Will My Child Get Bullied For Eating Their Lunch? Practical Tips For Parents And Teachers
It’s 7:12 a.m. I’m wiping strawberry jam off the kitchen counter, my 11-year-old Mia is leaning against the fridge staring at the lunch I just packed. She hasn’t said a word for two full minutes, just shifts her weight and stares at the glass container of kimchi fried rice. Then she mumbles, so quiet I almost miss it: “Will I get bullied for eating this lunch?”
I pause mid-wipe, my hand hovering over the sponge. Kimchi fried rice is her favorite. I make a big batch every Sunday, she requests it three days a week for lunch. Last week, though, she came home talking about Javi, a boy in her class who baked salmon for lunch. A group of 6th graders crowded around his table calling it “fish stinky lunch” so loud the whole cafeteria heard, and he ended up finishing his lunch in the nurse’s office. “Kimchi smells strong,” she says, prodding the container with her sock toe. “They’ll say it smells like rotten stuff.”
I know that feeling. I grew up bringing my grandma’s kimchi jjigae in a thermos to middle school, and I still remember hiding in the bathroom stall during lunch because a group of cheerleaders said my whole backpack smelled like rotten cabbage. I didn’t tell my mom for three months, I just started throwing the thermos away and buying a candy bar from the vending machine. So when Mia asks me if I can just pack her a peanut butter granola bar instead, I don’t say “don’t be silly, no one will care” and I don’t say “you should be proud of your food, don’t let them bully you.” Both of those responses would have made me shut down when I was her age, so they’re not going to work here.
I sit down on the warm kitchen floor next to her, and I say first: “Being teased in front of the whole cafeteria feels so awful. I’d be scared too, if I were you.” That’s the first thing I’ve learned over the years: don’t dismiss the fear before you name it. Kids don’t need you to fix it right away, they need you to confirm that their fear isn’t stupid. Then I ask her: “What do you want to do about it? We can do whatever you think will feel safest.”
She thinks for a minute, then says she still wants to bring the fried rice. She just wants to sit at the small table by the cafeteria window, which is almost always empty. I say that’s a great plan. I pack an extra honeycrisp apple in her bag, just in case she decides she doesn’t want to finish the rice and needs something else to eat. Then I shoot a quick text to her teacher, Ms. Lopez, just saying Mia’s a little nervous about lunch today, if anyone says something out of line, could you step in quick? Ms. Lopez writes back ten seconds later: No problem, she can sit by my desk if she wants.
I spent half the day glancing at my phone, waiting for a text that Mia was upset. Around 1:30, I got a text from Ms. Lopez that said: Mia shared her fried rice with three kids. Two asked for seconds. Turns out, when Mia sat down by the window, one of her friends came over to ask what she was eating. She smelled it, said it smelled like spicy pickles, and asked for a bite. Then two other kids from their group came over to try. One boy made a face and said it was too spicy for him, and no one made a big deal out of it. The only comment about smell was a girl who said it smelled better than the tuna casserole the lunch ladies served the week before.
That experience got me thinking about how we talk about food-related teasing at school, and how most of the advice out there is all or nothing. Either you force your kid to bring their family’s cultural food to teach them pride, or you switch to whatever the other kids are bringing to avoid conflict. Neither works for most kids, and both put all the pressure on the kid to be either perfectly brave or perfectly compliant.
What works is small, concrete steps that center what the kid feels comfortable with. First, always validate the fear before you problem solve. The simple line “That makes sense, that would feel really scary” opens the door for them to talk more, instead of shutting them down. Second, let them lead the solution. If they want to pack a different lunch some days, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re failing at passing down your family’s food or culture, it means you’re letting your kid have control over their own experience at school. If they just want a small adjustment, like sitting at a different table or packing their food in an airtight container that holds the smell, that’s fine too. That small adjustment is enough to take the edge off the fear, and most of the time it works out.
For teachers, one easy change you can make is to keep a low-key optional spot for eating, no questions asked. It doesn’t have to be labeled anything, just a small table near the front or by your door that any kid can use any time, for any reason. A kid doesn’t have to tell you why they want to sit there, they just can go. You can also do a 5-minute share-out at the start of the year where every kid says one favorite food their family makes, just to normalize all different kinds of food early on. It takes 5 minutes, and it cuts down on a lot of thoughtless comments later.
Last week, Mia packed her own lunch. She put extra kimchi in the container, and wrote her name on the lid with a sparkly pen. This morning she told me the whole table has asked me to send extra fried rice next week for everyone to try. But she also told me last month, when Javi brought salmon again, she got nervous for him. She said if it had been her, she probably would have eaten in the nurse’s office too, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean she’s not confident, or that she doesn’t love kimchi. It just means some days, you don’t want to deal with the noise. Some days it’s just lunch. And that’s enough.
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