Keep Packing Your Child’s School Lunch the Night Before.
Since we’re looking for some semblance of normality in this most abnormal school year, may I suggest sticking to one routine that has traditionally made the morning rush to ease parenting? I’m talking about making school meals for the kids the night before.
Your kids’ schedule is likely to look a little (very) crazy this year, whether they are studying remotely from home, on a hybrid schedule, or returning to face-to-face classes until they are quarantined for two weeks after positive cases have started showing up. COVID-19 . Lunch doesn’t need to add to the chaos.
Not only do we have reasons why it is generally a good idea to prepare meals ahead of time, but we also have additional reasons to stick to this routine right now. If your kids are getting ready for school, your morning is likely to be even more hectic than usual. First, we don’t just stop getting ready for school after the summer months; many of our children have not been physically present in the classroom since March. We have never had more practice in this than we do now.
And then there are all the extra things we need to remind them to take with them this year: masks, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes to share with the class ( if you find them ). It will be continually difficult for families working on a hybrid schedule to remember what day it is and where everyone should be on that day; if lunch is already waiting in the fridge the night before, that’s one last-minute pressure point less than needs to be managed.
If your kids are home-schooled (part-time or full-time), you can put that off and make lunch at lunchtime like you did all summer. But if you’re working from home while trying to deal with the myriad distractions of their online learning, you’ve just saved one extra interruption, which could be 10 precious minutes to complete a task or respond to a couple of emails in the middle. working day.
Do you like how to make school lunches the night before? Not really, no. Making school meals is one of my least favorite things. This is probably because I spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food as it is – my task is to gather strength to cook food that no one really is going to eat until the next day.
But what I enjoy even less than cooking dinners the night before is the last possible realization that I didn’t cook them the night before, and now I have to fight with bread, foil and fruit. Or, these days, deal with my son knocking on my office door desperate for food as I try to finish texting.
So, I propose this suggestion: Give yourself a little routine during this bizarre, inconsistent, unpredictable school year, and keep collecting those lunches the night before.