Do you cook your teens breakfast and lunch?

[Joyfullday]

Do you cook your teens breakfasts and lunches?

And what do they normally eat?

Do you keep snacks in the house? What sort?

Haven't made kids breakfast since they were 7. Would rather have a messy kitchen and spend a couple of extra hours in bed! They made their own luch from around 10.

Breakfast, no. Unless I was feeling generous of a weekend. Dinner, every night. I’d make enough for leftovers to be taken the next day. They hated the school dinners. I had some thermos in case they wanted a hot lunch. But generally they took cold leftovers. They were in charge of their lunches in the morning. If they wanted to buy lunch they used their pocket money.

Mine don’t eat breakfast on a school / college day, they’d prefer the extra time sleeping! At weekends they can help themselves to whatever is available (porridge/ toast/ eggs / yoghurt).
if they are home, I always do lunch for them. Neither are bothered by food so if I didn’t offer lunch they wouldn’t bother and by 4PM tempers would be frayed. I reckon both would go days without bothering to eat, they just never seems to get hungry….the opposite of me!!

Nope, DC aged 15 and 12 get their own breakfast and lunch. Occasionally they get their own dinner as well if they don’t like what we are having as a family.

Yes, we have food in to cater to that (breakfast foods, lunch staples) as well as snacks that are available to all (both healthy and less so)

I’ll do him breakfast because I want to chat with him in the morning before I go to work and he takes himself off to school.
im usually unloading the dishwasher and either do him a bacon sandwich, a salmon bagel or crumpets or something, I’m not whipping up an elaborate feast - no time for that.
Lunches when he’s home either dh or I will offer to make everyone something or everyone sorts themselves out with different things.
On the days I wfh I also make us a snack
for when he gets home - I take a break with him.

Mine often have leftovers for breakfast. So dal, curry, pasta. Otherwise they’ll have yogurt and fruit, sourdough toast and peanut butter. Make their own lunch or we will make it together. Wraps, sandwiches, soup , salad, beans on toast. Also we keep noodles, lots of veg sticks and hummus and crackers for snacks.

Thank you all. This thread have gave some days to keep others things at home that are easier to prepare.

Only at weekends

Never breakfast but they don't cook it either as usually cereal, pancakes, croissants or something like that. If they want something hot which is rare they will cook themselves scrambled eggs/sausages/toast or something. Lunch we do for them but they would if they had to, just easier for me to make something for both of them at the same time.

My kids (three teenagers, one pre-teen) all make their own breakfasts and have done since they were 7. Cereal and milk since they were small, and as they have gotten older, waffles, pancakes, and they make their own porridge in the microwave (adding fruit and sugar). My oldest is the healthiest and likes a lot of fruit, and fruit and fiber cereal.

Lunches are also self-serve, and they usually make a sandwich, fish fingers in the oven, pasta, chips in the air-fryer, and sometimes they defrost leftover soup or curry that I batch make in the microwave, and part-baked bread.

I make dinner, sometimes with teenage help so that the meat-eaters get their version of a meal. I am lucky that two out of my four children don't mind cooking, so I get help (one loves baking one loves making the meat).

On week days we all have breakfast together, and we all eat porridge cooked on the hob, so either I or dh make it (teen ds is usually still in the shower at that point!) Weekends he gets his own. Lunch on a weekend he may get his own, depends what we are all doing, sometimes he eats lunch in town with his mates. Dh or I cook dinner every night but ds is going to start helping at weekends.

No breakfast is something they have to make themselves.
I have batted down there ideas of having some sort of meal cooked for them at lunch. Lunch in IMO is something like a sandwich, pasta, baked potato or soup all of which they can cook themselves. It is not a three course meal.

I don’t & my kids say the same. No snacks just ingredients. Scrambled eggs & omelettes takes minutes I do have pot noodles in but they’re hit & miss. I taught my 15yo to cook so I have the issue where he’s used the stuff I plan to cook for dinner for his lunch. Came back to him cooking a steak, rice & avocado. Purely because of who he’s watching on TikTok I assume so I’ve bought him the Joe wicks 15 minute meals cook book for Christmas. Hoping he may do my lunch to

My son & showers drive me insane. He stays in until the water runs cold

There are few things better than the smell of frying bacon at 10.30am to get a teenager out of bed at the weekend. We just used to open their door a bit and let the scent work its magic.

Mine are 16, 18 and 20. I stopped making lunch when they were 10, 12 and 14. They make themselves omelettes / poached eggs, jacket potatoes, pasta, sandwiches.

Breakfast- yes, at the weekend. I also make DD a peanut butter roll in foil on days she hasn’t been up in time to get her own.

Lunch- can’t imagine a situation in which I’d make lunch for myself and not offer to the other people in the house as well. For one thing, it’s really impractical and costly for everyone to be cooking different meals.

I have one teens and one tween, I cook them breakfast only at the weekends as they tend to have rugby / football matches, swimming galas or other sports competitions on. I do things like pancakes, scrambled egg on toast, French toast, homemade version of egg & sausage McMuffin etc. During the week they have weetabix with bananas and honey and apple juice, for breakfast. They are welcome to make themselves toast if they want.

Lunches are cooked at school, but sandwiches or most likely a packed lunch at the weekends as we’re out and about at sports comps. I almost never cook lunch at home, as we have a cooked supper.

snacks are fruit, salad / veg, flapjacks and granola bars, or stuff like bagels / cheese and crackers etc. they can just help themselves to any of those as long as it’s not just before a meal. I often make them banana and strawberry smoothies with some porridge oats chucked in.

Breakfast no, but don’t buy cereals (too sugary). So they tend to make porridge or some toast, yoghurt (not a large meal for us).

lunch, no, however there is usually something in the fridge they can reheat from the previous day and make themselves some salad if needed . If really hungry they’ll usually make themselves some pasta (we don’t do ready meals and never buy pit noodles or similar crap)

Pot

Guess he wants to be a Chef?
(Sounds wonderful, I’m
impressed)

You should cook every single day for your children however old they are - and yes that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also homemade healthy snacks on tap for them. Shame on you for even having to ask imo, OP @Joyfullday

Well, mine are 13&16 and always get their own breakfast and lunch. Evenings are often a bit of a sort yourself out as well as they have different types of activities or don’t want the same thing. I offer what I’m making for me and if they want different they make it themselves. I usually try and make a Sunday meal. Saturday we usually have pizza (shop bought not takeaway). Monday we always eat together. They go to their dad’s another night leaving 3 other nights. One is sometimes a McDonald’s between activities. The other two they get their own.

13 year old is very capable of cooking things like fajitas, spag Bol, pasta varieties. Eldest struggle more as is autistic but can use a microwave and an air fryer. We are heading up to use the gas hob but petrified of the gas oven.

I’m a single parent and this works for us. I ask them what they want bought before I do the weekly food shop so they know we have things in. Term time they get a school lunch but holidays and weekends they do a wrap or sandwich or church some veggies and hummus. Breakfast varies between, bagels, eggs. They sort that themselves too.

I cooked and catered for them while they were at school. I wanted to make sure they ate properly and didn’t go to school hungry or fill up on rubbish. Now they’re at uni they’re cooking for themselves. When they’re home If I’m cooking I’ll offer to make something for anyone who’s around. Fruit, eggs, toast, rice cakes, cheese, biscuits, nuts, peppers were the snacks.

I live in Spain and there is definitely a cultural difference in the fact that lunch is the main meal of the day so would be “cooked”. DD has adhd and take meds on school days, so we are slightly different in the way that we have dinner as our big meal, although at weekends it’s lunch. I cook the main meal for her and prepare dinner usually at the weekend too. Nobody is eating a cooked breakfast any day - we all sort out our own. DD will get her lunch sorted on school days apart from a couple of days when I do soup.