Importance of parents cooking for their children to take to school

Parents are very concerned about the nutrition and feeding habits of wards as they leave the house everyday for school since in the school they have no idea what they might be eating which can positively or negatively impact their health. It is the reason why in some basic schools that happen to be private institutions, a scheme is initiated to monitor what the children eat. 

This is how some of these schemes look like: 

Parents are invited for PTA meetings and upon deliberations and agreements, there is a fee paid every day  called "Feeding fee" for the feeding of the kids as they are in school. The school takes the responsibility for making sure that healthy balanced meals are provided for the kids during break times. In this way, the kids are not left on their own to buy  sweets and biscuits which result in complications when consumed in extremes. 

This act of parents to cook for their kids as they go to school has a lot of significance and lessons it teaches the wards as they transition from childhood to adulthood. Therefore it is absolutely essential to dive deep into how impactful and important this habit is and why it should be continued.

Significance of cooking for wards to take to school

• A nutritious way of feeding

Without any cause for debate, cooking in the house is something health professionals advice everyone who wants to have control of whatever enters their system since it is impossible to remove that which is ingested into the system until digestion, absorption and assimilation has taken place and the faecal matter is egested. Well, others have the taste for meals cooked outside of the house, but largely in Ghanaian culture, it is not a widely accepted thing and it is a very good cultural and behavioural uprightness. 

• Strengthens bonding and connection between parents and wards

Children are young and need to be shown affection and love for them to feel loved and cared for. This act of parents or care givers is one that strengthens that mother-child relationship and makes tighter children's love for parents and vice versa. During break times as the kids get hold of their food flask and eat the food of their parents, the presence of the parents especially the mum might have done the cooking is felt because a connection there is a point of connection. 

• Depiction of culture and traditional values

Different cultures believe in upholding their values and making sure that they are transferred to the young ones so that they do not go into extinction or become negatively influenced by cultural change. Demonstration of this act tells and imbibes that family life into children especially the females who will grow up and become mothers who must take responsibility of managing the home properly. It teaches the females especially how to cook and find it easy to do than opting for street food purchase which is not a healthy option.

• Saves money

Buying is a more expensive option of getting food to eat than preparing one's own meal in the house where a person decides the kind of ingredients that go into the dish. In the rural areas and some of the urban areas, market days are the days where families do shopping for groceries and other food items for the family. In the rural areas, every market day, the kids always rejoice because definitely the parents will prepare soups or sumptuous dishes for them to enjoy.

What next?

Street food purchase has its own disadvantages which have necessitated a lot of solutions to put under control some of the effects. One of the major challenges is the over use of plastic bags which have created problems for countries. The venders sell in plastic bags and after consumption, some of these bags are improperly disposed off and people have to even be employed to clean the cities of this great and challenging effect.  See why you need to minimize the use of plastics?

Some cooked food vendors are resorting to selling in leaves so that after consumption of the meals, the leaves will decompose later and be helpful to the land than being a problem which will need a solution.

Parents cooking for wards to take to school should enforce and create that mindset in the children as they grow that we must resort to those times when plastic bags were not in  use or rarely use so that less problems in terms of waster management is created for the environment. The flask will be used over and over but the plastic bags are for one time use and even pose some sort of food poisoning as health reports will put it. The choice lies in the hands of everyone to examine the effects of neglecting the culture the forefather practiced in their times and the benefits which can be embraced today to create a more friendly living environment than consider some of this essential habits as outmoded or old-fashioned.

Also at those times that sachet water wasn't common, the folks used bottle to keep water for dehydration but now that inventions have created many possibilities, what actions must be taken?