that up. I would consider going to the next PTA meeting and bringing it up. Maybe their are other moms with the same concern.

i pack my son's lunch so he has longer to eat

yeah im a little agged about this too, my daughter comes home with half eaten lunches, and hardly anything drank from her bottle of water because she says it went so quickly.(and if the class is too loud they get 10 minutes for lunch in what they call a "silent lunch"...the whole class)They also hardly allow bathroom breaks, so my daughter barely drinks enough water. Last year she got dizzy from the heat.

Packing will help.

As for the play first, eat second issue, you can google this because there is information and articles about the benefits of having recess before eating for younger kids, they actually eat more that way when they are not excited to get outside.

However, I do urge you not to bring this up with either your PTO or PTA, because this is not an issue that they can take on, it is one that you should address with the school administration first, and see if you can get a group of like minded parents together, with your administrators support, to pettition the Board of Ed for this change. In some cases, the change may be totally within your principals control, and having that individual on your side is essential, so play your cards right. It is mostly an issue for the youngest children, and since this involves something called the "master schedule" think next year...but get started now.

It is really not a health issue, per se, but it is a healthy life style issue, as children learn and feel better if they have had a full lunch.

M.

I have no new info but I just wanted to add that it is the same at my kids school.

Even though my son would buy (and like everything) every single day--I started packing him a lunch because he can use the "standing in line" time to just sit & start eating.

At the school where I work they started several years ago having the children do recess 1st so they would feel more relaxed and actually eat their lunch. You could talk to the PTA and if everyone is in agreement the school might try that? It's not technically MORE time but they do sometimes rush the kids b/c they want to get them outside. Not the case if the time is reversed. Good luck!

I just saw an article in the newspaper where Michele Obama is extremely supportive of the healthy/nutritional school lunch program. I think this goes right along with that - no only what they eat, but the amount of time they have to eat it and what they do afterwards. Our kids are the most important things in our lives, we need to watch out for them.

I just wish someone would stand up to our public school system - they seem to do what they want and do not back down for anyone. We pay taxes, which in turn, pay their salary -- you would think we, the people, would have more influence in they system - but for some reason it doesn't work that way.