School Dinner = No Hot Meal at Tea?

[Skittlesss]

I’ve seen the debates re hot school meal vs packed lunch, and part of the discussion has people saying that having a hot school dinner means the parents don’t have to put as much effort into providing a hot cooked meal at teatime.

Is this really a thing? Do people think kids don’t need a decent tea after school if they’ve had a school dinner?

My dc all get the same hot meal at tea time regardless of if they take a packed lunch or have a hot dinner at school

Judging by the quality and portion sizes at my kids schools they need their main meal in the evening. I've tried tne school dinners which is why they have packed lunches No way could they manage on school dinners as the main meal.

I don’t understand this either, regardless of whether a lunch was hot cold, everyone still needs their dinner. Of course there exceptions when you’re not hungry/fancy something smaller like egg on toast but it’s surely not the norm just because you’ve eaten something hot?

Some children don't have tea cooked for them. Parents may be out at work, they might not have money to buy a decent amount of food or they just might not bother. Some parents do rely on school to provide a meal for whatever reason (some reasons more valid than others)...
So, for these children school dinners are their main meal.

School lunches are small portions and usally crap... children still need an evening meal!

I know people that do this and effectively 'swap' lunch and dinner, they think that as the children have had a hot meal at lunchtime then a sandwich etc for dinner.
My DD would riot at this! She is always hungry after school and always has been.
It is difficult as a parent though if you work and don't collect the children until after 5 if they go to childcare after school. The easy option is to give the children something quick and easy so they can be eating that whilst you get on with all the things you need to do at home having been at work all day.
I have been in this situation and always make sure I have quick but filling meals to give my DD when we get home.

'Meal cooked for them' is a more accurate description.

But hotness is irrelevant. It doesn't dictate the size, quality, filling power or nutritional content of a meal.

I hardly ever eat cold food by preference. Just about all my food is hot, but that has no effect on the amount of food that I eat or how filling or nutritious it is or how many calories it contains. Same goes if someone has two cold meals in a day. They could both be great - salad, smoked fish, pulses, falafels, hummus, cheese etc.

Or the hot food could be a bit rubbish - pizza, beige and chips, instant noodles.

My 2 have cooked breakfast (scrambled egg on toast with fruit on the side), school dinner for lunch, then come home and have rice cakes, cheese cubes and fruit. Then they have a home cooked hot meal. But they have 2 sports clubs each night so I think they need the proper meals! I don't understand the folk who say they shouldn't have more than one cooked meal a day. As long as the calorie count is correct and the nutrition is correct, then surely it's ok to cook dinner?

My ds's favourite meal is sandwiches. He has hot dinners at tea for definite on three school days a week. Two days a week he has to do after school club as me and dh are working so we don't get in until six and he goes to bed at seven and in the hour we have we have to do reading, spellings and bath. I therefore make sure he has a hot dinner at lunch on those days and sometimes do let him have sandwiches plus bits like cheese, crisps, cucumber, tomatoes, fruit on those days. If not sandwiches we either reheat leftovers or do cold quiche and microwave rice. Not the best meals.

I suppose it depends on the portion size and quality of the cooked lunch the schools supplies relative to your child's energy expenditure. If they've had a decent main meal for lunch then a further hot cooked meal at dinner time is probably not necessary, and maybe even too much food, although if the portion sizes that my school gave out at lunchtime were anything to go by, and the kids are active, a sandwich at dinner time won't provide the requisite nutrition.

Barbara which is exactly the reason I have said main meal not hot meal.

I’d always cook a hot meal in the evening regardless because there’s also two adults who need to eat a hot meal. I don’t think school dinners are that great either.

Do people think kids don’t need a decent tea after school if they’ve had a school dinner?

Why do you think a meal can't be nutritionally "decent" unless it's hot?

Should say he also gets snacks at after school club so he's not starving when he gets home. And I agree that hot dinner doesn't mean better dinner. Depends what you are feeding them.

What concerns me is that people aren't eating as a family. Sitting down for a meal together is so important. The meal could be toasted sandwiches or a salad, it's the sharing a meal that matters

My son gets very grumpy if I deny him a sandwich for too many days in a row - he has school dinners because he’s at infants, on days when he has a roast, or salmon and potatoes, or chicken curry at school, he doesn’t want a cooked meal. Twice a week he has activities at tea time, so a cooked meal isn’t practical. We usually have a cooked family dinner twice a week (and at weekends) but the other days the kids have sandwiches. But it’s not ‘just’ a sandwich, they have sandwich, some cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, pepper, a yoghurt and some fruit, so it’s still a filling and balanced meal

Mine always had a proper meal in the evenings. When they were smaller they would eat earlier than us so would either keep some of ours back from the previous day to reheat, or cook a meal that would be kept warm for us later, or do them something different.

Much easier once they were old enough to wait until DH was home from work.

School meals were/are awful. Very small portions, poor quality and often inedible. They definitely need a proper meal in the evening.

stucknoue
The theory is great, however making this work practically every day is not possible in a lot of households

bundles

But the thread is about hot meals. And anyway, I don't understand this concept of 'main' meal. What sets out any particular meal as the 'main' meal of the day?

All my meals are of similar size and content - sometimes exactly the same because I usually have dinner leftovers for lunch.

Different children have different appetites. My nieces have hot school dinners and then a smaller meal later, often cold. Things like sandwiches with fruit, a piece of flapjack, yoghurt etc or beans on toast, egg and soldiers with avocado, pasta salad and so on. Quick, easy and filling. My DS has hot school dinners and still needs a big meal in the evening as he is very active and permanently hungry.

A "decent tea" as you term it, can be cold, can involve sandwiches. A decent open sandwich for example can be more filling and nutritious than cheap chicken nuggets and chips for example which is a hot, cooked dinner. You can't be reductive about it.

We do have a weird obsession with a meal needing to be "hot" to be sufficient.

Some schools provide decent lunches. Ours are cooked on site daily from fresh ingredients by a trained chef.
As a consequence... During Infants my FC were not overly hungry in the evening. It was a struggle to get them to eat a whole sandwich and a yoghurt. Now they are a bit bigger, they have asked for a larger meal in the evening, which I am giving them.

I would give mine a proper home cooked tea - simply because mine were always starving. That’s why I switched to packed lunches - cooked lunches didn’t fill them up.

The thing I don’t get about it is that surely the parents will be cook,in a meal for themselves? Why would you do something different for the children, and why would that be easier?

@cardibach... DH has a hot meal provided at work. I make myself something at home. In the evening we all have the light tea.