What do you give your 10/11 year old for breakfast?

[cheeseday]

I am really struggling to find healthy breakfast options for my 10 and a half year old daughter.
I usually give 2 pan au chocolate or chocolate crepe or 3 scotch pancakes with margarine or cereal or 2 slices of toast with chocolate spread or peanut butter or jam.

She is over weight and we have started consciously giving healthy home cooked dinner which includes meat or fish and vegetables and of course have not mentioned anything to her but breakfast seems to be our downfall, she likes porridge in the winter but not in the summer.

Also packed lunch tends to be a generic sandwich, yogurt, piece of fruit and crisps.

This week:
Monday: waffles with strawberries, honey and a glass of milk
Tuesday: cinnamon and honey porridge
Wednesday: 2 slices of peanut butter on wholemeal toast with a glass of milk
thursday: cinnamon & honey porridge
Friday: bacon and egg bagels with a glass of milk

Weekends are always cereal. I think I bought shreddies for this week. But sometimes we do sweeter ones like crunchy nut cornflakes

Then an apple for school morning snack. Hot dinner at school (lots of overweight children seem to have a packed lunch with large portions). Then nothing until dinner unless a sports club, and then nuts or cereal bar as the usual go to.

When DS was that age, during the week it would be boiled egg with a slice of toast, or scrambled eggs, or banana oat muffins/oat pancakes or Greek yoghurt, with berries, seeded toast with peanut butter. Pain au chocolates was a Friday treat. He’s older now, and when left to his own devices will opt for a bowl of alpen and a slice of toast with peanut butter.

Ooo protein bagels, I’m pinching that idea for my commute breakfasts! I’ve been looking for something to ditch the pain au chocolate.

My summer porridge recipe...
Make your porridge, add 2 spoons of Greek yoghurt (about 100g, the fage brand is the best tasting) and mix it in to the porridge.
Nuc some frozen fruit in the microwave untill it's warm. (about 2 min on full power I do around 80g raspberries, 40g blueberries) stir through a tsp of honey and pour on top of the porridge. Add any interesting fresh fruit you like. Kiwi and apricots are my current favourite. It's about 360 calories, 17g protein and 13g fibre so will keep you full until lunch

9 year old ds has either 2 weetabix or branflakes with milk, or peanut butter on whole meal toast. Then he always has a chunk of cheese and an apple as hes leaving the house.

My 10yo dd has cereal (cornflakes/ricecrispies/weetabix/multigrain hoops) or she makes herself scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast. We’re a foodie family and she knows how to cook and enjoy good healthy food

Porridge or scrambled egg and toast. She makes it herself.

When DS was 10 he'd have fruit, Ususally a different one every day and a slice of buttered toast. Yogurt with fruit and a bit of honey on Saturdays and toast. Boiled egg on Sundays if he fancied it. Neither he nor I like cereal. He has much the same if he's home from uni

Proper whole meal bread (UPF free is available at supermarkets), and UPF free peanut butter and jam is fine.

My kids actually really like leftovers for breakfast so they might have pasta, or rice, or dal is quite a favourite. Otherwise bagel and cream cheese or peanut butter.

Mine has things like: overnight oats, chia pudding, homemade muesli, toast and butter / peanut butter (bread made at home with a bread machine), bran flakes, weetabix, egg fried rice (if we've any leftover rice, we usually have brown rice), greek yoghurt with blueberries, a smoothie, fruit, eggs. Generally they make their own breakfast, I just have to remind them sometimes that they need to eat.

Weetabix is a whole lot healthier than the crap you are giving her.

Stop the chocolate and pastries.

Are you using wholemeal bread at least? Any fruit?

What snacks do you have?

On school mornings my 11 year old has been having Porridge with a small spoon of Nutella, some raspberries and blueberries.
Friday mornings he often just takes a breakfast biscuit (like a go-ahead bar or belvita bar) as by Fridays he’s usually done in and doesn’t want to eat.
Saturdays and Sundays he can choose between pain au chocolat, cheese and ham croissant, chocolate/“fun” cereal like marshmallow Maties or Oreos cereal. Sometimes he doesn’t have anything.
He is autistic and that makes food very difficult in our house. If he could have chocolate cereal every day he would, but porridge with a bit of Nutella and berries seems better than nothing at all, which is his current favourite thing - where he leaves for school without anything to eat.
It’s very tricky if they’re stuck in their ways to make them eat better/healthier choices. I try to have specific safe healthy foods he can have; and this morning we had half a bowl of porridge and he ate a banana on the walk to his friends house, so progress this week!

Overnight oats
Weetabix
Greek yoghurt with fruit and honey
Fried egg sandwich (once a week)
Jammy toast
Frozen pastries done in the airfryer
The last two are occasional breakfasts usually on a weekend but not every weekend.

If she likes oats you could try homemade oat bars. It's quite easy and quick to make a big batch, and you can control the amount of sugar you put in them (personally I use bananas to sweeten them, with a little bit of agave sirup if needed). You can also add seeds and fruits like blueberries or cherries for flavour.

Overnight oats is also a good option. I didn't like them until I tried a bircher muesli recipe where the oats are mixed with grated apple and yogurt, and dried apricots. There are a lot of recipes online using different fruits or types of yogurts (coconut yogurt works really well too), so hopefully you can find a couple that she likes.

For lunch, I try to alternate sandwiches/wraps with something else every other day (mainly because my kids only eat cheese and ham in their sandwiches so it's not super healthy).
They love pasta and rice salads (I use leftover pasta or rice, cut up whatever veggies in have in the fridge or freezer, and add a some canned tuna or shop-bought roast chicken, with a yogurt/lemon/olive oil dressing).
We also have thermos flasks for hot food like pasta dishes, noodles, soup etc. Generally we make bigger portions at dinner, and send them with leftovers the day after.

It sounds like she enjoys sweet things for breakfast. So if you're going to make this work you need to accommodate that. Also to keep her feeling full until lunch, try to make sure she's getting something with a good amount of protein and fibre.

As a halfway house between healthy and where she is currently, what about reducing the portion of pastry, crêpe, pancake, or toast by half and serving it with a homemade smoothie (eg frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, banana, spoon of Greek yoghurt and milk. Or instead of the berries, asda do a tropical frozen fruit bag which tastes like a solaro!)

Or make a smoothie bowl which basically the same, just make it with less milk so it's a thick, ice cream like consistency. Then you add oats/nuts/fresh chopped fruit and a drizzle of honey on top

Or look at medjool date recipes. They're all over my tiktok at the moment. People blending them up and using them as a sweetener in breakfast puddings and overnight oats, or just making date caramel and pouring over yoghurt and nuts.

Thank you for the suggestions, I will continue with some cereals but not all the sugary ones but it’s surprising to learn some are much more healthy so we’ll stick to those.
Greek yogurt and fruit will definitely be on the shopping list and she already eats porridge in the winter.
I buy weetabix for my toddler as it’s easy to mash so I will give her that too with fruit.
I will definitely nip the crepes and pan au chocolate especially as my toddler has started to eat them occasionally and that’s really not necessary at his age.

Its so obvious now I’ve seen it all written down, the crisps in her lunch box, I thought I was doing it right but reading this back to my husband he said do you eat any of that and I said no I wouldn’t and that speaks volumes.

Mine is slightly older but currently attempting to lose a bit of weight (around 5-10kg) due to a period of time when he couldn’t do his normal exercise due to health reasons.

Typical days food is:

breakfast - large portion of natural Greek yogurt with either berries or mango - small amount of granola in it - about 2 heaped tablespoons. Glass of fresh juice

lunch - has a school dinner but tries to choose something reasonably nutritious- chicken salad, pasta, jacket potato.

snack - 2 x boiled eggs when gets home from school, a homemade flapjack if doing 2 evening activities as hungry in between

dinner (usually has late - 8- 9pmish due to clubs) - grilled steak, fish, chicken or lamb chops (usually with some sort of spicy seasoning), large portion of various veg, small portion of carbs (usually rice or potatoes)

At the weekend he will have some more junk food type snacks, crisps, sweets etc, and probably a takeaway or McDonald’s one of the days

He’s losing weight slowly with this diet and exercise

I think the problem is that I make the same size breakfast for her and her sister who is two years younger but has a high metabolism and burns it off but she’s got her dad’s metabolism.

Protein is a better way to break-fast than carbs which cause a massive insulin spike. Eggs, full fat yoghurt (not added sugar or sweetners), meat.

Cornflakes is all refined sugar and barely any fibre. So many better options.

Cereal, then boiled egg and soldiers.

Instead of crisps for lunch try the small packets of fridge raiders, protein chicken pieces. Dippy eggs with toasted wholemeal soldiers for breakfast, kids love the yolky eggs

I agree with PP, overnight oats would be great and helped me lose a lot of weight. Google for recipe ideas, particularly Sugar Pink Food

Usually weetabix on school days.

Weekends I make banana pancakes -
1 mashed banana mixed with 1 beaten egg and 2 spoons of flour. You say your daughter doesn't like egg, but this doesn't taste anything like egg.