As if the school cafeteria wasn’t already a place kids have to navigate social awkwardness, a social media trend this past school year made it even harder for some.
In today’s newsletter:
What is “lunch shaming”?
Scripted questions you can ask your kids.
Currently reading The Hobbit. Need your advice.
Let’s dive in.
What Is “Lunch Shaming”?
A trend called "lunch shaming" is spreading through middle and high schools.
What is it?
It’s when students secretly photograph or film classmates while they eat. Shaming them for sitting alone, eating something cheap or unhealthy, or just looking unflattering. Then they post it to social media for laughs.
Some kids are skipping lunch entirely to avoid becoming the target.
The cafeteria has always been a challenge.
High school hierarchies are decided by who sits where, who's left out, who gets laughed at. The lunchroom has been a place for bullying since I was in school and long before that.
But hard doesn’t always mean bad.
The lunchroom is also where we learn to interact with others or even make new friends. Kids have always had a ton of social learning to do over a lunch tray, and that work is good and important for them to do.
So, I’ve got two big reasons for hating this trend:
Its amplifying the bad. It takes the negative parts of the lunchroom and amplifies them. Without phones present, those interactions stay in there. When they take them online, it’s like you never get to leave the lunchroom. No wonder some kids are choosing just to skip lunch entirely.
Its erasing the good. When kids choose to skip lunch entirely, they miss out on the learning opportunities that come from social interactions with peers—even the hard ones. So many problems stem from isolating, and this is encouraging kids to pull away.
It’s summer and most kids are on break from school. These months at home can be a good time to talk to your kids about things like this and help them plan for the coming semester.
Below, I share four suggestions on how to approach this conversation with your kids. 👇
📱 Need help setting screen time limits with your kids?
Most parenting advice on screens falls into two camps: total ban or total surrender. Neither actually helps.
The Practical Parenting: Screen Time Series is a short video course that cuts through the noise with real science — so you can stop second-guessing every swipe and start making decisions you actually feel good about.
4 Ways To Ask Your Kid About Lunch Shaming (Or Any Bullying For That Matter)
As parents, we can default to wanting to protect our kids from harmful trends like this.
But I believe it’s our role to walk through difficulty with them. We can ask them questions and help them think about ways to bring about good in their social settings.
It’s worth noting that schools with phone bans (like most in Arkansas) have reported more kids coming back to the cafeteria after phones were off limits. I think that’s great! But even if your kids don’t have to deal with this specific lunch shaming trend, the principles and questions apply to any form of bullying.
Here are four things to keep in mind when talking about bullying (and a few scripted questions that might help you start the conversation).
1. Lead with curiosity.
Instead of jumping straight into conversation with your opinions on why this trend is bad, get a sense of what your kid actually thinks about it. If you come in too hot, they may feel like their being scolded rather than invited into a conversation.
It can be as simple as asking a question like:
"Have you heard about this 'lunch shaming' trend online? What do you think about it?”
You might be surprised what comes out.
2. Ask if it’s affected their friends.
Kids are usually more willing to share about their friends’ experiences than their own. Taking the topic from broad-cultural level to their personal community moves the conversation closer to home.
“Have any of your friends or classmates been lunch shamed (or lunch shamed others)? How did you feel when that happened?”
3. Ask how it’s affected them.
After they’ve been warmed up to the conversation, they may be more willing to open up if they’ve experienced this first hand.
If they haven’t already brought it up, it’s not a bad idea to ask directly.
“Has anyone ever tried to do this to you? What was that like for you?”
You might even relate to them by sharing stories of what lunchroom bullying was like when you were in school and your own experience being on the receiving end of trends like this and how it felt for you.
Be their safe person.
4. Help them imagine ways to respond.
Our kids will inevitably encounter bullying.
And they’ll either be on the receiving end of it, be the bully, or see it happen to others. We can’t always prevent it from happening, but we can help them plan how to respond.
We can ask questions like:
“What do you think you (or someone you know) can do if lunch shamed or bullied?”
“If your friends started lunch shaming someone else, what might encourage them to stop?”
—
I hope those questions helps, but don’t overthink it. Sometimes it’s better to ask the wrong way than not ask at all.
The point is, lead with questions. I’ve found that kids prefer being talked with rather than talked at all the time. Wouldn’t you, too?
When we do that, we deepen relationships, and I believe that gives us a better chance of raising kids who are confident and kind.
Kids that make friends instead of making fun.
Kids that pull up a chair before they pull out their phone.
If you’ve found great questions to ask your kids on the topic of bullying, I’d love to hear them. Reply to this email and let me know.
I’ve been reading through The Hobbit with my kids.
We just got to the chapter with Gollum and I’m holding off to read it during the day on the weekend instead of right before bed. 👀
Should I read it in the creepy, Andy Serkis-style voice?
