Tips for easy, fun lunches

Some simple suggestions for packing lunches your child won't want to trade.

• Take your child grocery shopping. Even pre-schoolers can give you some idea of what they do and don't like.

• Keep a master list of your child's favorites, categorized by main courses and sides, and include them in your weekly menu planning.

• Don't forget that peer pressure occurs in the cafeteria, too. Keeping your children involved in the selection and packing of their lunches will help them be more comfortable eating it, especially if it's different from what their friends are eating.

• If you have a garden, encourage your child to incorporate some of the harvest into lunch. That's worked for Deanna Cook, director of creative development for FamilyFun magazine, whose daughters choose their own lunch box sides from the family garden. A grocer's produce section can stand in if you lack a yard or green thumb.

• Don't hesitate to resort to humor. Cut a comic strip out of the morning newspaper and slip it into your child's lunch. Or write a knock-knock joke on the outside of her lunch bag. Write the punch line on the dessert bag.

• Freeze juice boxes and water bottles. It keeps the drink cold (but will thaw by lunch) and doubles as a chill pack.