Fun and Compassionate Family Ideas for the Holidays
his holiday season, take a few moments to plan fun, meaningful activities with your children. Even in the midst of holiday chaos, the Holidays can retain some of their original meaning.
“A+” Ideas for School Day Breakfasts
With just a little planning, you can ensure that your kids’ dietary needs are met with a nutritious and delicious meal that’s also quick and easy. Here are some “A+” breakfast ideas to help your school-aged kids start the day off right.
When Good Kids Go Vegetarian
Why are we so taken aback when our teenage son announces his plan to go vegetarian? And why are we shocked into further disbelief when he decides to deepen his commitment by eliminating eggs and dairy? I know why.
Popsicles: A Summertime Favorite
A bonus of our pop-making hobby is that our kids have learned a lot about nutrition. We talk about what ingredients we’ve chosen and why. They also love to help us “shop for pops,” and making them together is a family affair.
Summer Tryst: Falling in Love with Books (and other productive things) when School is Out
Getting children engaged in the summer in ways that cultivate stimulation for the mind helps them establish good habits and spend their time well learning while having fun. Here are some activities that might break up the mundanity and even encourage mental growth.
Walking With My Children: Vegetarian Virtues in Action
As we walk I can see that my children are happy. Regularly taking this walk and visiting the animals has become an important part of our lives. I walk in silence and think about some of the virtues my children are learning from the very beginning of their lives through vegetarianism: compassion, caring and kindness are a few.
Veganize Your Storytime: Books for the Littlest Vegans and Animal-Advocates
Children may soon feel the dietary minority upon entering school; I didn’t want them feeling that way in our own home during storytime. I began consciously searching out books that I didn’t have to veganize, and that reinforced the values we want to share.
Fun Halloween Activities – Vegan Halloween Tricks and Treats
With a little planning, your child’s Halloween will be just as fun, scary, and sweet as the Halloween’s you remember.
Nourishing Your Independent Toddler
Don’t let the table become a battleground. Here are a few ways to make meals enjoyable for the whole family and to help your child develop a healthy attitude toward food.
The Talk
The next time we called my parents, my daughter proudly informed them she was vegetarian. That’s when it came: The Talk.
Top Five Tips for Raising Vegan Babies and Children
Vegans face a myriad of concerns as they make choices in raising a vegan child. Challenges are around every corner and include not only food but family, friends, health care, school and more. Crystal Hansen, a vegan mom of two, shares five important factors vegan parents should be prepared to face. #1 Know the appropriate health requirements: Realize that a vegan diet can meet all of your baby and child’s nutritional needs, but...
Turning Children on to Vegetables
It is recommended that everyone consume at least 3 servings of vegetables each day. Most children eat 1-2 servings of vegetables each day. For many children these servings are not broccoli but rather French fries.
Getting Kids to Eat Vegetables
How can I get my daughter to eat more vegetables when she hates anything green?
Salt Clay
Learn how to make a clay that you can then use to make toys for yourself, or something for mom and dad!
Popsicle Picture Frames
Make a cute frame or even a refrigerator magnet with popsicle sticks
Concocting Creative Minds: The Wonder of Potions and Other Experimental Mixtures
Whether fizzy, smelly, gooey, tasty, or astonishing to witness, having the opportunity to mix, combine, and play with the reaction of a variety of materials is a wonder-filled way to concoct thinking, creativity, and fun.
When Vegetarian Families Encounter the Law
Peter Hromadko, a single parent, was shocked to learn that his daughter would not be coming home that evening; the state was taking her because she was being raised on a vegetarian diet.
When Bullies Strike: An opportunity to teach your child strength and compassion
Your child’s safety and freedom are both important issues. S/he has a constitutional right to a free public education, no matter what.
What’s a Parent to Do?
I can persuade. I can educate. I can even twist a few arms. But ultimately the choice about what they put into their bodies should be theirs.
What If Your Kids Don’t Want to Be Vegan When They Grow Up?
I will admit that many vegetarian children do decide to experiment with other foods at some time. The reality is that some even give up being vegetarian at all for a time, even for life. However, there is a number who do not, who choose to maintain a vegetarian diet throughout their lives.
Why You Want Your Kids to Play Outside
We humans are social animals; designed to move; built to live and love nature; to grow and mature by doing. So encourage the kids play outside, let their brains and bodies grow, and let them experience some of the greatest joys of life.
We’re Different, and That’s OK
Yes, everyone has different colored eyes, different beliefs and different tastes. We all talk different, live in different places, read different books and sing different songs, and that’s ok. The world would be boring if we were all the same
When Your Vegan Child Wants to Fit In
It is up to parents and caregivers to teach children how to handle being put on the spot. Everybody likes to fit in but at the same time, we all like to feel special
Vegans Have Birthdays Too!
People always assume that my children are denied cute cakes and tasty ice cream. They assume wrong. Vegans can and do throw awesome parties.
Teaching Good Eating to Children – A Lesson in Vegan Food Pyramid Building
Teaching the basics of good eating is one of the most important steps a parent can take to prevent childhood obesity and help children understand excellent nutrition. Another important step is to live what we teach.
The Time is Right for Getting Veggie Meals Into Schools… And here’s how YOU can do it!
Lifelong eating patterns are established in childhood. Thus, getting vegetarian meals into schools will do more than satisfy the very important goal of providing a warm vegan or vegetarian lunch to your children and their friends.
The Search for Autism’s Missing Piece
Early preventative steps – and early precautions – maybe parents’ only defense against the likelihood of autism. It seems the wait for any definitive answers is going to be long.
Teach Your Babysitter About Vegan Life
Investing time and energy into teaching your caregiver about vegan life will give you peace of mind. More important, however, is welcoming warmly into your lives the person who will be caring for the most cherished members of your family.
The Talk
If you’re like me, you have children and you have parents. If, like me, one set eats animals and the other doesn’t, you, too, may have experienced “The Talk.”
The Creation of Best Academy – Vegan Child Care at its Best!
When it comes to Best is that we want to keep our tuition low so all children can attend, and still offer the best programs, such as the vegetarian food program, to better their lives. Not only affluent families should be able to send their children to a center of the highest quality.
Such the Dilemma
VegNews recently threw out the question, “Should kids have the freedom to choose whether or not they eat meat?”
Should Vegan Children Have Non-Vegan Friends?
There is a great likelihood that your children will meet non vegan kids they want to hang out with. But this doesn’t have to be an eating catastrophe. Kindness, patience, and respect go a long way. You’ll be amazed at the impact you can have just by being nice.
Riley’s Top Ten Vegan Treats
All of these sweets are really good. And they are good to animals, too. All you have to do is ask whichever one of your parents is the King or Queen of Sweets to buy them for you.
Search for Vegan Fast Food
I don’t normally take my children to fast food restaurants, preferring to provide them with healthy meals I can make at home. However, it is important for my children to know what foods are available for them at all restaurants in the event that they ever eat out without me.
School (and Work!) Lunch Ideas
Tired of the same lunch day after day? Here are some fresh ideas to liven up your next midday meal.
Swimming Safety Tips
Drowning is one of the leading causes of death among children ages one to four, in part because it can happen so quickly. It only takes a few seconds for a child to drown, and small children can drown in just a few inches of water in a bathtub, a toilet or a bucket
Supporting the Vegan Diet Choice for Kids
The shocking revelation about my diet always led to the same comments and disgusted grimaces, “How can you eat that junk?” When I mentioned my vegan children, things got downright nasty. Accusations about poor nutrition flew and some conversations even ended with people walking off in a huff.
Raising Kids the Green Way
Children being raised on vegan diets won’t feel any different from non-vegan kids. The trick is to include substitutes for popular kiddie treats so vegan children won’t feel out of place with their non-vegan peers.
Raising Kids to be Vegan for Life
How can I make being a vegan as sacred for him as it is for me? How do show him the meaning of veganism without scaring him or scarring him? The answers that I’ve found lie in taking baby steps.
Positive Protesting with Children
No matter which camp you’re in, if you’re a parent or guardian, at some point you probably asked yourself, “Should I take the kids?” It’s worth questioning the impact of street protests on children, since such events can involve both a learning experience in self-expression. Should children really tag along?
Playing With Food
Cooking teaches children the spirit of cooperation, a little bit of math, and a smidgen of chemistry; but best of all, it teaches them to appreciate the effort and artistry that goes into the preparation of food.
Opossums, and Squirrels, and Children – Oh My!
When I have commented that I have opossums living with me, people usually say what disgusting animals they are. Opossums are the garbage men of nature. We need them to clean up the dead things. They are good for the environment.
One Scoop or Two?
If a cone was dripping in the scorching sun, I was quick to lick it up for them. But, then, my daughter announced that she could no longer support modern dairy farming practices or the torturing of chickens.
Obento: The Japanese Art of Box Lunches
Obento, or boxed meal, is an art form in Japan. Japanese mothers spend an enormous amount of time and energy constructing the perfect obento—balancing taste, color, and texture.
Mommy, Why Don’t We Eat Meat?
Essentially, each parent must develop their own way of explaining veganism to their kids, placing the importance on what you say as well as how you say it.
Make Mine Vegetarian Friendly, Please! Ideas for Vegetizing Your Neighborhood
With some commitment, effort, and time, our communities can become more vegetarian-friendly. All it takes is a plan, a support network, speaking out, and a little education.
Is Homeschooling Right For You?
Why are more and more people choosing homeschooling for their kids? There are many pros, a few subjective cons, and a plethora of myths and misconceptions.
Instilling Compassion in Children
By raising our children to not take the lives of animals for granted, even in the casual sense, will inspire in them a deeper respect and love for our fellow earth-mates.
Innocence Lost: Explaining veganism to my daughter
I knew that someday soon I would have a talk with her and gently explain to her what pork, veal, and beef were. But for now I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the heart to tell an innocent child, someone who sheds tears over dead insects, that her beloved animal friends were potential meals.
Is Your Child a Mini-Yogi?
Many parents are taking note of yoga’s benefits and the positive effect it can have on kids, helping them to alleviate stress in addition to improving their attitudes about body image. Yoga has become a constructive outlet for kids of all ages, allowing them to release stress and tension in a controlled yet fun environment.
Homeschooling and the Vegan Family
Maybe it’s that we’re already open to “alternative” lifestyles, or that we see it as an extension of our natural living. Or maybe those other families realize that allowing our children to learn at home gives us the opportunity to instill strong vegetarian values without the conflict inherent in public school curriculum assignments related to nutrition, health, animals, and the environment.
Helping Vegan Children Enjoy Non-Vegan Parties
Nothing puts us in the spotlight as parents like making a decision that is not only unpopular with your child but also with others who are watching. Here are a few ideas for things you can do make sure your child’s party experience is enjoyable, before you even head out the door
Happy Feet: Children’s Footwear Takes an Eco-Turn
Companies with a green perspective are looking to balance what’s most important in a child’s shoe—durability and flexibility—with materials and methods that are better for the planet.
Happy (Vegan) Easter
Easter has become your standard commercial holiday, but like all holidays, there is no reason why it can’t be good vegan fun for your children.
How Does Your Garden Grow?
I eagerly checked my beauties the very next morning, expecting, of course, that they would be huge and flowering and giving all sorts of indication of future use in salads, side dishes, and organic sustenance. They were not any of these things. They were the same, the same as when I had laid them into the earth. So, I did what any good gardener would do.
Give Your Children 5-A-Day: The Art Of Disguising Vegetables
Encouraging your child to swap high-fat and sugary snacks for fruit and vegetables can save you money in the long run and greatly benefit their health.
Growing up Green: Exploring Veganism with Your Child
Vegetarianism can be a rewarding, healthful way to eat. Discover with your child new foods, experiment with recipes, and search out others you know who follow a plant based diet. Make a game out of finding as many veggie options as possible on menus at local restaurants. Let the kids help with the grocery list. Grow your own vegetables or stop off at farmers’ markets.
Flaxseeds and Flaxseed Oil…Practical Pointers
Flaxseeds have the highest alpha-linolenic acid content of any food – 57% of the oil in flax is alpha-linoleic acid (omega-3). They contain about 3½ times as much omega-3 fatty acids as omega-6 fatty acids.
Flaxseed Oil: Putting it to Good Use
Flaxseed oil is a hot topic these days. Yet if you’ve gone so far as to buy it, you may still be wondering what to do with it. Some people enjoy its buttery, nutty taste, but to me and others, it has an unpleasant, just-tolerable taste. If the oil is languishing in your fridge, the following suggestions may help you put it to use.
Family in Transition: Making the switch to a vegan diet
What can you expect from boys who have eaten meat all their life, suddenly told that their parents have decided that they will never eat animal products again? Where do you draw the line between teaching a valuable lesson and allowing them some of the carefree aspects of childhood?
Failing Our Children: The National School Lunch Program Report Card
Kids need more fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains and fewer greasy hamburgers, chicken nuggets, and French fries. Learning how to eat right is a lesson that will benefit them for life.
Finding a Nanny: “Mannies”: Hollywood Trend Becoming More Acceptable In Family Setting
Whether it be playing catch with the little ones when dad’s still at work, acting as a big brother to older siblings who feel they are too old to have a babysitter or just having an extra pair of hands to handle some heavy lifting around the house, parents are looking to mannies as the ideal solution to keep kids focused, active and more involved when parents can’t be there themselves.
Ensuring Nutrition in Young Vegan Children
The good news for vegan parents is that the vegan diet passes this test with flying colours. Vegan children usually eat more fruits and vegetables than their meat-eating counterparts. They are rarely sick and have few food allergies.
Does Cafeteria Food Make the Grade?
With menu options such as ham and cheese melt, chicken nuggets, fried chicken, cheeseburgers, and cheese sandwich and soup, a parent can be hard pressed to find a vegan friendly main course on the typical Sodexho lunch line.
Desexualizing Your Six-Year-Old: Five Ways to Protect Your Daughter from Growing Up Too Fast
Every generation of mothers has sought ways to keep their daughters young; however, today the influences are coming not only from the physical world of toys and television, but from the online world as well.
What’s So Terrible About Being Two?
To many, parenting at this stage appears easy and there is no way of appreciating just what lies ahead.
Create a Positive Vegan Environment for Your Family
Accept that there are situations you cannot change and go on with your life in as positive and joyful a way as you can. Your children, family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and others will notice, and your environment will change – if only from your own perspective.
Compassionate Conflict Resolution with Non-Vegan Caregivers
When you talk to others about vegetarianism, your son or daughter will learn about problems. When you treat others with compassion, your son or daughter will learn about solutions.
Vegetarian to Vegan: 101 Reasons Not to Feed Dairy Products (or Milk Formula) to Your Children
Dr. Linda Folden Palmer shares her list of reasons why you should remove dairy from your child’s diet.
Child-ercise: 10 Ways Moms Can Exercise
There are many ways to not only slim down and feel more alive, but also show our children that health is a priority.
Cool School Lunches
It is only natural for your child’s eyes to wander and notice, and be envious of, what the other kids are eating. Here are a few tips that may help your child’s lunch be healthy, fun and get noticed by the other kids.
Bully For You
Activism, it seems, is a practice that encourages vigorous action in support of some controversial subject. To bully, on the other hand, is to browbeat or treat abusively.
Bring the Kidz!
As young as possible, children should be taken to a farm, to a food co-op, to a neighbor’s garden. They should be shown how supper began.
Banishing the Bully in Your Child’s Life
Your child’s future shouldn’t include the aftermath of years of bullying. When necessary, take your concerns to the highest authority and put a stop to bullying in your child’s school and community.
Are Vaccines Really Safe and Effective?
One of the most serious adverse effects of vaccines is that they cause the very diseases they’re meant to prevent.
A Vegetarian Daycare? How One Mom Made It Happen
Yang has found her experience as a daycare provider both rewarding and tiring. Yet as a single mother Yang is grateful that she’s been able to provide for her and her daughter as well as positively influencing the lives of other children and their families.
Vegetarian to Vegan: 101 Reasons Not to Feed Dairy Products (or Milk Formula) to Your Children
Children who are not fed dairy products enjoy: Far less colic. Far less osteoporosis. Reduced childhood cancer. Drastically reduced chance of developing Type I Diabetes. Drastically reduced chance of developing Type II Diabetes
Positive Protesting with Children
Clearly, we can educate our children without purposefully exposing them to potentially violent situations. If you choose to bring your children to a protest, consider these important factors.
Nanny Shares and Vegan Living
Finding good childcare is always a daunting task, and it’s doubly so when your child has a special diet. Nanny-sharing may be just the solution you need!
Innocence Lost: Explaining Veganism to My Child
I didn’t have the heart to tell an innocent child, someone who sheds tears over dead insects, that her beloved animal friends were potential meals.