Welcome back to the show my Friend!
I started packing my own lunch In the first grade...yep. It's true! I am actually very thankful that I learned this skill so early on, and I can't wait to share more about that with you today.
Because, it may only be the start of the new school year, but you may already be feeling that dreaded feeling of indecision. When you pull out the lunch kits and stare blankly at them, wondering what to put In there today and If your child will actually eat what you give them.
I want to share with you today a fact that may be freeing.
It Is not a job you have to do on your own, day In and day out. Just because you are the momma. No way. Packing lunches Is a job that your children should be, and CAN be helping you with. Even from a very young age.
So If this daily task Is something you don't enjoy and you find It Is taking longer than It should, then you need the encouragement packed into today's episode.
Even for those of you mommas who enjoy packing lunches, there are still plenty of practical tips and takeaways In this episode for you.
In this episode today, we will talk about...I am sharing 5 tips with you for how you can better organize your pantry and create some systems for lunch packing.
This Is going to take some of this stress, weight and responsibility off your shoulders and shoulder it evenly with others in the household.
So let's dive right in!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Friend, did you know that it's not actually your job to be the only one doing
everything to do with school lunches just because you're mom?
Did you know that? Did you need to hear that from someone else?
That it's not only your responsibility to do everything surrounding lunches
(00:21):
just because you're mom?
I am so excited to talk about this topic with you today, friends.
It is a topic that I feel a little passionate about,
and I'm really excited to share five tips
with you today for how you can better organize your pantry and create some systems
(00:42):
for lunch packing to take some of this stress and weight and responsibility
off your shoulders and to shoulder it evenly with others in the household. So let's dive right in.
Do you wish that you had a peaceful clutter-free home
(01:03):
but you are buried under piles of toys and laundry do
you wish you could create simple systems to get organized but you just don't
know where to start hey there i'm amy wife and mom to four littles for years
i thought that having an organized home meant pinterest perfect and clean at
all times i tried every tip for cleaning and organizing only to fall off track
(01:24):
again and to feel like a failure.
Finally, I came to realize that in order to become the organized mom I wanted
to be, I had to start with organizing myself.
So I developed a simple framework that focuses on organization as the whole picture.
I am so excited to share it with you.
So if you are ready for a peaceful, clutter-free, and easy to maintain home,
(01:48):
then this is the podcast for you.
Reach for your special snacks, brew some coffee, and go hide in the closet,
because it is time for some me time, mama. Let's learn.
So, I am extremely thankful for this, but looking back as a kid,
it was of course something that I always thought, man, why do I have to do this
(02:11):
and my friends don't? So let me tell you the story.
In, I want to say kindergarten or grade one, I came home from school one day
and I complained to my mom about the fact that there was a banana in my lunch.
Because I cannot stand bananas when they get a little mushed up,
a little bruised, a little brown.
(02:32):
When they are not nice and yellow or even a teensy bit green still,
I don't like them. And I've always been that way.
And so I I said to her something along the lines of, like, why did you put a banana in my lunch?
Like, I don't really like it when they get all bruised up. And when they're
in your lunch kit, they get bruised up.
And she said something along the lines of, you know what? You're going to pack your own lunch then.
(02:56):
And as a kid, that, of course, felt a little harsh. But thank you,
mom, if you're ever listening to this episode.
I will, now looking back forever, be grateful for that.
Because I learned from a very early age how to take responsibility for my own
needs, my own desires, the food I wanted, all those things.
(03:17):
I learned to take responsibility for it from a very young age.
And so naturally, this has been something that we have implemented in our own home.
So what I want to do for you today is to give you some practical tips and ideas
ideas for how you can set up your pantry in such a way that it supports this
ideal lunch packing system that you want to create.
(03:38):
So I just want to give you some tips and ideas for this.
And so I guess before we jump into this all, if, if I should say,
if you are someone who loves making lunches, you love doing that for your kids,
you feel lit up by creating the cute little lunches, having all all those cute, fun things in there.
(03:59):
If you're someone who this is not a struggle for, then of course,
this episode won't be as much for you as the mom who is like me,
who is feeling like, you know, I already do so much for everybody.
This is a task that they can help me with.
Like, I'm not making them do it on their own, of course, but
(04:21):
this is a task that they can help me with this is something that
I don't have to shoulder on my own this is something
that I can empower my kids to learn how to do and
learn how to do it well and eventually the hope
is is that they can manage it completely on
their own and to take that off my plate so if you
are someone who is more identifying with that of
(04:42):
like I don't love making lunches it's something that always feels like it's
never ending it's stressful I never know what to pack I never know this and
that another thing you don't have a system around it if you are someone that's
identifying more than with that then these tips are most definitely going to be for you.
However, even if you are someone who does love the lunch making,
(05:05):
you like to do it on your own, and it's something that lights you up,
there will still be something in here that can help you. So don't go anywhere.
But I just wanted to kind of give that little disclaimer, because I do recognize
that there are certain tasks in motherhood that are easier for some of us than
others. We all have strengths and weaknesses.
And so I just wanted to say that I recognize that as well. And I totally respect that.
(05:30):
So let's dive into this, I guess. However, yeah, quickly, I need to remind you
too, that the giveaway is ending very, very soon, friends.
The actual deadline for it is the end of August.
So you are running out of time to enter into the contest giveaway. So it's super easy.
You can just get into the Facebook group or onto the email list in order to
(05:53):
enter into the giveaway.
You do have to be in one of those two places in order for me to even have your
contact information so that I can give you the prize, right?
So get onto the email list by going to plantomom.com slash checklist.
Or join the Facebook community by going to plantomom.com slash Facebook and
(06:15):
you just complete the super easy tasks, accumulate some points,
and then enter into the giveaway.
So I would love to to see you in one of those places so that you can have a
chance of winning one of the prizes.
All right, let's dive in to these five tips I have for you today.
So as you can imagine, tip number one is going to be that you need to enlist your kids' help.
(06:40):
They are capable of helping with this, even from a young age.
They know what they want more than you do.
We know this. Toddlers, even babies, are better at knowing what they want.
Not always what they should have, but they are better at knowing what they want
than we do, and they have a problem communicating it.
(07:03):
But once they get to that school age, they are more than capable of saying,
saying, mom, I don't want grapes today, but yeah, sure, an orange sounds good.
You know, and so inviting them into this process, into this conversation of
what do you want for lunch today?
These are our family rules around what a healthy lunch looks like,
(07:23):
but within that, you know, what do you feel like having? Can I help you make that?
So invite your kids into this task, even from a young age.
At first, is it going to be hard and a little clumsy and a little more difficult? Absolutely.
But I can rest, I can assure you, I have been doing this with my own kids since play school.
(07:46):
When they start play school, they are already more than capable of helping me
make their lunches and they do so.
And they get good at it really fast. They, my, I find my kids remember the rules
about what we pack in lunches better than I do.
They know those expectations, they know those rules, and they know how to do
(08:06):
it. So that's tip number one.
Tip number two, invest in the thing.
Invest in the thing. So I always kind of had those cheap lunch boxes that were
shaped super awkwardly. And by lunch boxes, sorry, I mean like the bento box idea.
I always I always had like the cheaper knockoff version for the first couple years of school stuff.
(08:30):
And they like have awkwardly shaped compartments. They don't like that you can't
change the sizing of things. It was it was not perfect.
I recently invested in a pack of three bento boxes from like Costco type idea.
And I must say, I am really, really loving it.
And amazingly, I can fit way more in those things than I even thought possible.
(08:54):
So if you're in a place to do
so if you're in a place to do it invest in
the right kind of tools that makes your lunch packing
system easier and smoother and this goes for pantry stuff too like if you're
in a place to do so to redo some of your pantry organization according to what
i say in the in the next steps here to make lunch packing easier for you and
(09:18):
the kids if you're in a place to do that financially,
then do so because it will definitely help you and be worth it if you do it the right way.
So the other thing I recommend that's so nice to have is those insulated thermoses.
Those are also so great so that you can send leftovers. If your kid is someone
who gets sick and tired of having sandwiches every single day, that's my oldest.
(09:40):
Having leftovers is really nice and so having a thermos to put those leftovers in is great as well.
And then of course, If you have these materials before you go shopping for your
lunch kits, then you can make sure that those things fit inside whatever lunch kit you end up with.
I historically was really bad for buying lunch kits that were way too small.
(10:01):
And so I'm starting to learn that bigger can be really helpful so that you have
the flexibility to either put those bento boxes in there and add some other
snacks in if you need or to just have various sized containers instead. it.
Tip number three, I want you to set expectations and rules around what a healthy
(10:27):
lunch looks like in your family.
This is going to vary on family. And so that's what I say, depending on your family.
I want you to sit down together for a few minutes as a family and talk about this.
Draw it out if you need to, or just discuss.
This is what a balanced lunch looks like. This is what we're were aiming for.
(10:48):
And so therefore, these are the things that you are allowed to have in your lunch each day.
And then these are the things that we typically have in the pantry and in the
fridge that fit within those categories.
So just set your expectations, set the rules for what a healthy lunch looks like.
(11:09):
So that you are starting off on the right foot, building good habits from the
get-go, instead of just letting them throw whatever they want in their lunch kits,
and then revisiting this topic after, and saying, actually, that lunch doesn't look very good.
Because then they're going to be like, well, man, I don't even want to make my lunch then.
(11:29):
Like, if you start off by saying, this is what it looks like,
we're going to do it together for the first couple times or we're
always going to do it together in this certain way just setting
those expectations will will lead
to less overwhelm and frustration for everybody in the
long run so setting the expectations is part
(11:51):
of creating your overarching lunch packing system as well and then tip number
four you are going to organize your pantry to make lunch packing easier because
Because we have the goal in mind of creating a system for this and creating a system where,
(12:11):
this system's goal is empowering our kids to make their own lunch with help
so that it's less off our plate, right?
That is the goal of the system. So therefore, if that's the goal of the system,
then how do you set up the other pieces in the system to support that goal?
If the goal is that my kids are capable of making their own lunch almost independently
(12:35):
while I'm cooking supper in the kitchen beside them, this is what I need to
have in place in order to support that.
And what that looks like is having your pantry and fridge organized in such
a way that it makes lunch packing easy for them.
That means having your snacks that go inside lunches easily accessible.
That might mean having stuff pre-portioned
(12:58):
in the fridge already to make it easier that
might mean having pre-portioned snacks in
little containers in the pantry to make this easier even
from like when my kids were like babies when
they first like started eating i would get these like little quarter cup plastic
containers like ziploc containers and i would pre-portion all of our snacks
(13:23):
into these containers and then put all these containers in a bucket in the pantry
so that I could say to them when it was snack time,
okay, it's snack time, go ahead and grab a container of snacks.
Like there's a couple different types of snacks all portioned already into that
bucket so then they could choose the one that they wanted.
(13:43):
It was right away giving the power to them in a controlled way that really just
empowered them to do things for themselves which was really,
really good, especially when I was so busy with so many of them being so young at the same time.
So think about ways that you can organize your pantry and fridge in such a way
(14:05):
that it is going to support them in making those healthy, proper lunch packing decisions,
according to the rules and expectations you are setting out for your family.
And then step number five, the final step, is consider what kind of prep to do ahead of time.
(14:25):
This could look like doing baking during the day while they're at school and
making sure that everything's in nice little sized pieces so that it is really
quick to grab that, throw it in the bento box for lunch.
That could look like prepping sandwiches ahead of time.
That could look like Like prepping, like I said, the different little snacks
(14:48):
into smaller containers.
You don't have to always have prepackaged snacks. You can just as easily pre-portion
things up yourself and do that if that's something that's important to you as well.
So anyways, prepping things ahead of time, but then also kind of creating a
system within that as well for yourself so that you know, okay,
(15:10):
this is our lunch packing system. system the goal of the system is that the
kids pack their own snacks.
So again a branch of that goal another
leg holding that goal up is the fact that
you need to have things prepped in such a way that it's supporting healthy lunch
decisions but it's also portioned in a way that's good for the kids already
and that it's also easy for them to grab and throw in their lunch so that they
(15:34):
can be as independent as possible with this lunch packing process.
Okay so I hope that this is kind of all all coming together
and making sense for you sometimes these kind
of tactical things that are very hands-on can
be hard to describe and explain but I
just really wanted to walk you through some some
things that I do just without even thinking about it when it comes to our lunch
(15:58):
packing routine throughout the school year that I thought maybe this could be
helpful so there's actually a little bonus tip that I have and that is the fact
of technically what we've we've been talking about the whole time is have a system for it.
But it goes deeper than just what I said. There are a lot of layers to creating a system.
But the beautiful thing is once you do create a system, you can keep falling back on it.
(16:25):
And it's something that everyone can rely on because it's agreed upon and known
by everyone in the family.
So some of the things that you you should consider in this tip of how we finish
creating a system for packing lunches and organizing the pantry for easier lunch
(16:45):
routines is deciding what time do we make lunches?
What are the exact steps that we follow each and every time we make lunches
so that before you know it, everyone is just doing this on autopilot?
What do we do when we get home from school with the dirty stuff,
set those expectations as well.
(17:05):
As soon as you get home from school, you take your lunch kit out of your backpack
and you take the garbage and empty stuff out of it and put it in the sink.
And then you decide when those lunch kits get filled back up again.
For my family, it's at night. It's never in the morning.
However, I know for some families, they do do it in the morning and that works
(17:26):
for them. But again, each to their own.
Some families will do things a little bit differently of what works good for them.
And then the biggest part of this all is systems take practice.
You have to keep implementing them and refining them
until you find exactly the perfect flow
for everything and just don't be afraid to ask
(17:47):
for that help don't be afraid to delegate tasks to
them you do not have to do it all on your own packing a
lunch is something so easy and like I said they know their stomachs better than
you for what they like and don't like right so get them to help you this is
just my full encouragement to you to get them to help you with this no matter
(18:07):
what their ages are and enjoy a less stressful,
less overwhelming back to school season by getting them to help with this task.
So I hope that that has been helpful for you and I will be back again next week
with the final episode of the back to school series.
This has been so much fun. I hope it's been fun for you as well and thanks for hanging out with me.
(18:32):
So I will talk to you again very very soon.
Hey mama thanks for tuning in i hope
that you enjoyed today's episode if so would you mind
sharing it with a mom friend that is also desiring
a more peaceful and orderly home make sure to hit that subscribe button so that
you don't miss a thing lastly can you head over to apple podcasts and leave
(18:57):
me a review it lights me up to read the ways that this show is helping you now
it's time for me to get back to my never-ending pile of laundry and i'm sure you have some too.
I'll meet you back on Wednesday for another episode. Bye for now.
Music.
Friend, did you know that it's not actually your job to be the only one doing
everything to do with school lunches just because you're mom?
Did you know that? Did you need to hear that from someone else?
That it's not only your responsibility to do everything surrounding lunches
(00:21):
just because you're mom?
I am so excited to talk about this topic with you today, friends.
It is a topic that I feel a little passionate about,
and I'm really excited to share five tips
with you today for how you can better organize your pantry and create some systems
(00:42):
for lunch packing to take some of this stress and weight and responsibility
off your shoulders and to shoulder it evenly with others in the household. So let's dive right in.
Do you wish that you had a peaceful clutter-free home
(01:03):
but you are buried under piles of toys and laundry do
you wish you could create simple systems to get organized but you just don't
know where to start hey there i'm amy wife and mom to four littles for years
i thought that having an organized home meant pinterest perfect and clean at
all times i tried every tip for cleaning and organizing only to fall off track
(01:24):
again and to feel like a failure.
Finally, I came to realize that in order to become the organized mom I wanted
to be, I had to start with organizing myself.
So I developed a simple framework that focuses on organization as the whole picture.
I am so excited to share it with you.
So if you are ready for a peaceful, clutter-free, and easy to maintain home,
(01:48):
then this is the podcast for you.
Reach for your special snacks, brew some coffee, and go hide in the closet,
because it is time for some me time, mama. Let's learn.
So, I am extremely thankful for this, but looking back as a kid,
it was of course something that I always thought, man, why do I have to do this
(02:11):
and my friends don't? So let me tell you the story.
In, I want to say kindergarten or grade one, I came home from school one day
and I complained to my mom about the fact that there was a banana in my lunch.
Because I cannot stand bananas when they get a little mushed up,
a little bruised, a little brown.
(02:32):
When they are not nice and yellow or even a teensy bit green still,
I don't like them. And I've always been that way.
And so I I said to her something along the lines of, like, why did you put a banana in my lunch?
Like, I don't really like it when they get all bruised up. And when they're
in your lunch kit, they get bruised up.
And she said something along the lines of, you know what? You're going to pack your own lunch then.
(02:56):
And as a kid, that, of course, felt a little harsh. But thank you,
mom, if you're ever listening to this episode.
I will, now looking back forever, be grateful for that.
Because I learned from a very early age how to take responsibility for my own
needs, my own desires, the food I wanted, all those things.
(03:17):
I learned to take responsibility for it from a very young age.
And so naturally, this has been something that we have implemented in our own home.
So what I want to do for you today is to give you some practical tips and ideas
ideas for how you can set up your pantry in such a way that it supports this
ideal lunch packing system that you want to create.
(03:38):
So I just want to give you some tips and ideas for this.
And so I guess before we jump into this all, if, if I should say,
if you are someone who loves making lunches, you love doing that for your kids,
you feel lit up by creating the cute little lunches, having all all those cute, fun things in there.
(03:59):
If you're someone who this is not a struggle for, then of course,
this episode won't be as much for you as the mom who is like me,
who is feeling like, you know, I already do so much for everybody.
This is a task that they can help me with.
Like, I'm not making them do it on their own, of course, but
(04:21):
this is a task that they can help me with this is something that
I don't have to shoulder on my own this is something
that I can empower my kids to learn how to do and
learn how to do it well and eventually the hope
is is that they can manage it completely on
their own and to take that off my plate so if you
are someone who is more identifying with that of
(04:42):
like I don't love making lunches it's something that always feels like it's
never ending it's stressful I never know what to pack I never know this and
that another thing you don't have a system around it if you are someone that's
identifying more than with that then these tips are most definitely going to be for you.
However, even if you are someone who does love the lunch making,
(05:05):
you like to do it on your own, and it's something that lights you up,
there will still be something in here that can help you. So don't go anywhere.
But I just wanted to kind of give that little disclaimer, because I do recognize
that there are certain tasks in motherhood that are easier for some of us than
others. We all have strengths and weaknesses.
And so I just wanted to say that I recognize that as well. And I totally respect that.
(05:30):
So let's dive into this, I guess. However, yeah, quickly, I need to remind you
too, that the giveaway is ending very, very soon, friends.
The actual deadline for it is the end of August.
So you are running out of time to enter into the contest giveaway. So it's super easy.
You can just get into the Facebook group or onto the email list in order to
(05:53):
enter into the giveaway.
You do have to be in one of those two places in order for me to even have your
contact information so that I can give you the prize, right?
So get onto the email list by going to plantomom.com slash checklist.
Or join the Facebook community by going to plantomom.com slash Facebook and
(06:15):
you just complete the super easy tasks, accumulate some points,
and then enter into the giveaway.
So I would love to to see you in one of those places so that you can have a
chance of winning one of the prizes.
All right, let's dive in to these five tips I have for you today.
So as you can imagine, tip number one is going to be that you need to enlist your kids' help.
(06:40):
They are capable of helping with this, even from a young age.
They know what they want more than you do.
We know this. Toddlers, even babies, are better at knowing what they want.
Not always what they should have, but they are better at knowing what they want
than we do, and they have a problem communicating it.
(07:03):
But once they get to that school age, they are more than capable of saying,
saying, mom, I don't want grapes today, but yeah, sure, an orange sounds good.
You know, and so inviting them into this process, into this conversation of
what do you want for lunch today?
These are our family rules around what a healthy lunch looks like,
(07:23):
but within that, you know, what do you feel like having? Can I help you make that?
So invite your kids into this task, even from a young age.
At first, is it going to be hard and a little clumsy and a little more difficult? Absolutely.
But I can rest, I can assure you, I have been doing this with my own kids since play school.
(07:46):
When they start play school, they are already more than capable of helping me
make their lunches and they do so.
And they get good at it really fast. They, my, I find my kids remember the rules
about what we pack in lunches better than I do.
They know those expectations, they know those rules, and they know how to do
(08:06):
it. So that's tip number one.
Tip number two, invest in the thing.
Invest in the thing. So I always kind of had those cheap lunch boxes that were
shaped super awkwardly. And by lunch boxes, sorry, I mean like the bento box idea.
I always I always had like the cheaper knockoff version for the first couple years of school stuff.
(08:30):
And they like have awkwardly shaped compartments. They don't like that you can't
change the sizing of things. It was it was not perfect.
I recently invested in a pack of three bento boxes from like Costco type idea.
And I must say, I am really, really loving it.
And amazingly, I can fit way more in those things than I even thought possible.
(08:54):
So if you're in a place to do
so if you're in a place to do it invest in
the right kind of tools that makes your lunch packing
system easier and smoother and this goes for pantry stuff too like if you're
in a place to do so to redo some of your pantry organization according to what
i say in the in the next steps here to make lunch packing easier for you and
(09:18):
the kids if you're in a place to do that financially,
then do so because it will definitely help you and be worth it if you do it the right way.
So the other thing I recommend that's so nice to have is those insulated thermoses.
Those are also so great so that you can send leftovers. If your kid is someone
who gets sick and tired of having sandwiches every single day, that's my oldest.
(09:40):
Having leftovers is really nice and so having a thermos to put those leftovers in is great as well.
And then of course, If you have these materials before you go shopping for your
lunch kits, then you can make sure that those things fit inside whatever lunch kit you end up with.
I historically was really bad for buying lunch kits that were way too small.
(10:01):
And so I'm starting to learn that bigger can be really helpful so that you have
the flexibility to either put those bento boxes in there and add some other
snacks in if you need or to just have various sized containers instead. it.
Tip number three, I want you to set expectations and rules around what a healthy
(10:27):
lunch looks like in your family.
This is going to vary on family. And so that's what I say, depending on your family.
I want you to sit down together for a few minutes as a family and talk about this.
Draw it out if you need to, or just discuss.
This is what a balanced lunch looks like. This is what we're were aiming for.
(10:48):
And so therefore, these are the things that you are allowed to have in your lunch each day.
And then these are the things that we typically have in the pantry and in the
fridge that fit within those categories.
So just set your expectations, set the rules for what a healthy lunch looks like.
(11:09):
So that you are starting off on the right foot, building good habits from the
get-go, instead of just letting them throw whatever they want in their lunch kits,
and then revisiting this topic after, and saying, actually, that lunch doesn't look very good.
Because then they're going to be like, well, man, I don't even want to make my lunch then.
(11:29):
Like, if you start off by saying, this is what it looks like,
we're going to do it together for the first couple times or we're
always going to do it together in this certain way just setting
those expectations will will lead
to less overwhelm and frustration for everybody in the
long run so setting the expectations is part
(11:51):
of creating your overarching lunch packing system as well and then tip number
four you are going to organize your pantry to make lunch packing easier because
Because we have the goal in mind of creating a system for this and creating a system where,
(12:11):
this system's goal is empowering our kids to make their own lunch with help
so that it's less off our plate, right?
That is the goal of the system. So therefore, if that's the goal of the system,
then how do you set up the other pieces in the system to support that goal?
If the goal is that my kids are capable of making their own lunch almost independently
(12:35):
while I'm cooking supper in the kitchen beside them, this is what I need to
have in place in order to support that.
And what that looks like is having your pantry and fridge organized in such
a way that it makes lunch packing easy for them.
That means having your snacks that go inside lunches easily accessible.
That might mean having stuff pre-portioned
(12:58):
in the fridge already to make it easier that
might mean having pre-portioned snacks in
little containers in the pantry to make this easier even
from like when my kids were like babies when
they first like started eating i would get these like little quarter cup plastic
containers like ziploc containers and i would pre-portion all of our snacks
(13:23):
into these containers and then put all these containers in a bucket in the pantry
so that I could say to them when it was snack time,
okay, it's snack time, go ahead and grab a container of snacks.
Like there's a couple different types of snacks all portioned already into that
bucket so then they could choose the one that they wanted.
(13:43):
It was right away giving the power to them in a controlled way that really just
empowered them to do things for themselves which was really,
really good, especially when I was so busy with so many of them being so young at the same time.
So think about ways that you can organize your pantry and fridge in such a way
(14:05):
that it is going to support them in making those healthy, proper lunch packing decisions,
according to the rules and expectations you are setting out for your family.
And then step number five, the final step, is consider what kind of prep to do ahead of time.
(14:25):
This could look like doing baking during the day while they're at school and
making sure that everything's in nice little sized pieces so that it is really
quick to grab that, throw it in the bento box for lunch.
That could look like prepping sandwiches ahead of time.
That could look like Like prepping, like I said, the different little snacks
(14:48):
into smaller containers.
You don't have to always have prepackaged snacks. You can just as easily pre-portion
things up yourself and do that if that's something that's important to you as well.
So anyways, prepping things ahead of time, but then also kind of creating a
system within that as well for yourself so that you know, okay,
(15:10):
this is our lunch packing system. system the goal of the system is that the
kids pack their own snacks.
So again a branch of that goal another
leg holding that goal up is the fact that
you need to have things prepped in such a way that it's supporting healthy lunch
decisions but it's also portioned in a way that's good for the kids already
and that it's also easy for them to grab and throw in their lunch so that they
(15:34):
can be as independent as possible with this lunch packing process.
Okay so I hope that this is kind of all all coming together
and making sense for you sometimes these kind
of tactical things that are very hands-on can
be hard to describe and explain but I
just really wanted to walk you through some some
things that I do just without even thinking about it when it comes to our lunch
(15:58):
packing routine throughout the school year that I thought maybe this could be
helpful so there's actually a little bonus tip that I have and that is the fact
of technically what we've we've been talking about the whole time is have a system for it.
But it goes deeper than just what I said. There are a lot of layers to creating a system.
But the beautiful thing is once you do create a system, you can keep falling back on it.
(16:25):
And it's something that everyone can rely on because it's agreed upon and known
by everyone in the family.
So some of the things that you you should consider in this tip of how we finish
creating a system for packing lunches and organizing the pantry for easier lunch
(16:45):
routines is deciding what time do we make lunches?
What are the exact steps that we follow each and every time we make lunches
so that before you know it, everyone is just doing this on autopilot?
What do we do when we get home from school with the dirty stuff,
set those expectations as well.
(17:05):
As soon as you get home from school, you take your lunch kit out of your backpack
and you take the garbage and empty stuff out of it and put it in the sink.
And then you decide when those lunch kits get filled back up again.
For my family, it's at night. It's never in the morning.
However, I know for some families, they do do it in the morning and that works
(17:26):
for them. But again, each to their own.
Some families will do things a little bit differently of what works good for them.
And then the biggest part of this all is systems take practice.
You have to keep implementing them and refining them
until you find exactly the perfect flow
for everything and just don't be afraid to ask
(17:47):
for that help don't be afraid to delegate tasks to
them you do not have to do it all on your own packing a
lunch is something so easy and like I said they know their stomachs better than
you for what they like and don't like right so get them to help you this is
just my full encouragement to you to get them to help you with this no matter
(18:07):
what their ages are and enjoy a less stressful,
less overwhelming back to school season by getting them to help with this task.
So I hope that that has been helpful for you and I will be back again next week
with the final episode of the back to school series.
This has been so much fun. I hope it's been fun for you as well and thanks for hanging out with me.
(18:32):
So I will talk to you again very very soon.
Hey mama thanks for tuning in i hope
that you enjoyed today's episode if so would you mind
sharing it with a mom friend that is also desiring
a more peaceful and orderly home make sure to hit that subscribe button so that
you don't miss a thing lastly can you head over to apple podcasts and leave
(18:57):
me a review it lights me up to read the ways that this show is helping you now
it's time for me to get back to my never-ending pile of laundry and i'm sure you have some too.
I'll meet you back on Wednesday for another episode. Bye for now.
Music.
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