Raising a vegetarian kid

I’ve blogged some here off and on about the 9yo being vegetarian. It isn’t surprising — her stepmom has been a veggie as long as we’ve known her. I was a veggie for about 1.5 years several years ago. One of her best friends has always been veggie.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to cook for a vegetarian kid who doesn’t actually like vegetables.

So over the past year and a half, I’ve built up a number of strategies to handle the 9yo and ensure she eats well.

I’ll also throw in on the front end that she, her pediatrician and I have discussed her diet in some detail, and the doctor’s advice: Give her a multivitamin and don’t worry about it. And I work pretty hard to do just that. The absolute last thing I want is to set up a control fight over food with a very skinny, fairly emotional 9yo girl.

But I have also worked hard to make her aware of her food choices, and to be in charge of her own healthy eating. Here are some of the strategies we use:

• Make a list of favorites. About a year ago, I had the 9yo write out a list of every single thing she liked to eat. And I told her, if she wrote it on the list, she was agreeing to eat the food whenever I served it. From that list, I got everything I’d ever need to make her a lunch for school and dinner several nights a week, no questions asked.
• Don’t let a favorite food become a crutch. We only serve mac and cheese once a week at our house. The 9yo would eat it every night if I let her. But what if she burned out on it? Then where would I be? And heaven knows, it’s not the world’s healthiest food. So I watch for the emergence of other monopoly foods, and I try to reserve them for when they’re truly needed.
• Don’t make two meals. I’ve told the 9yo many times that I make one meal. I will always make enough to feed both her and the omnivorous sorts in the house, but I’m not making two meals at one sitting.
• Give the child control, within limits. All that said, we only have one real rule about food in the house — you have to try it. So if I’ve found a new veggie dish, the 9yo agrees to try a bite. If she doesn’t like it, no harm, no foul — but she makes her own peanut butter sandwich. And, don’t ever make a meal with all new foods — not fair to kids [and hell, to many adults], who often need time to adjust to new ideas.
• Help her become a nutrition expert. From the time the 9yo was about 3, and now with her younger brother, I’ve taught my kids a lot about nutrition. At first, it was just “grow food” vs. “fun food.” You have to eat some grow food before you can have fun food. As the 9yo became vegetarian, I ramped up the details. She knows how important it is to get protein every day, and knows several ways she can get some. She also knows that foods like tomatoes and spinach are super-healthy. As she grows older, I’ll continue to add to those details.
• Support your child’s choice. This may be the most important one on the list. The 9yo became vegetarian because she’s very tender-hearted toward animals, and she can explain very clearly to anyone who asks that she won’t eat something if you have to kill an animal to get it. So I help her at restaurants and at friends’/relatives’ homes — inquiring if there’s chicken broth in a casserole, or reminding her where gelatin comes from. You wouldn’t believe the relatives who try to sneak meat products off on her. I find it disrespectful, and I think the 9yo appreciates the backup when another adult questions her choices.

Coming soon: I’ll share some kid-friendly vegetarian recipes.

Tagged as: child, Vegetarian