Tag Archives: kids

How Do You Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change Without Scaring Them?

Climate change is one of those topics your kids are going to hear about eventually. If you think about it from a child’s perspective, it’s a kind of scary thing to think about. They take things such as the possibility that polar bears will go extinct due to melting ice in the Arctic very seriously and even personally.

It’s hard to balance protecting your kids with growing informed citizens who will care about the environment. Kids care almost too much for their own good.

Keep It Age Appropriate

It’s not always easy keeping talks about the environment and climate change age appropriate. Kids just have to catch a news story or educational program to start asking questions you aren’t sure how to answer.

My #1 rule has always been to keep it honest but age appropriate.

Try to focus on the things you can do as a family to help the environment. Discuss using less, recycling, driving less and so forth. Talk about why you make the choices you do.

As kids get old enough, start looking for appropriate volunteer opportunities. If your child has a particular interest, try to have the opportunity match it.

You can also help kids to learn the difference between climate and weather. This is one of those things it seems many adults have trouble with, but it could be an advantage in discussions if your kids do understand that weather is short term and climate is long term.

Get Into Nature

Kids will appreciate nature more if they see it in person. Not just the backyard or the local playground, go hiking and camping. If there are campgrounds in your area, you shouldn’t need to go far.

Try making hiking and camping a part of family vacations, especially if you travel to an unfamiliar place. Talk about how things change from place to place.

If you happen to know how climate change is impacting an area you’re in, you can talk about the evidence for it. It’s not always definite enough to blame changes on climate change, but other times you can see that the climate of an area is not what it used to be.

Talk About Local Issues

Climate change is not all about polar bears dying and glaciers melting. It’s also about what’s happening in your own area.

Is water becoming an issue? How has climate change effected winters in your area?

Find out together what’s going on with your local climate. If you don’t know much about the local situation already, you may learn some really interesting things yourself.

Read a Book Together

There are a range of books available that can help you to discuss climate change basics with your kids, all the way up to more advanced discussions. A good book can explain climate change in ways you probably won’t think of on your own. Here are some titles to consider buying or looking for at your local library:

The Magic School Bus And The Climate Challenge
A Kids’ Guide to Climate Change & Global Warming: How to Take Action!
How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming
Mission: Planet Earth: Our World and Its Climate–and How Humans Are Changing Them
Climate: Causes and Effects of Climate Change (Our Fragile Planet)

What Should You Teach Your Children About Climate Change?

As a mother concerned about how the climate of our planet is changing, sometimes it’s hard to decide just what to tell my kids about it. There’s a lot to explain, and it changes as kids grow older. I don’t want to scare them, but I don’t want them casually wasting things either.

What do you tell children about climate change?

Younger Children

When children are really young, I don’t think explaining climate change as such is effective. What is effective is to teach them to not waste food or other items. They can start to learn about recycling.

Young children are usually great about repurposing things you might otherwise throw into the trash. So many things can be parts of various art projects. Sometimes it’s hard to balance keeping things for future projects with keeping clutter out of your home. Once kids get the idea, they’ll often try to keep just about everything you’ll let them.

Kids in Elementary School

Elementary school is a good time to start getting a bit more into the details of why you want your children to recycle and not waste. You can discuss what littering and pollution in general do to the environment, and how your lifestyle can help.

Be aware of what’s being taught at this stage at your child’s school. It may or may not agree with what you want your children to learn about climate change.

I find it important for my children to understand that humans are most likely a factor in global climate change. I don’t mind explaining that some people disagree, because that’s something they’re going to hear at some point. Better they get used to hearing about why we believe as we do than to be confronted with a different perspective they don’t know how to handle.

You should also see what your local schools are doing to reduce waste at their locations. Do they have recycling bins? Do they have a gardening program for the kids? Are they offering information to parents online or by email rather than printing every notice out?

Middle School on Up

The older kids get, the more you can teach them about climate change, individual action and volunteering to make more of a difference.

This is a good time to really get into why you make the shopping choices you do. If your kids are really interested you may have covered this topic at a younger age, but as they get older start talking to them about why you shop where you do. Tell them what’s good about going to thrift stores, especially when they start resisting. Come up with a plan to balance their needs for a particular look with environmental considerations.

Kids in this age group are eligible for many kinds of volunteer opportunities. They don’t have to go for environmental causes in particular; it’s just good to get them used to the idea that helping others is something they should do.

If you raise your children to consider the environment, it will come more naturally to them. They may rebel against it at times, but if you pay attention to their concerns and needs you can find the balance that will help them appreciate all they can contribute to making the world a better place.

Encourage Your Kids to Be Active

From a young age, most kids are very active. They love to run around the house and play. It’s a lot for many of us to keep up with, especially if we haven’t been particularly active ourselves.

But as they get older, TV and video games slow many down. Sitting around takes the place of active play. As a parent you know you should encourage more activity, but it’s not always easy to decide what to have your kids do.

Have Them Take the Lead

Signing your child up for an activity is an easy way to encourage activity, but it can also be frustrating for kids. Many parents choose activities for their kids based on what they would want to do, not the child’s interests. This can lead to frustration.

Find out what your child would like to try. Don’t limit options to just team sports; there are a lot of alternatives out there. My own children love karate. It’s a good workout, and they progress at their own rates.  There’s no guilt for not being the best player on the team.

Don’t stress if they find they don’t like a particular sport or activity. Just agree to try something different next time. Swimming, karate and dancing are all good activities, and don’t have to be done on a competitive level.

Remember That They’re Children

A big mistake many parents make in signing their kids up for activities is forgetting that they’re children. Parents can expect their child to put in unreal amounts of practice in the hopes that they will excel. Some parents have dreams of their kids going into a professional career in whatever sport they’re playing as an activity.

It doesn’t matter what your dreams are for your child, or even if he or she agrees that they want to do their sport professionally. As a parent, it is your job to make sure that they don’t do more than is good for their bodies. That means no over training. That means leaving time for other things in their lives such as playing with friends and relaxing.

Overdoing is a huge mistake. Children can permanently injure their bodies trying too hard in their sports. Their bodies are still growing and really are not ready for intense training.

Don’t be the screaming parent watching your kids either. You’ve probably heard the reports of parents getting into fights at their children’s games. Your job is to encourage your child. You don’t need to do that by yelling at them, their teammates or their competition. You’ll do better to teach good sportsmanship.

Get Involved

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be getting active yourself. It’s better for your health to be active, and you’ll probably have fun.

This is a wonderful, non-materiel gift you can give your children. Participating in an activity creates great memories, which will be remembered for many years. It also helps to create healthy habits.

How involved you get depends on the time you have available. You don’t want to overdo it – kids need to learn how to do things on their own too – but you should be there to help them practice sometimes and as needed to get them to their activity. It also might help you to remember how much fun being physically active can be.

20 Things Your Kids Can Do for the Environment

It’s not just adults who should be doing the best they can for the environment. Kids can help too. Take some time and teach them to do their part.

1. Reduce

The 3 Rs apply to your kids, and reduce is the first one to teach them. Help them to learn the difference between need and want. When you go shopping with them, and they start begging for whatever it is they see on the shelves, discuss why they want it. If it’s needed, talk about what makes it needed. If it’s just something they want, talk about when you buy things you just want and when you should skip them.

2. Reuse

Kids who enjoy crafts are great at reusing things. They can make wonderful projects from things you might have otherwise thrown into the recycle bin or thrown away.

3. Recycle

Teach them from a young age to sort items into the recycle bin. Once they’re old enough to recognize the types of paper, plastic and metals that can be recycled in your area they can help put recyclables in the right place rather than in the trash.

4. Walk or Bike to School

If your child’s school is at all within a reasonable distance, why not have them walk or ride a bike there. Odds are good that you did the same growing up if your school was near enough. It never ceases to amaze me how many people I see driving less than a block to bring their child to school. With the crowd of cars around the school, walking would be faster for many of them, including the time to return themselves home if the parents went with the kids.

5. Pick Up Trash

We love to go hiking as a family. One thing we include in our hikes is picking up trash if we pass some. It’s easy to carry a bag for trash as you go walking. This can be done at neighborhood playgrounds as well.

6. Turn Off Extra Lights

There are some ages where kids will be really good at this one. They’ll give you a hard time anytime you forget to turn off a light as you leave a room. Other times, they won’t be so good at it.

7. Turn Off Electronics When Not in Use

Kids these days spend a lot of time with electronics these days. Television, computers, video games, kids love them.

Some of these you only need to teach the kids to turn off when they’re done with them. For others, you may want to consider adding in a power strip so that the electronics can be turned completely off, and not use any extra power at all, even for displaying a clock. You can also buy a smart strip so that when certain electronics are shut down, associated items are turned off as well.

8. Plant a Garden

Whether you plant a serious vegetable garden, a few herbs, some flowers or a tree, it’s all good for the environment if you keep it organic. Kids usually love gardening, and any produce grown is good for them too. Remember the bees when you choose your flowers!

9. Help Compost

While dealing with much of the compost pile may be an adult or teen job, kids of any age can throw fresh vegetable scraps into the compost pile.

10. Volunteer

It can be hard to find age appropriate volunteer opportunities when the kids are young sometimes, but it gets easier as they get older. Volunteering helps your children to see how fortunate they are in what they have and that others make do with far less.

11. Use Reusable Containers to Bring Lunch to School

Many school lunches aren’t so healthy, so having your kids bring their lunch to school is a great idea. Don’t use paper bags or plastic bags for their lunches. Buy reusable lunch containers for them. I particularly like my daughter’s Klean Kanteen water bottle.

12. Donate Old Clothes and Toys

Have your kids help you to go through their old clothes and toys and find the ones in good enough condition to donate to a worthwhile charity.

13. Shop Resale and Thrift Shops

If you don’t teach your kids this one while they’re young, you can get a lot of resistance at first. Keep it up and they will realize how many great outfits are available for a lot less money. This teaches them to be thrifty and to look for used items before buying new.

14. Use Homemade Cleansers

Kids should start doing chores around the house as soon as they’re old enough. But why expose them to the harsh chemicals of store bought cleansers when you can teach them how to clean with healthier products such as baking soda and vinegar? Better for them and for the environment.

15. Eat Less Fast Food

Kids love fast food, but most of it is bad for them and the environment. Talk to them about why eating out too much is a bad habit.

16. Close Blinds and Curtains

This is most important during the summer, when the heat comes in through windows. Closing the blinds or curtains helps to block much of that heat. It’s also a help in winter, to keep heat from escaping the house, however there are times where having even the winter sun come into the house is a benefit, so help your kids know when to let the sunlight into your home.

17. Open a Window

As the day cools, teach your kids to open windows rather than run the air conditioner during the summer. It works really well, keeps the power bill down and doesn’t create any carbon to open a window.

18. Set Up a Bird Feeder

Feeding the birds in your area not only can help them, it lets the kids see the range of birds that live in your area. You may have to explain about predators, however. My sister has a bird feeder, and sometimes sees hawks chasing the smaller birds.

19. Use Fewer Toys that Require Batteries

Many children’s toys require batteries. The problem isn’t just the batteries, it’s that many of these don’t encourage creative or active play. Do get rechargeable batteries for those toys that do need them, but have your kids think about playing more with toys that don’t need batteries at all.

20. Eat Less Meat

This comes easier to some kids than others. Some may be ready to go for complete vegetarianism or veganism. Others will struggle to cut back, just as many adults do.

Have regular meatless meals. Explore new recipes as a family. Be amazed at how wonderful some meatless meals can taste.

Eco Friendly Water Play for Kids in the Summer

The weather is heating up, kids all around the country are out of school or soon will be. Now is the time that they’ll start asking about going swimming or otherwise going to play in the water. What’s the best way to let them have their fun without wasting valuable water?

Combine Regular Watering with Play

While the best time to water in terms of limiting evaporation is during the cool parts of the day, the best time for kids to play in the water is when it’s hot. If you’re going to let your kids play in the sprinklers, on a slip n’ slide or otherwise have fun with the water, make sure to combine that with the needs your plants have for water.

This includes moving the kids and their water fun around as a given area gets enough water. Don’t let them play too long in any one area. Move them, and you can get much of your yard watered while the kids have fun getting soaked.

Do note that most waterslides and kiddie pools really are not eco friendly. They’re often made of vinyl and only last a season or two before starting to leak or otherwise break down. I much prefer to set the kids up with plain old sprinklers.

Go to the Local River, Lake, etc.

Not all water play has to be done at home. Local rivers, lakes and so forth are a lot of fun for kids. Just be sure they’ve had swimming lessons for safety.

Don’t use motor powered craft on the water. If you want to get out in a boat, try a kayak or rowboat. They’re not as fast, but they’re good exercise and you can really appreciate the view. In some areas you may even be able to fish from a rowboat.

Visit the Community Swimming Pool

Unfortunately, most community swimming pools have a lot of chlorine and other chemicals in them. That never seems to stop kids from having fun in them!

Using a community pool makes more eco sense than having one of your own. More people use it.

Most importantly, many community pools offer swimming lessons. I strongly suggest finding a way to pay for swimming lessons each summer until your kids are as advanced as possible. It doesn’t completely drownproof them, but anything you can do to make them safer around water is a good thing, particularly if they’re ever at the home of someone else who has a swimming pool.