So, meat-eaters, if your 5-yr-old announced that s/he was becoming vegetarian

[Pruni]

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no I would not .. well I'd let them decide not to eat meat but that wouldn't stop me serving it and they'd have to make the decision every meal time

funnily enough my neice turned veggy when she was 4 and I remember my sister and her DH going ott on how clever she was and totally reinforcing it down to refusing to let her eat roast potatoes cooked around a chicken .. it was a PITA

'm veggie anyway, so it would be no great shakes for her to be too, but without a doubt I would respect her wishes - 5 is old enough to have her food preferences respected IMO. I let her chose to eat meat when she was ready, and I would do the same thing if she decided not to eat meat.

Sorry - lol at the visit to the granary.

id say you freak
eat some bacon

Not sure... might insist on them being bloody consistent about it (no sweets with gelatine etc).

DH and I have always discussed this (during the long winter evenings) in terms of the child being old enough to take on extra cooking responsibility to make up for the extra work they're causing, but I don't suppose they are much use at 5?

I'm veggie so it wouldn't be difficult, but they would have to eat the veg food I like.
DD1 says this all the time but when given the choice of meat or what I'm having she still often eats the meat. I suspect that over time she will stop eating meat, but only when she really wants to.

I like Twiglett's approach though.

If I allowed DS to take decissions about his food he would be on a diet of crisps and chocolate muffins.

If I were a knowledgeable vegetarian I wouldn't find a problem (although I suppose no knowledgeable vegetarian has a carnivorous 4 year old), but I wouldn't allow a four year old to take nutrtion decissions, to young to know best.

DS did announce he was 'vegetarigen' shortly after he started reception - because his friend is. I humoured him in a rather dishonest way for a bit, until it died down. If he was seriously thinking about not eating meat because he didn't like the idea, thought it was cruel etc, I would let him make his decision and support it.

But he loves meat, does know where it comes from, does know that the sweet lambs are killed for chops, has seen fish killed to eat etc, so isn't living in cloud cuckoo land about meat.

This knowledgable vegetarian has a meat-eating child, Chandra! I felt I couldn't force my vegetarianism on her so when she wanted to try meat, she did. But it works in reverse as well; I don't think meat-eating should be forced on a child who decides they want to be vegetarian - if dd was old enough at 3 to chose to eat meat, she's old enough at 5 to chose not to.

When I say that at 5 they're old enough to respect their food preferences I don't mean the preference to eat muffins instead of carrots! What I mean is, they know enough about food and how it's produced to decide whether to eat meat or not.

I do know children who seem to have developed a genuine, strong and spontaneous wish not to eat meat at an early age...not 'picky eaters' etc, just not wanting meat. I thnk that's fair enough, and not a PITA, any more than an adult vegetarain is a PITA....

Cue Cod, no doubt

We don't eat meat so doesn't apply.

My sil dealt with this by saying that the child can choose to eat meat but will need to learn to like pulses, lentils etc and until she ate a wide range of other foods she'd need to keep eating meat. The child is now 16 and still vegetarian.

DS didn't eat meat until he was 3 because he didn't like it so much .. now he loves it

and I do think that veggy children, when the rest of the family isn't vegetarian are a total PITA

When I said knowledgeable vegetarian I had in mind a person who knows how to provide meat substitutes in order to keep a nutritive diet.

As far as I know it's not as simple as removing x and y from the diet, especially when meat is a main source of protein. If I had the knowledge to support that decission fine, but if I didn't I would probably ignore the request and keep serving meat. Now, it would be a tragedy if DS decided to stop eating meat, with him being allergic to fish, eggs, nuts, soya, and most legumes, I would be in a serious problem to make up for it!

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bollocks to that .. a 5 year old doesn't know its arse from its elbow .. from the POV that next week they'll change their minds

Chandra, I'm still a knowledgable veggie even by those criteria ... and I still have a meat-eating child! You said that no knowledgable vegetarian has a meat-eating child, and it was that comment that I was referring to. I consider myself a very knowlegable vegetarian, but I also think it's important not to force that lifestyle onto someone else.

But how ethically rooted are 5 year old decisions.

Dd (2.9) doesn't eat meat because she doesn't like it. It IS a PITA.

If ds (5) decided he wanted to be veggie because he didn't like the idea of eating animals then I wouldn't serve him meat, and I would provide an alternative, but I wouldn't reinforce it too much.

lol BLu

dh is veggie so I'd have to respect dss wishes if he wanted to be veggie. I'm secretly hopping to convert dh back to meat though . Whichever way round it is, families with one member who is different to the others (veggie or non veggie) is a PITA. I know as we currently have one veggie and two non-veggies and it complicates meal time enormously.

Read my post, I said "I suppose no knowledgeable vegetarian..." and tbh I don't think I have been rude about it, nor do I disagree with vegetarianism. If you are OK with having a carnivorous, omnivorous, or vegetarian child, it's OK with me

I think small children, if they realise where meat comes from, are quite able to work out whether that is then something they want to eat or not. So I do think their view should be respected although agree that it would probably lead to a complete change of the family's eating habits (for the reasons Chandra has outlined.

I didn't say you'd been rude, Chandra - sorry if that's the impression I gave. I was just pointing out that it's entirely possible to be a knowledgable veggie and be happy giving meat to a child who wants it, that's all.