My Parents Won’t Let Me Go Vegan! [Advice from REAL VEGAN KIDS!]

Hi there! If you’re a kid, and you want to go vegan, then this video is for you.!  Going vegan can be hard sometimes. When you’re a kid in a non-vegan family and your parents or guardians are unsupportive of your decision to go vegan, it can feel downright impossible. But don’t lose hope. Today I’ve brought together 24 of the top experts in this field to share their best advice. Who are these most wise souls? Real vegan kids, of course! [tweet this] 

I’m excited to be making another video for you with my friends, some awesome vegan kids from around the world.  In just a little bit we’re going to hear from them on how to go vegan if your family is not supportive. [be sure to watch the video to meet them and hear all they have to say, but I’ve also written some of what they share below]

If you don’t know already, being vegan means you don’t eat animals or anything that comes out of them, like milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs and honey. I’ve made some videos just for you all about those topics, including more interviews with real vegan kids!  If you want to check out any of those videos, they will be linked down below so you can watch them next.

Let me introduce you to who you’ll hear from today!

• There’s Elvis, who’s 3 and a half, from Hawaii in the United States
• Kevin, who’s 13 and from England and the Philippines, and currently living in Bahrain
• Lilah, who’s 8 and Lex who’s 6, both from Massachusetts in the United States
• JoJo, who’s 4, from London, England
• Lexie, who’s 13 from “the South” in the United States
• Ronya, who’s 14 and Oli, who’s 8, both from Waiheke Island in New Zealand
• Dylan, who’s 6.5 from Tel Aviv, Israel
• Carolina Ali, who’s 13 and from Tennessee in the United States.
• Ryan, who’s 4 and James, who’s 11, both from Rawtenstall, England
• Haile Thomas, who’s 14 from Arizona in the United States
• Gala, who’s 9, Jude, who’s 11, and Amina, who’s 10 from Brisbane, Australia
• Jesse Jace, who’s from New York City in the United States
• Alejandro, who’s 7 and Jordan, who’s 13, from California in the US and Guam
• Madi, who’s 12, from Mendon, Massachusetts in the United States.
• Taylor, who’s 13, from Ontario, Canada
• Thomas Ponce, who’s 15 from Florida in the United States
• Georgia, who’s 16, from Yorkshire, UK
• Isaiah, who’s 7, from Boston, MA in the United States.

Before we hear how to go vegan with unsupportive parents, let’s get a reminder from the younger kids about why being vegan is important.

Alejandro, 7

We’re vegan because we don’t want to eat any animals because we love them.

Dylan, 6.5

I want kids to be healthy and strong! I don’t get sick a lot.

JoJo, 4

I love kids being vegan. Yeah, it’s pretty easy not to eat animals.

Jesse Jace, 4

[I’m vegan] because I love the animals and I save the planet.

Elvis, 3.5

 I love my fruits and veggies. You don’t need to eat animals like us. You just eat fruits and vegetables.

Izzy, 7

Because our bodies shouldn’t be graveyards for dead animals. They should be filled with a bunch of food. Like falafel and everything vegan.

Ryan, 4 

[I’m vegan] because we save animals.

Lex, 6

Animals are so great. I think we should all treat them how they want to be treated.

And now some great tips for going vegan when you don’t have your family’s support: [tweet this]

Haile, 14

“Just introduce it slowly into your household. Go to your parents and be like, ‘Maybe on Thursdays we can have a vegan night?’ And just slowly introduce it and eventually your parents or your relatives, or whoever, will start to realize how good and delicious the food is and that can really help as well. [tweet this]

But also the education part. You know, if you sit down with your family and you talk about the benefits of the lifestyle. How it can not only improve your own health but also the health of the environment and animals, then it kind of puts a different perspective on things. Definitely just really kind of putting out the facts, not necessarily just, ‘Oh I want to go vegan’ and not really having a reason for it. You know, there has to be some benefit for doing it for a lot of people. There are so many benefits but not a lot of people know about that.”

James, 11

“I think, for one, they should watch your videos. If they’re trying to go vegan than they should watch lots of videos and try and find stuff in the supermarkets when they’re going around and when you’re downtown and going shopping. Just look for foods that, you know, are vegan.”

Thomas, 15

“If you are in that situation definitely research information about being vegan and it’s all about letting people know. If you let your… if you present your parents or your guardians with a logical statement and with factual information and you’re calm then you will definitely be able to change their mind about it. And if you show them that you’re truly passionate about it and if you show them that you truly want to be vegan then they will say yes, and they will have a change of mind and possibly a change of heart.”

Kevin, 13

“Number one thing is to do your research. ‘Cause when you have facts and the sources to those facts and you can show them to other people and confidently say “Here’s where I got my protein.” ‘Cause I guarantee you’re going to need that. I guarantee you’re going to need where you get your iron, your B12, your vitamin D. All that stuff. ‘Cause normally the reason they don’t want you to be vegan or they have concerns it’s because they care about you. You know, if it’s your parents. It’s not because they want you to kill animals, it’s because they think that you’re gonna be deficient in something or there’s gonna be problems that could negatively affect you. But when you can prove to them being vegan has no negative impacts on you or anything else, than they will be more accepting of it.”

Carolina, 13

“I would go grocery shopping with your parents. And sometimes it is boring for some kids but for me it’s not boring because my dad lets me buy food, my vegan food. Processed foods, they’re usually more expensive than whole foods, like in bulk. So you could talk to your parents and be like “Oh apples are really healthy. Can we just buy a bag of those instead of that bag of Cheez-Its or some cheesy potato chips. And then just try to do like small changes and maybe your parents would let you like eat more apples instead of like cheesy junk food or something.”

Ronya, 14

“One thing I found for me was that if you don’t want to stand up to your parents, which I didn’t, ’cause I found that very difficult, is just try to take charge of your own cooking and your own things. So I would cook, like almost all of my dinners, and I would always make myself lunch for school anyway. And then I would make breakfast. So only like once or twice a week when dad cooked would I have a non-vegan dinner, because often I was already vegetarian, and so I already cooked for myself food when he was cooking meat. So when he was cooking meat every night I would just cook myself vegan instead of vegetarian. And the other advice would probably be just think as much as you can about those who are suffering for, you know, the choice. And sort of think about them when you’re trying to talk to your parents, but also don’t try to sound crazy and just start yelling at them because that just doesn’t really get anywhere and then they just get very frustrated and think you’re too young to do it.”

Lexie, 13

“Like anybody you’re gonna have people that don’t agree with you. And the most important thing is just to don’t agree with them back and just stand up for what you believe in.”

Jude, 11

“Well maybe say about the slaughterhouses.”

Gala, 9

“Or maybe if we do an envelope and we’re just writing inside and it says “go vegan” and a picture of what happens to the animals in the slaughterhouses. When they open it, they see some writing that says “This is what happens to the animals.”

Amina, 10

“Well maybe they can see if they have any friends can help them convince their parents to go to go vegan and then they can go to animal sanctuaries and see how happy the animals are.”

Taylor, 13

“Well, you could show them videos or give them facts or you could just ask them if you could start slowly, just cutting out red meat and then white meat and then ice cream and things with so much dairy. And then you could see if you could start out slow and if… and that might work, that’ll probably work.”

Madi, 12

“If your parents are like super aggressively not wanting you to go vegan than I would just say, like, if you really, really are dedicated to it just try to avoid those items as much as possible. Just show them the footage if you need to. Show them like what they’re kind of, you know, dedicating their money to.”

Georgia, 16

“The best thing is to just realize that your parents are going to love you no matter what and it can cause arguments and stuff. But at the end of the day, what I remembered personally is that… it might be different for other people, but for me, it’s not about meat, it’s about the animals. I can cope with going through rough stage, like, with my parents if it means that in the long run it’s better for the animals. But I can understand that it is really difficult. I’ve had to buy my own food and stuff before. Not that my parents don’t buy me food, ’cause obviously they do, but that there isn’t enough of what I can eat in the house. It does get better though. Like, the first month can be tricky but once everyone knows your family will just have to get used to it, is what I would say.”

Jordan, 13

“They should reason with their parents and… Because, in the beginning my mom, she would tell us a whole bunch of statistics and everything, like “Oh yeah, this is actually healthier for you than meat is” and she’ll pull up a whole bunch of articles about how it’s more beneficial than what regular people eat. So I think they should do that instead of like, “yeah I don’t want to eat meat anymore because ‘meat is murder'” and then their parents will be all freaked out.”

Lilah, 8

“One tip is just do what you believe in.”

I hope you found this video helpful! They took the words out of my mouth. Just remember to educate yourself, come to your family with solid information and remember that they’re concerned because they love you. If you want to connect with the awesome kids you met today, check out their links below. And a huge thank you from me to each and every one of my guests and to you for watching

Now I’d love to hear from you too in the comments!  Are you trying to go vegan? Are you already vegan and have some tips of your own to share?

If you liked this video, do give it a thumbs up and share it around to help other kids go vegan.  If you’re new here, be sure to subscribe for more awesome vegan content every Monday, Wednesday, and some Fridays and to not miss out the on the rest of my videos for kids.  If you’re an adult and you want to help support Bite Size Vegan, check out the support page or join us in the Nugget Army on Patreon.

Now go live vegan, help educate your family, and I’ll see you soon!

 

— Emily Moran Barwick