They can also start brushing teeth with bamboo brushes and use biodegradable floss. Involve them in the shopping process for personal care items, allowing them to pick different fragrances or colors for organic shampoo and soap. When shopping, let your kids know that many commercial items have chemicals that are harmful to human health as well as to our seas and oceans.
Making Nature an Important Part of Leisure Time
If you have a pretty garden at home, when was the last time you set up a tent and roughed it outdoors with your toddlers or little children, or gazed up at the stars? On weekends, is leisure time mainly spent in closed spaces, or do your kids enjoy plenty of free play in parks, forests, or seaside areas?
Being green isn’t just about taking active steps to reduce your carbon footprint as a family; it also involves helping kids build a valued relationship with nature.
As asked by nature author, Richard Louv, “If nature experiences continue to fade from the current generation of young people, and the next, and the ones to follow, where will future stewards of the earth come from?”.
Raising a family of eco-warriors depends, to a great extent, on inviting children to really feel and sense the importance of nature. This means encouraging them to live beautiful adventures in the Great Outdoors, so they can feel more inspired to take steps on a daily basis to fight for a greener planet. Once you have sold them on the idea, involve them in decisions the whole family can take to lead a more sustainable, meaningful life.
Kylee Harris is an educator who has taught in elementary schools in Singapore and Hong Kong for 5 years. She lives in Florida and continues to teach life skills to young adults in her community.
