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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookHow do I explain to my 3 year old that our family chooses not to eat meat? I’ve tried to tell her that we don’t eat animals but she really doesn’t understand that. It’s increasingly difficult around the holidays when we share meals with family and she wants to try what is on their plates. I feel like I have to watch her like a hawk and I fear that will feel oppressive to her.
Does anyone have ideas about how to present our choice as one made out of love and compassion (so a 3 year old can understand) and help increase the probability that my daughter will choose to continue on with her veg lifestyle once she’s old enough to make those decisions on her own?
Comments
Watch her like a hawk! She is only 3, you can get away with a little oppression right now!! :)
Have you taken her to a petting zoo? I am not sure if she is still too young to make the association that the little lamb walking around, is the same thing dead on a plate! You could try, and see if she gets it!
“She is only 3, you can get away with a little oppression right now!! :)”
Hahaha! Love it. ;o)
I don’t know if it’s from watching me be a vegetarian, then vegan and now aspiring rawist (rawie? rawer?), but my son just doesn’t like meat. I always cook dinner for him and his dad, which includes meat, and he nearly always eats all the veggies first, takes a bite or two of the meat and then asks if he has to eat it because he doesn’t like it, and could he please have some more cherry tomatoes? Heh… I don’t argue!
Kids will often want to eat what their parents model for them. One of my girlfriends is also vegan and mostly raw, eating primarily raw fruits and veggies. Her son LOVES fruits and veggies so much that even when she tries to feed him more high calorie or higher fat foods, he is not interested. He just wants the apples or cucumbers. So now, she always eats with him to model good eating habits.
Another story…. a few years back when the cartoon movie “Chicken Run” came out, my cousin’s kids all refused to eat meat after watching it. They were traumatized, but I silently cheered the positive change in eating habits!!
I have a wise vegetarian friend who tells her kids that all families eat different things and their family doesn’t eat meat. Making it a family thing and not an ethical thing might make it easier for now. My daughter became vegetarian when my husband offered her a piece of turkey and I burst out crying. Nothing like a little emotional scarring.
If kids love animals, they won’t want to eat them. Make the connection for her – take her to the zoo, have her meet cows, etc. Many kids i’ve asked – don’t want to think about where the meat comes from -when they think about it, they get grossed out. Then WHY are the kids eating meat? Indoctrination – their parents tell them to. Yikes!
Winona, I get that same reaction with some adults!
Same here, Luna. But the adults get ticked when I follow up with mentioning vegetarian… they think that what they eat is gross, but to suggest that they avoid killing for food? What a radical little girl, they say!
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. My daughter does love animals but we read books all the time and she often pretends to eat animals (including our cats and dog!) She’s just being silly.
Also, she doesn’t understand death yet. One of our pet fish died recently and she caught me flushing it down the toilet. She was really upset and cried to me “why did the fish have to die?”... ugh, this is certainly multi-faceted.
my 7yr old usually chooses not to eat meat,even though his dad does, mostly because he doesn’t care for the taste of it, but also because he understands now that it’s a dead animal… it grosses him out. my 3yr old is slowly starting to understand death (we live in the hills and a mountain lion killed our donkey) but he doesn’t equate dead animal to meat on the plate… I don’t tell him not to eat it but I do say that there are healthier choices for strong bodies and offer yummy fruit instead. he usually takes the fruit because he wants to be strong and grow bigger. it’s all about perception at this age I think, and watching him like a hawk :)
mtnflwr – excellent suggestion. it’s great that you’re helping him to make vegan choices. I’ve been vegetarian since I was a preteen, and I’m now appalled that I was given meat before I was old enough to understand that I was eating animal flesh. 12/13/14 is a good age for people to make their own decisions, but honestly, I think that parents who have the means to feed their kids vegetarian before that age – well, in my limited understanding, I say that’s the way to go.
In the west we really dont accept death too well. That is why I believe that belief in something after death is quite beneficial. Most religions believe that there is another life or rebirth after death which allows to escape from the burdens and pains which we face in this life. Now isn’t that something to look forward to? Unfortunately I fear that your daughter may be influenced or rejected by her fellow students because she does not eat what they do. This may move her away from her veg lifestyle. Has this happened yet. Hopefully not!
What an awesome thread. I don’t have children, but this is something I think about. I first became vegetarian when I was seven (it didn’t stick for long), and I think that with parents being frank about where meat comes from, and with a small amount of encouragement, that children can sincerely want to not eat meat.
Like I said, I don’t have kids, but being vegan this is certainly a concern of mine.
Thanks for the great topic!
I am a kid, and to tell you the truth I don’t crave meat because it’s the worst food in the world for you in my opinion and I know that it is a dead animals. But General Tso’s Chicken (I used to think it was spelled General “Chows” Chicken!) is just to die for, but my mother would never let me eat that. I am not doing to well with death either because my cat recently died so I feel ya. Maybe what you could try to do is explain to her the whole process of killing an animal and cooking it. Have you ever bought a raw chicken and showed it to her? This is probably a brutal lesson, but it might pull her away from meat.