Raising Environmentally Conscious Kids

I was tagged by Late Bloomer to share my “Top Three” ideas  on how to raise environmentally conscious children. Little E is still…well little! These ideas are pretty general but appropriate for the preschooler set.

Set an Example & Get them Involved – This one is pretty obvious but so crucial it is worth repeating. To raise environmentally conscious children we have to be environmentally conscious parents. We have to make environmental choices in our day to day lives and model these choices. We don’t have to be perfect…because nobody is. We need to involved our children and talk about why we do things (or don’t do things) and how our actions impact our environment.

Know Your Neighbours! – easy for me to say living in a cohousing complex and all but I really feel that knowing the people around you and creating a community allows you so many ways to share resources. Be it a borrowing a cup of sugar from the people next door, carpooling or passing on children’s clothing – sharing resources has many environmental benefits and knowing your neighbours opens the door to these opportunities.

Get Out in Nature – To raise children that want to protect the environment and make environmentally conscious decisions they need to know intimately what they are protecting. It seems that children are not getting as much free time to play in and learn about the natural world. This is even more important for those living in cities. We live in a very urban community and try to get out a few times a week to “the forest.” It may be a patch of undeveloped land between a local park and the inlet below or the North Shore mountains. We dress for the occasion in all our rain gear and the walk is not so much about the destination but rather the journey. At this time of year the goal is to get muddy, to roam freely and explore nature.  If this resonates with you I highly recommend Last Child in the Woods…a great read.

Since I was tagged with this post I thought I would pass this exercise onto a few other bloggers, hoping they will share their ideas own ideas. I’m tagging Sara at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly and Jane at Little Seedlings.