[ksmeadowlark]

DS has been in inhome preschool up until now, but in Aug he will start in a large Montessori preschool. I am really torn on the issue of whether or not to push the vegetarian issue or not. The policy of the school is that a menu is provided, and if you have any issues with the foods, you must send your own. So far, in a small group setting, it has not been an issue to substitute cheese for meat, etc., but with larger class sizes, and DS getting older (he is 4) I am not sure how long it would be until he would just want to eat what the other kids are eating anyway.

I actually do eat some poultry and fish, but DS has never ever had red meat. Has anyone had experience in dealing with this? DH does eat everything, but as the family cook and grocery shopper, he gets his redmeat "on the side" (at restaurants, or occasionally he would pick up a steak to BBQ).

My reasons for being mostly veggie are environmental and health-related, BTW.

Thanks for any input!!!

 

[ChristaN]

I have been vegetarian for nearly 20 years & vegan for almost 17. Both of my girls have been raised vegetarian (mostly vegan at home) since birth. I don't push the "no dairy & eggs" outside of the home so they are able to eat the cupcakes, etc. at class parties, but they do not eat meat anywhere. Since my kids are almost 5 & 7 now, I have left the decision up to them since I am comfortable that they understand my reasons behind being veg*n and can make their own choices there. They both are quite comfortable with the concept & have no interest in eating meat.

With that in mind, I don't feel that I am forcing anything on them. I think that I would feel worse if they wanted to eat something at school & I was the one saying "no." What I did when they were in preschool (my youngest is just finishing & will be going in kindergarten in the fall), was to give the teacher a note to put on the wall where they post all of the food allergies, etc. It said something like: "Angelina is a vegetarian. Please do not give her food containing ________." It then gave a list of common foods that might contain meat, animal broths, gelatin, etc. My younger dd's preschool teacher for the first year was awesome. She let us bring in soy or rice milk to keep in the fridge for Tessa to drink with snack b/c she doesn't like cow's milk since she has never had it at home & the teacher religiously read the ingredients on everything.

This year was a little harder since the teacher found it to be more of an imposition. For this year, I just personally read all of the ingredients on the snacks, etc. that they would be serving that day & told the teachers before I left which ones they should not feed to my dd. We do send in our own lunches, so it really was only an issue of snacks & cooking projects for us, though. It does sound like you are much more flexible about how you term your vegetarian diet than I am, though, so it really may not be that big of a hassle for the teachers if you discuss it with them up front. If it is only a matter of watching for big chunks of meat and not reading packages for gelatin and such, I can't imagine that it would be a big deal for the teachers to leave meat out of his food.

 

[chel]

my dd was in a preschool that required everyone to bring a lunch. The only issue we had was snack. dd actually doesn't like juice or milk and would insist she have water

. The only "problem" that came up was when I talked to her about how fresh fruit was healthier than juice. She tried to explain it to her class. Most kids disagreed with her and the teacher stood neutral. Luckily she had a good friend that shared her view. Plus there were other kids in the school that had religious dietary restrictions (ours are health/ethically reasons) so overall things went well. The school even had fake meat for "green eggs and ham day". The last year they started to enforce some state standards that some how required milk every day, I just said she was allergic.

Luckily next year for K, dd will be in a 1/2day program where they don't eat lunch at school. I plan to pack her lunch for $ and health reason. dd is has pretty solid beliefs so I'm not to worried. I usually try to make a subsitution available (marshmellow fluff for marshmellows).

 

[hvl25]

i had issues this year with my K son. you would not believe the things parents send in for snack time.....moon pies, cheetos,twinkies, you get the idea. and for drinks, green or blue hi c

we had a end of the year party and they actually brought in the green/blue hi c and diet pop and regular pop. i couldn't believe it. before i noticed them passing out drinks (my dh and dd were there too) my son had already gotten a glass of green gunk.

we aren't vegan but i don't eat red meat and my kids don't really care for it either. I try and give them healthy snacks and keep sugar/additives, etc down. its really hard once they go to school

 

[Indigomama]

The teachers know my son is a vegetarian... actually one of them is as well... but if for some reason my son wants a hot dog on his plate... fine.

We always bring in lunches for him (this upcoming week though is picnic week and the class has a group lunch) so really not an issue ever at all except of course this upcoming week.

I figure... my dh is NOT a vegetarian... I am... I really am not that hung up on ds... he is actually vegetarian by choice (so far at 4... HATES meat) so if for some reason he wants to try it somewhere.. not that bent out of shape.

 

[ChristaN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ksmeadowlark I am not sure how long it would be until he would just want to eat what the other kids are eating anyway. ... My reasons for being mostly veggie are environmental and health-related, BTW.

I realized that we didn't really address this concern

: ! I have never had a problem with my girls wanting to eat what the other kids are eating although I have heard of some kids having this issue. I think for us b/c my main motivation in being vegan is ethical, it hasn't been difficult to impart on my kids kindness toward animals as a motivation for dietary differences. They love animals anyway. The see eating meat from cows or other farm animals as no different than eating the family dog - it just isn't appealing.

What we did have some problems with when my older dd started kindergarten was understanding why everyone else didn't feel the same as she did. My dh is also not vegetarian, so it it hard to impart what I feel is right & have the kids not come away with the feeling that we are right (me & kiddos) & everyone else is wrong or "bad." I definately do not want to give them that impression. My older dd did have some kids telling her that God wanted her to eat meat

& she was going to get sick & die b/c she didn't eat meat. I found it to be very irritating, but my dds have never expressed a desire to eat meat like their classmates b/c it is an important ethical belief of theirs.

However, health and environmental concerns might be harder to impart on a little kid effectively. When you are young, your concerns about your long-term health are not usually too great & the environment can be kind of abstract. Not having any experience in that area, I am not quite sure how you go about making that important enough to your ds that he will be intrinsically motivated to remain vegetarian.

I do have one good book recommendation, though: Benji Bean Sprout Doesn't Eat Meat

Actually, I have lots of kids vegetarian books if you want more recommendations

.

 

[G&B'sMama]

My DD went to a year and a half of preschool. The first year the parents took turns bringing snacks for the whole class. All the families had to fill out an allergy slip for their kids. We put on ours "Gillian is a vegetarian and does not eat any meat, poultry, or fish. Milk products and eggs are okay." Truthfully, though, we didn't have a problem with things being vegetarian but with things being processed. Thankfully, the teacher asked the parents to limit the sugar in the snacks, but there was still a lot of junk food in my opinion. Stuff like teddy grahams and juice boxes- that is most definitely not a snack I would give to children. We didn't make too big of a deal about it- since it was two snacks a week. We volunteered to bring the snack whenever possible and brought whole foods. All but one or two of the children loved it when my DH brought the snack. Once those 12 kids ate 32 mandarin oranges and a dozen whole wheat zucchini-carrot muffins! The next year she was only in preschool for ½ the year and all the kids brought their own meal. That was an eye opener- every single thing in some of those lunches was from a package. Naïve me- I couldn't believe someone would expect a child to function on fuel like that. One child routinely brought a children's fast food meal. It made me realize that the parents who brought the teddy grahams and apple juice probably were bringing a healthy snack from their point of view. Kids weren't allowed to trade items in their lunch, so there wasn't a concern about that- but my DD did get a big dose of lunch envy. She was smart enough to notice that the other kids placed a pretty high value on that fast food lunch and she wanted to know why she didn't get anything in her lunch with cartoons on it. These preschool lunches exposed her to happy meals, Barbie, packaged junk food, undiluted fruit juice, all sorts of TV characters, and other unsavory appetites that we don't pursue in our house.

We did a lot of explaining about why we choose to eat healthy foods and why companies have to put cartoon characters on their packages (otherwise no one would buy it- right?). Our DD is a natural vegetarian- she won't even eat a fake meat product if it is made to look like meat (relatives often offer those). I would go so far to say she is a lot stricter about it than us- It wouldn't surprise me if she became a vegan when she was older. The processed food battle has been a lot harder, though. I suppose she would have been exposed to all that stuff at some point. Now we take the point of view that we do our thing at our house and at other people's houses we can choose to have some junk food or we can politely decline. If the issue was meat eating I would do the same thing- especially since she is almost five.

My suggestion would be to investigate what type of lunch they serve at the school. They should be able to provide some type of menu. You can then see how comfortable you feel with your child eating those foods. If you are uncomfortable then send a lunch. Don't let the fact that your child might be the only one with a sack lunch prevent you from doing what you think is right. Chances are that if this is the case there is going to be more than the lunch that marks your child as different- and it really is okay.

Just this morning my daughter was eating the breakfast I made for her and she said, "Mama this is so good it tastes like it is fresh from a vegetarian, organic farm!" I took that as high praise.

 

[ChristaN]

Yeah, we found the processed junk food to be as much of a problem as anything, too. Last year my older dd's elementary school was running a promo where the class that ate the most hot school lunches in a week got an ice cream party. The hot school lunches were junk & I inquired as to why they were trying to bribe the kids to eat more of them. The office said that they were healthier than what many kids brought in their own lunches. I found that hard to believe until I saw what some of the kids brought.

One of the little girls in my dd's class brought nothing but candy & cheetos in her lunch. She seriously had rolls & rolls of gummy lifesavers, fun dip, etc. and a bag of cheetos - that's it! I imagine that any child whose parents want him/her to eat a less processed diet, whether it be veg*n or omni are going to run into their kids being "different" at some point. I wouldn't give in & let them eat kool-aid and candy for lunch, though, so I guess that 'no meat' is no different.

 

[rebeccalizzie]

I'm with just about everyone else...it sounds like you can just give him the option. DD and I are not vegetarian, but I do limit meat because it makes me feel ill if I eat very much of it, and DD ends up having limited amounts also because it's not usually what we have in the house. I also try to not pack processed foods or white flour or sugar. She has always brought much healthier lunches than most of her peers, and I almost never let her buy school lunches, and it's never bothered her. Some of the kids are jealous of her home made muffins and sandwich bread and burritos, some of them think it's odd, but she hasn't been teased or anything.

She has swapped her muffin or whatever for cheetos once or twice, and doesn't usually anymore--she prefers what she is used to eating, and most junk food tastes kind of icky to her. I didn't make a big thing out of it when she did it, because every kid does IMO.

Now the one time she *did* get teased...tuna salad. Her absolute fave lunch, but the smell of tuna...her friends really teased her for it. So she doesn't do tuna at school anymore! :LOL