Dd 14, refusing to take lunch to school

[LadyGaGasPokerFace]

I’m having an issue with dd who’s 14 next week (Year 9) and she’s refusing to make and take lunch with her to school. She usually makes her lunch the night before, but has refused to make it and now even if I make it, she won’t go in the fridge to retrieve it to take in. I messaged her tutor who suggested she could take her lunch to the tutor’s office, but this lasted two days and we’re back to square one.
So, she will come home and trough through the pantry and dinner is snaffled up. She will eat breakfast too before we leave, but this is at 7.45am and then she gets in at 4.30pm, which to me is long time without food.

Any ideas? I’m erring on the side of not making a big fuss, but it’s really making me worry 😬 it’s think she can’t concentrate much with an empty belly, but Tutor mentioned that dd wants to just get on with her school work at lunchtime.

Maybe insist she at least makes the lunch and takes it with her even if she's not planning to eat it? Then the option is there and she can always eat it at 4:30pm instead of raiding the pantry.

I would be concerned though that there is some underlying issue- bullying at lunch time, eating disorder, anxiety about school work?

She is probably being bullied.

Chances are the fact that she brings in a lunch rather than money to spend is one hook that the bullies are picking on but changing that - whether by stopping having lunch altogether or whatever - will not stop the bullies from bullying. They can always find another hook.

Well, we’ve gone down the route of her taking it in as an option and it comes home untouched.

No money taken in for lunch as they have accounts and use their finger prints to pay for meals.

I have asked her about bullies as she’s pretty open with me on friendships and if a kid says something out of turn to her, but nothing that sticks out. She’d rather be with her older friend in quiet study getting on with homework. She has mentioned that she has no one to sit with, but she has pockets of friends and doesn’t want to sit in a group.

Can’t you just work with it for now? Give her a smoothie in an insulated bottle and a protein bar she can snaffle in the corridors whilst you get to the bottom of all this

At that age I also hated taking in lunch and equally hated having school dinners. I didnt want to spend a large amount of time eating or feeling full and tired after. I'd tell her to pack some snacks in her bag and encourage her to eat something at break or lunch e.g apple and a cereal bar or bag of crisps. It's great that she has breakfast before she goes.

Does she have money on her fingerprint account if she wants to buy lunch?
Our DC went through a similar phase at that age - except they'd sometimes eat one sandwich. I just changed up their packed lunch - bought a bento box; moved away from sandwiches eg smashed avocado, cold meat, pasta, carrot/cucumber sticks, etc. That got them eating lunch again.

My ds won't take food from home into school, apparently it is 'lame and embarrassing.' He gets weekly money for school instead but sometimes he spends it too quickly and has to take food from home or go hungry the rest of the week, he would rather go hungry.

What do her friends do for food at school?

Do you think it's an eating disorder? Or just embarrassed about taking a packed lunch?

Does she have time to eat lunch? School lunchtimes are so short in many schools - DS gets 40 minutes but prefers to do his homework at lunchtime so skips lunch. We used to get 90 minutes which was long enough for lunch and a club but apparently this is a thing of the past.

My DD 15 never wants to take lunch to school - too much extra to carry. She also does not like queuing to buy lunch. I make sure she has a protein bar in her bag and accept that she will eat when she gets home.

Some teen girls will pretend that they're too busy to eat or don't want to carry extra things but this is an excuse to skip meals (reduce calorie intake). They'll try and hide it by having something high calorie eg cake but then skip meals to compensate. This makes it look like they're OK with eating these kinds of foods, but they're still not eating enough calories. I'd be wary of an eating disorder.

she's 14 - she knows to eat if she's hungry. DS (13) had a stage of never eating anything at school-it just used to travel with him- he wanted to be playing with his friends. Even now half the time it comes back uneaten and he literally has dry bread most of the time. I suspect if he had to make it /pack it -he wouldn't be bothered enough
what does she say when you ask her?

At that age, taking a packed lunch to school would have been very embarrassing. Everyone had money for the tuck shop and bought snacks or a sandwich.

Is there an option for her to do that instead?

I know in my school, it was only the "nerdy" or "uncool" kids that brought in a packed lunch.

I'm also in the 'be wary' camp. This is how my eating disorder started. My main problem was that I felt embarrassed to eat in front of other people, including my friends, because I felt that I was so fat that I didn't deserve to eat and they'd think I was greedy for eating. 30 years on, I still have an eating disorder and really struggle with eating in front of other people.

A lot of people just don't like room temperature food that tastes of lunchbox 🤷‍♀️

I'm in my 40s and I genuinely can't stomach most packed lunches. If I really have to take one somewhere, I'll take proper food in a stainless steel bento type box rather than sandwiches - leftover pasta or similar. But generally I'd rather just eat breakfast and have a big dinner as soon as I get home.

Stock up on protein bars or similar easy to eat snack foods, and don't make a big deal of it.

It's different now. Plus, as pp have said, it's biometrics. No cash.

The account at school adds £10 to the total when it gets to £4 or less. She has a little bit of cash for bus emergency when the app isn’t working. I drive her into school in the mornings.
Yesterday when at home she had breakfast, lunch and dinner. No problem eating it. I will keep an eye on it and won’t make a fuss.
Good idea about the protein bars and fruit.
Thanks everyone for the useful advice 🙂

Agree with giving her snacks to take. Also can you make her a packed lunch to have ready for her to eat when she gets in so she's not trawling for snacks and raiding dinner? It's no great harm if she eats her lunch at 4ish.

It sounds as if she's eating well at home and you are doing all the right things. You're right to keep an eye on it, though.

One of mine refuses to eat breakfast, or take lunch into school. They then get home at 3.20, and eat lunch. And a full dinner around 6.30.
No point trying to force mine to take food, it just doesn't work.

My sons are the same. I top up their scopay so they have money if hungry.... DS(14) would rather play footy with his mates and DS(16) grabs a snack

Both my teens are the same DD16 and DD14, they just don’t like eating at school.

DS I usually make sure he has a few pre packaged healthyish snacks in his bag, that way they won’t go to waste after one day.

DD will occasionally buy something at school or stop and grab a coffee or smoothie on her way in.

I don’t make a big deal of it, I know they eat when they get in of an afternoon, both are home by 3pm so not too late.

I wouldn’t stress about it; my DD spent all of year 9 doing this; she’d come home at 3.30 and eat a late lunch then dinner later. Then in year 10 she started taking lunch randomly but it’s still not a sandwich and fruit type lunch it’s cereal bars, fruit if she likes the look of it, dry cereal, baked goods, mini sausages (what looks like a lunch of snacks really). The more I pushed her to take lunch the more she refused so I’d leave it.
I also did this a teenager for reasons I don’t recall and even now at work if I’m busy sometimes I eat lunch nearer 3/3.30 and it does me no harm

What are the eating arrangements like? When I was a teenager I never ate lunch because the school canteen was incredibly noisy, crowded, and full of different food smells. There were also issues with friendship groups and who to sit/not sit with, or ending up eating alone. It was much easier not to eat at all.

(When I was asked at the time I just said I wasn't hungry or didn't want to bring lunch, because I was aware that the problems I did have with it weren't 'normal'. I'd probably have rejected eating in a tutor's office for that reason!)

My eldest does this too. He has a bit of OCD and doesn’t want to eat food around others. We always pack him drinks, dried mango in a bag, crisps and a cereal bar. Occasionally he will eat them but mostly he doesn’t. I’ve given up on it after four years of trying. He eats loads when he gets in after school and is nearly 18 so only has nine months of school left.

I agree on the snacks. I dislike most packed lunch foods so I wouldn't want to take a packed lunch either. If she's having a couple of snacks at school and then has a decent breakfast and dinner, I wouldn't worry too much about it unless, as posters have suggested, you think it might be symptom of something more worrying.