Snacks Your Kid's Teacher Hates To See Coming

Packing a kid’s lunch is one of the daily chores that has become so routine many parents can basically do it on auto-pilot. Children are often creatures of habit, so the order rarely changes (at least until one day they randomly decide they hate something after eating it every day for seven years without complaint). So, most of the time, we’re probably not thinking too much about how that meal goes down in the classroom.

But one third grade teacher on TikTok (@smilesamy70) as a PSA for those of us who pack lunch... and a plea.

“I love, love, love helping your child get their lunch settled and opening things for them. I don’t, however, particularly enjoy these ... little fruit cups,” she announces, holding up a cup of mandarin oranges vacuum sealed in a cup of syrupy juice. “They are actually impossible, parents, to open in the classroom without spilling them and getting syrupy, sticky juice all over my clothes. I don’t really wear nice things anymore because of these fruit cups.

“Don’t get me wrong. They’re delicious,” she continues. “I know the children love them. However, I think they would be a fantastic snack for after school. At home.”

Fun fact about me: back when I was in college, I was a preschool teacher’s assistant. And if you think third graders need help getting their lunch out, just imagine what a 3 year old needs assistance with. As such, I too have strong opinions on the worst snacks to have to deal with as a teacher who will be assisting somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 kids in one lunch break.

GoGurt

Honestly any yogurt, really, but especially yogurt in a tube. There’s just no way to open it where you don’t send some neon-colored yogurt flying all over the place. If you’re desperate you can cut off the top, but you’re going to gunk up your scissors real quick. (And you have to use the teacher's scissors: the safety scissors the kids use probably couldn’t even cut through the yogurt itself let alone the pouch.)

Capri Sun

For a few reasons. To start, getting that straw in sometimes feels like placing an I.V. Woe to you if the straw’s sharp end is slightly smooshed. Secondly, have you ever handed a small child a juice pouch? They get very excited and they squeeze it and before you know it you’ve got a juice geyser.

String Cheese

You’d think those little floppy sticks of mozzarella were made of uranium because the packaging engineers seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure you cannot touch it.

Clementines

Guys, I get it: I’m a mom, too, and I know how important it is to pack healthy snacks for your children, both to nourish their little bodies and to let the teachers know “Seriously, we do give them healthy foods too, I swear.”

But peeling those suckers takes forever and if you have the tiniest cut on your thumb it’s citric acid torture. Also, it leaves a mess and not just the peel: kids have this horrible habit of gnawing the juice out of the slices and discarding the spitty, disgusting pulp directly onto the table.

Oreos

Honestly they’re not hard to open, but opening them makes me want Oreos real bad.

So the next time you pack your child a lunch, ask yourself “Would I want to open 20+ of these things in the span of 20 minutes?” If the answer is no, leave it at home and pack something else. (Or don’t: this is all in good fun.)