On this week’s Parenting segment, one mother is struggling with her 14-year-old son’s new vegan diet.
“[My son and his friends] love watching nature documentaries together, which we encourage,” she told Moncrieff. “But now we are dealing with a child who refuses to eat the dinner that’s put in front of him.
“He is at that age where he insists on scowling at the rest of us as we eat Bolognese or chicken drumsticks, which puts a bad feeling on the family dinner table.
“I keep telling myself it’s a phase, but it’s been going on for two weeks now and I’m exhausted cooking two different meals every night.”
She said she is also worried her son isn’t getting the right nutrients without eating meat.
“I told him a few times that I’ve no problem if he wants to do this when he’s a bit older, and we can do some research into a balanced vegan diet, but he refuses,” she said.
Child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said a good vegan diet should give the son all the nutrients needed.
“It's sounding like a pasta vegan diet is going on,” she said. “And that's not sustainable.
“You might have to find a good vegan cookbook there are thankfully so many of them out there.
“You could also have him flick through that book, select two meals you could get the ingredients and help him, but he has to be there.”
Batch cooking vegan meals
Joanna said the mother could help her son batch cook vegan meals, so he has consistently healthy dinners.
Supporting the son in batch cooking will create a healthy diet and a healthy boundary for the family, according to Joanna.
“You can say, ‘I support you in this and I'm going to show you that that one night of the week’,” she said.
“I will be cooking a meat free dinner for all of us. The other nights of the week, you're going to batch cook at the weekend to make sure you have what you need.”
Joanna said this way, the son feels listened to and respected in his new diet, he’s eating correctly, and other family members don’t feel uncomfortable from his judgement.
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