Message in a Lunchbox: How to Stay Connected
Photo by Dawn D. Hanna/Getty Images
Once upon a time, it was as important for me to make a yummy sandwich for my son as it was to pop a note into his school lunch. Depending on the day, I might focus on something silly, like, “Don’t forget to smile at the apes when you’re at the zoo on your field trip,” or academic, like “Good luck on that vocabulary test — you’re prepared so it’s going to go great.” On the days I was tight on time, a fluorescent Post-It with a big heart on it had to suffice.
And then something happened: My son turned 10 and started eating school lunches. It didn’t take me long to forget all about my stealth note-leaving — until this week, that is, when I began asking around to other parents about all the cool things they’re doing to stay connected with their kids while they’re off at school for the day. And I got a little misty thinking about just how much I missed writing those notes. Here, five takes on popping sweet messages into your little one’s lunchbox:
Switch out your designs.
“When my oldest daughter was little, I would hand-write notes on the paper napkins I put in her lunch box,” Kim Conner, a mom of a 5-, 7- and 13-year-old who blogs at 733blog.com, tells Yahoo Parenting. “But as she and my other two kids got older, I decided to have a bit more fun with it. I designed several different lunch notes on the computer, printed them and cut them out. I now keep a selection stored in an envelope in my kitchen that I can use whenever I feel the urge!”
Aim for something simple.
“I usually write a note and tape it to their lunchbox or sandwich baggie,” says Beau Coffron, a father of kids ages 4 and 8, plus a nine-months-old. Coffron blogs at Lunchbox Dad, a website about making kids’ lunches exciting. “It could say something like, ‘Be a good friend and remember that your dad loves you’ or ‘I know you have a big test today, I believe in you!’ This only takes a minute,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “Every parent has time for that.”
Keep it lighthearted.
Your lunchbox notes don’t always have to be sugary sweet. “A knock-knock joke, riddle, or even a trivia question or two is always fun for a kid to find in his lunchbox,” Conner says.
Make it reusable.
If all this seems like too much fuss, just laminate a piece of paper and write down a note using a dry erase marker. “If you want, you can put the marker in your child’s lunch and he or she can erase your note and write a note back to you,” Coffron says. “It can be a fun back-and-forth thing for you both to enjoy.”
Remember: Your note is more than a note.
“A lunchbox love note is a midday reminder to your children that you love them and are thinking about them at that very moment,” Judy Lewenthal Daniel, mom of 8-year-old boy-girl twins, tells Yahoo Parenting. She writes lunchbox notes at least three days a week. “It’s a quick, quiet breath, before the insanity of playground or inside lunch-devouring,” she says. “It’s a personal, private connection — a lunchbox hug until you can hug your child in person later that day.”
