When my son started attending face-to-face in elementary school, one of the things he always asked for was to carry a bento box. When he watches Youtube and notices how it makes bentos, he gets jealous sometimes, and since he is my only child, of course I will not deny him the opportunity to experience this. I remember when my siblings and I were little, Mama would just give us a Zest-o juice and only five pesos because our teacher would get angry if we didn't buy any food at the school canteen. Well, up to this day, my loved one's school is still the same (he goes to the same school where I also attended). But since we are already in modern society and the five pesos as food allowance are not enough, I have no choice but to buy him food and make a bento box.
The first time I did it, my son was very happy and excited because he said he had a lot of snacks that were good for sharing as well. But the truth is that I saved a lot because I only put in a few biscuits. It's also funny because, at an early age, he learned to share with other classmates. It is also inevitable that some children will be jealous and take food from him, but fortunately, my son is learning to save his food and only give it to children who are hungry, have no food, or when he was full from what he eats. Since my son is still young, I haven't sent him a rice meal yet because the recess time is only a few minutes and their teachers said that children take too long to eat when they have a rice meal. Because of this, I just tried to make him a bento box every day.
Every day, I am trying to pick not-so-sweet biscuits because he easily has a cough. And since they are at school for a few hours, I also avoid the child from being hyperactive, so I avoid him from eating chocolate. Fortunately. He learned to love matcha flavor, so it became my option instead of chocolate. At the same time, I also bring him vitamin candies so he doesn't get sleepy at school. It's funny to think that he also shares it with others. My son said, "Hey mom, I trade some of my candies with my classmates." Wow, my son even became a trader just so he could taste another biscuit from his classmate.
Anyway, here are some examples of my bento box. Some were cookies, butter biscuits, eggnogs, matcha marshmallows, vitacubes candies, wafers and banana bread, and cocoa crunch. Well, of course, there are also times when I send Sukanya purely bread with mayonnaise, eggs, or cheese as his meal.
If you find this meal effective, maybe you can have an idea of how to create it. For me, I could say that my son is more motivated to go to school when he has this kind of pocket. If ever your children can bury a rice meal, you could try to make them a meal inspired by bento.
All images are originally mine.
Location: Manila, Philippines
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