Kids are as individualistic as they come, but there is one true fact about all of them: They are almost always hungry.
Parents and caregivers recognize that feeding hungry kids doesn’t always mean needing a 3-course sit-down meal; in fact, a lot of “I’m hungry” pleas are snacking-related and totally snack-solvable. We’ve all been in situations both comical and stressful with hungry kids. (No one emerges after 18 years of parenthood without a few hunger-related war-stories to tell.)
While each child – and each family – has different snacking wants and needs, chances are most of us have experienced one or more of the top 5 universal snacking emergencies with children.
Let me set the stage for you here: It’s mid-November. The newness of the school year has rubbed off and you are firmly in homework-up-to-the-knees territory. When it comes to meal planning, you just feel tired. The fun and funky September lunches have ground to a halt and your “November” school lunches are at risk of becoming legitimately reportable. Yesterday you tried to send a can of tomato juice and six broken crackers you found in your purse, but your kid refused to put his shoes on until you at least included a snack.
But you’re fried, Mama, and we get it. Lunches are one of those “Every. Single. Day.” things you need to do and we are tired. HELP US.
Add a pack of Sunkist Fruit Snacks into the lunch bag and raise your lunch game level. Kids get a fresh burst of flavour needed to compete against the dull draw of a gray afternoon spent indoors and since they’re gluten and peanut-free, they make a wonderful choice for classroom snacking!
Oh %$*&. You’ve just about reached the summit and you’re all ready for a long drink of water from your canteens and maybe a snack to replenish all the energy you spent arriving to this point. Kids are getting antsy as you frantically search your fanny pack/knapsack/beach tote/plastic grocery bag with knotted ties. If this was a movie, here’s where the needle scratches the record.
You left the snack bags in the car, 2 miles away and about 100 feet down in the parking lot. Have fun rallying the troops to make the trek back snack-less, MOM.
Before I begin, know this: my toddler once BIT ME from hunger in the family changeroom at a public swimming pool. Do I blame her? No. She was only doing something I wish I could do when I’m hungry. And I should have packed a snack because the number one rule of parenting a toddler and taking kids anywhere is “BRING FOOD.” Luckily, you’re already packing something like six suitcases for an easy 2 hours at the pool, so what’s another few packages of Sunkist Fruit Snacks? They’re portable and kid-sized, peanut-free, gluten-free, and fat-free – plus made in Canada! – so they’re an easy option for littles (and you!) to munch while waiting for a turn at the after-swim shower. Plus, no more bites out of your arm from a hungry, grouchy toddler, thank-you-very-much.
You’ve waited months for the current “it” photographer in your community to have a family opening. You’re all wearing your new perfectly faded denim jeans and dazzling white shirts. Everyone has had a haircut within the last 3 weeks, and the sun is shining after a long stretch of drizzle-drenched days. This photograph is going to be your holiday card and you have EARNED this moment. Oh wait; but what’s that? Your Mama ears detect a sound at a frequency only parents of children and grizzled air passengers can normally decipher. You know what’s coming. It’s the dreaded snack meltdown.
Fast forward 15 minutes and one of your kids in 15 feet up a tree, swinging from a high bough, your toddler is missing a shoe AND a tooth, there’s blood and grass stains on your husband’s new shirt, and your photographer has decided her previous job photographing rare tigers in the jungle outside a war-torn village was safer than capturing “bliss” from a hungry family in suburbia.
Hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you. Take snacks next time.
Traffic jams. Transit and subway snarls. Railway schedules. Flight delays and diversions. To the regular traveler, these are an inconvenience, of course. But to parents travelling more than 15 minutes with children? That’s when these things are practically an existential crisis, causing one to seriously reconsider all the decisions made up until that point leading almost always to a complete and total nuclear-level meltdown - and that’s before we even observe how the KID is handling it.
Do. Not. Travel. Without. Snacks.
Your plane WILL sit on the tarmac for an extra hour, your car WILL run out of gas in a traffic jam, the train WILL be late, but none of this will matter because you read this article, and we told you about the totally portable, delicious, Canadian-made peanut/fat/gluten-free Sunkist Fruit Snacks and so now you know! No more snack-related meltdowns for this family, you can shout! You have a Sunkist Solution in your corner!
Sunkist Fruit Snacks are a fantastic, Canadian-made option for busy parents looking to feed their hungry, snack-seeking kids. From school lunch conundrums to public meltdowns and everything in-between, Sunkist Fruit Snacks are a portable, deliciously natural peanut-free option for all your family snacking emergencies.
This is proudly sponsored by our friends at Sunkist
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