Raising an Environmentally Aware Child

Sometimes my daughter’s creative thought process inspires me to look at the world around me a little bit differently. Many times after tossing items into a junk pile to be thrown out, I've later found them tucked away in her craft room or they artistically show up as part of the latest accessory to her playthings.

Raising an environmentally aware child is up there on my lists of “things I want for my child”. I think she is off to a great start, but this prompted me to figure out some more ways I can help her to become more aware of the environment in her daily activities.

Here are a few ways you too can help your child become more environmentally aware during your daily activities and hopefully create some “world healthy” habits while you’re at it!

                                                                      Recycle & Upcycle!

This doesn't mean just the typical cardboard, glass, plastic that you separate from your trash. This also embraces the idea of “upcycling”. Upcycling: To give new life to old, unwanted things. Almost all items can serve another purpose. Whether for you or someone else, most items, even sometimes broken, can serve another function. Turn an old, cracked plastic swimming pool into an outdoor sandbox for your toddler or use old torn jeans to make fashionable purses for your tween! Whatever it may be, just remind yourself and your children to take a second look before you toss it out for good.

Use Less!
Practicing turning off lights when you are not in the room or using less water while brushing teeth, taking a shower or washing dishes are all important in being environmentally friendly. Instilling these practices at an early age will create habits that can last a lifetime and will have a immense impact on planet. To help young children understand the importance of conserving energy, create a “Lights Out Night” once a month and spend the evening without using electricity. Teaching children about water conservation can be tricky. Try using a rain barrel or buckets to catch rain during a storm to water plants indoor and out. This is a fun way to show children that water is a precious resource of ours, and we must try our best conserve it.

Learn to Grow! Grow your own foods! If you don’t have the means to grow your own produce, many areas have "pick your own" locations where children can pick fruits and veggies off of the trees and plants they grow from. Even if you are not able to grow an entire garden, planting some type of plant, even indoors, that a children can tend to and harvest something edible from has great potential to show them that and lot of work and resources are needed to grow food.  Helping them to be aware that when we waste food we are not only wasting the the food itself, but we are wasting our hard work as well as the resources, such as water, it took to grow the food we eat.

Connect with Nature! Encouraging your children to play and be outside as much as possible is a wonderful way to connect them with the very things they are protecting with all of their environmentally conscience efforts.  Go for walks and hikes and talk about what animals, birds, insects and plants they see. Find interesting rocks and leaves and let them explore the great outdoors to gain an appreciation for all things big and small will hopefully create passion behind their actions.



 Books can also be a great resource for children to learn about being environmentally friendly. Here are a few fun Children's books online to take a look at, "Michael Recycle", "What Does It Mean to Be  Green", Growing Vegetable Soup".  

I only hope that our generation of children not only become more environmentally aware then older generations, but that they also inspire older generations to do the same in hopes to preserve this world for generations to come.

What does your family do at home to help raise and environmentally aware child?
Click here for some earth friendly projects at home!