Plan Simple with Mia Moran

“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” – François de La Rochefoucauld

The goal for any kid’s lunch is to keep it easy to eat and full of nutritious food that helps them be present and productive during school day. I find the simpler and more repetitive lunch is, the more successful my kids feel in general.

For children, lunch is a time to learn how to eat a meal away from parents. For smaller children, this starts with simple things like understanding the order in which to eat different foods, and how to open containers. For older children, this is about how to feel awesome about their homemade meal when others may be eating highly-processed foods.

Time management is an important skill that can be learned through the school lunch process. Lunch is an opportunity to be social and schools generally don’t give it enough time, so navigating how to sit and get to eating and chewing is big! The more you can preview and talk through lunch at home, the more comfortable your kids will become. And do remember it is a learning process. Don’t punish uneaten lunches. Use them as an opportunity to understand what is going on and empower your child to do it differently next time, or for you to pack it differently. (Uneaten lunches do make a good snack.)

Not all food tastes good packed in lunch. There are many healthy foods that don’t keep well when packed at 8 am, and by afternoon, they either look or taste awful. We’re going to consider all that as we go through the formulas and hopefully you’ll get a lot of strategies for different fruits and vegetables that stay fresh until lunch.

I do want to  mention the importance of packing kids’ lunches if they are away for school each day. Very often, I fear, parents work so hard on the other meals throughout the day that lunch is a time to “let ourselves off the hook.” I don’t want to make anyone feel guilty if that is what they choose because I empathize with busy parents. I know that we are all doing the best we can. It is a privilege to be able to pack lunch when there are many families who need to elect to get free lunch.

I challenge you to scrutinize the lunch menu at your child’s school and question if it’s the best choice for a healthy life. Maybe ask yourself: Does every meal have gluten? Does every meal have dairy? Is every meal highly processed? Does every meal have high sugar? Which meals are a little bit better? If you’re trying not to pack every lunch, are there certain days that make more sense than other days? If it’s a school where there is a choice, how can you empower your kids to choose the best things for themselves? That’s huge, as soon enough kids grow up, and move out of the house and become adults. They will have to live in the world independently and make their own decisions about food. How can you start influencing them now so that they will be prepared with valuable knowledge when that time comes?

For younger kids, take into consideration that lunchtime at school can sometimes be stressful. Beyond food, other factors make lunchtime unique, like sitting at tables, socializing with other children, and eating without adult supervision. Depending on what the school’s set up is, lunchtime can be overwhelming, and occasionally opening up a lunchbox in front of friends can make a child feel vulnerable. Maybe their neighbors are eating differently or making different choices. It just opens up all sorts of things for kids. Empower your kids ahead of time so that lunch feels successful and they are confident around their peers, even at a young age. You can do that by explaining what’s in the lunchbox, and by sticking to that idea of rhythm.

Now let’s make school lunch feel more doable. What can you plan for this weekend and next week that will help you make...

Our lives are not compartmentalized so the support we get can’t be either.

– Megan Flatt

On this episode of the Plan Simple Meals Podcast, I’m really excited because we’re starting a new series that we’re calling “Well Planned.” I have my friend Megan Flatt, an expert planner and business coach to Mama CEOs here with me for this 10 week series.

We have similar planning ideas, but I tend to focus more on food and lifestyle, while Megan tends to focus more on business. What I’ve found is that no matter what issue you are dealing with, you usually need a holistic approach, so we’re bringing our perspectives together.

This week we talk about 90 day cycles or seasons and why 90 days is the ideal amount of time for a plan.

We talk about:

• The importance of recognizing the different seasons, big transitions, and energy shifts in our lives and how 90 day cycles honors those
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• Using 90 day planning to focus now — and set goals for later
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• The refreshing idea that you can start a new 90 days anytime—and your 90 day cycles can even overlap some (in a way that feels helpful, not overwhelming)
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• The difference between dreams and goals and projects
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• Starting with how you want to feel and then aligning what you do with that
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• Doing a braindump and then organizing all the idea about things you want to do
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BIO

Megan Flatt is a Mama CEO and a business growth strategist. She’s been working with clients for years to create strategic growth plans in their business that allow them to scale while still being present for the important moments in their families’ lives. She shows Mama CEOs with big vision and great ideas how to get those big CEO ideas into a day-by-day plan where they actually happen.

LINKS

• MeganFlatt.com
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• Spinning Plates with Megan Flatt on the Plan Simple Podcast
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Questions for Mia and Megan?

• Go to plansimplemeals.com/ask. Click the play button and record your question.
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• Or email [email protected].
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Doable Changes from this episode:

• DO A BRAIN DUMP. Megan and I both agree in the magic of getting things down on paper. If you are feeling overwhelmed or ready to create a plan, start with a brain dump of all the things you want/need to do. You can write each one on a separate Post-it note, do this on the Master List pages in your FLOW planner or just do it on paper. Once it’s all down, you can start to see which ideas are for now and which can wait for another 90 day cycle
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• TURN A GOAL INTO A PROJECT. Goals are big and overarching and sometimes we get stuck because we put a goal onto our To Do list. Try turning a goal into a project and then breaking it down into action steps. For example, maybe you want to break out of overwhelm or feel more spacious. One project to help you get there is to clean out the basement. Then you can break that down into action steps or tasks: Schedule one day a week to work on...