Explaining veganism to my four-year-old and vegan diet supplements

[Morecoffeethanks]

I have a dd who is 4 years old. Until now she has had an omnivore diet- my husband eats meat and I decided it’s easier to make sure she has enough iron etc by allowing meat a couple of times a week.
However she has started asking questions why I eat differently to daddy and her. How do I explain in a child friendly way?
The reason I don’t eat meat is the cruelty to animals aspect.
If she decided that she would like to adopt a vegan diet which supplements are you giving to your children to ensure they have sufficient nutrients? Omegas, iron etc?

They were reception age and the lunchtime supervisor can’t watch what 30 kids are doing with the best will in the world

you’re missing the point - maybe you’re friends with the batshit mother but to reiterate

• they were 4
• trying to be kind encompassing the school value of “sharing”

some people need to get over themselves

I was about to say that I can’t believe this update, but actually I can because your attitude is everywhere these days it seems. Your post is basically “my kid can do no wrong, everyone else thinks I’m right, I have the weight of opinion behind me, she’s a twat”.

This isn’t about the children fgs. They’re 5yo! They wouldn’t know a slice of ham from a slice of cucumber if it hit them in the face - clearly, because that’s what happened. Neither child was in the wrong.

YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. Do you understand how it’s possible for your child to cause harm or damage unintentionally and for the responsible parent to express regret to the harmed/damaged child or their parent AS WELL? Your “well I have everyone behind me and she was shouting the odds” is such an immature response. What if someone else’s child wanted to share a vape with yours aged 11? Would you excuse it with a “it’s ok darling, they were just being kind”. And no, eating ham isn’t dangerous like a vape is but that’s not the point. The point is that you don’t get to decide stuff for other people’s children, you have to respect how other people choose to raise their children. #bekind, right?

4 isn’t old enough and restricting her diet now could lead to a lifetime of food issues. Also, what if her DF wants her to continue to eat meat?

A 4 year old hasn’t made any choice - ethically or religiously. They have had their ‘choice’ imposed on them by their parent. So no disrespect and no broken ‘choice’ here.

4 year olds who don’t eat ham are not eating it because their parents have prevented it - for whatever reason.

So much angst over the innocent behaviour of 2 young children!
First off, teachers are not there to police school meal times. Teachers don’t know whether a child is vegetarian or not if they bring a packed lunch instead of having a school dinner. Muslims eat meat. It just has to be halal. Her child was given a piece of cheese first - she may have had a dairy allergy.

Overruling the parents' choice is disrespectful.

Back to the op...

I would answer honestly but simply. "Mummy doesn't eat animal products because I don't think animals are food and I don't like how they are treated when being made into food".

I don't agree with lying to a child, if they ask a question you should answer them honestly.

Overruling the parents' choice is disrespectful.

Who overruled the parents' choice? The child who offered the sandwich, or the child who accepted it and ate it?

School encourage the children to share food? Well that's an enquiry into an avoidable death waiting to happen.

I can see why you'd be defensive as your kid was being kind, but I think it's your hilarity that a veggie kid ate meat which is getting shackles up.

Children shouldn't be sharing food because of potential allergies, but the poster laughing about the vegan mother was disrespectful.

The school was disrespectful.

Exactly!

The children didn't do anything wrong. They were just being kind to their friends. Schools do usually encourage sharing but not of everything! Schools usually teach that it's lovely to share toys and equipment but we never share food, lip balm, computer passwords etc.

The grown up thing to have done when the mum first started ranting would have been for @Besidemyselfwithworry to apologise; explain that it was her dd who was just trying to be kind to her friend and didn't understand; say that she'll explain to her dd that we don't share food in case our friends aren't allowed to have certain foods and because some foods can make some people poorly.

If @Besidemyselfwithworry wanted to smooth things over, she could have left it at that. If she had allowed herself to get a bit wound up, she could have asked the mother to have a similar conversation with her own child who had shared the cube of cheese.

Disagree.

I would tell her the truth - you don't want to kill animals to eat them.
And you don't want to eat dairy because you think the milk should go to the baby cows instead of people having it.

Exactly this!

I absolutely was NOT in the wrong and
neither was my child

The other Mum made a twat of herself apparently at the school gate the next morning I wasn’t there shouting at the TA on the gate and being really unpleasant - I heard about then on the group chat later and if anyone was being immature it was her NOT me. She knew it was my child and instead of having a mature conversation she kicked off like an idiot.

And for the record - had they had done something unkind I’d be the first to pull them up on it but I’m not having my kids being blamed for some nutters over reaction to an innocent mistake!

One of my DC has a very restrictive diet due to severe food allergies to multiple foods - anaphylaxis type reaction. This meant his diet was significantly different to his siblings. I didn't spend too much time explaining to them why their DB had such a different diet partly because I didn't want to scare them and partly because I didn't want to create more issues around food. My suggestion is say very little, don't try and explain too much. Just say - I prefer this type of food. It's very easy to create anxiety around food in children.

If you're unable or feel confident enough to feed a balanced diet without supplements then I'd probably not do the manipulative eating animals is cruel thing just yet.

Quite. Any parent wanting or needing their child to eat a non-mainstream/restricted diet needs to teach their child not to accept food from others. You can’t expect other kids to know the ins and outs of your dietary preferences.

In our case, DD has dietary intolerances and a food allergy (tis joyous), so we drummed it into her from the get go that she is not to take food from other kids.

We saw that very much as our responsibility, not a responsibility to place on others.

Parenting choices. I assumed that would be obvious from the context.

We’re not talking about the same thing, and I don’t think you understand what I’ve written or are seeing beyond yourself. But I noticed after my last post that this is in the Veganism board (it was in my trending when I saw it) and this detour isn’t what the OP came here for and I’m a bit embarrassed about my first post expressing scepticism about veganism 😳. So apols to the OP about that and I’m going to stop derailing now.

I am dying at the more and more dramatic updates about this appalling vegetarian mother. Have you forgotten to add that she also called the police/got a restraining order against your child/threw tomatoes at the parents at home time?

This - the mum needs to say to their child do not eat other people’s food same as would to an allergy child and at 5 my friends cmpa child knows milk good make her poorly

i would say to your child that you don’t eat food made from animals.

Tho would you truly be happy if they want to eat meat @Morecoffeethanks - so you would be buying - cooking - serving it etc

This thread has become sandwich gate, I think it deserves its on thread!
I am confident we have a very healthy diet, as in no processed foods and a protein source with every meal however I am aware B12 is unavailable in a vegan diet and getting enough iron is essential- I take a supplement myself. Also omegas are so important and the best source is from fish although you can get vegan supplements. I think my awareness of nutrition makes me very cautious. I would probably stick to vegetarian over vegan to be honest.

If you add a bit of processed food, you'll be able to get B12 without needing vitamin supplements.

B12 is added to things like marmite, cereals, plant milks, nutritional yeast and some margarines.

You can get omega 3 from chia seeds, ground flax seeds, hempseeds and walnuts.

I posted early on the thread, saying that I'm vegan and my dd was vegan from birth. Neither of us take supplements and neither of us have had diet related health problems.