So, what is Green Parenting? Teaching our children to conserve our planets energy and resources has been around for many of us for years now. However, with increased global awareness of our planet Earth’s decline, now more then ever we need to teach our children how to utilize the resources that are already available to them, without creating further harm to the environment. By starting our children out learning how to be friendly to the environment, living in harmony with it, the whole world benefits for future generations to come. So how do you teach your child to be more green conscious? With all the ads on tv as well as in stores, for harsh chemicals of all kinds geared for making life easier, its harder to teach a simpler and more green way of life, but it can be done.
When using the phrase “simpler and more green way of life” all that simply means is to use vinegar instead of a chemical to clean your windows for example, or what about some baking soda to clean the bath tub instead of harsh and dangerous chemicals? These examples help out by keeping our ground water clean, which is very important since we need to drink water to survive! Going green doesn’t mean something difficult or hard just a bit of research on your part as a parent and life can be fun and exciting as well as earth friendly. Kids are pretty resilient, so teaching them the green way of life is going to be like a great adventure that all are going to benefit from. So now where do you go from here? There are all kinds of great ideas that can be found from books to the internet on how even the smallest changes can make a huge difference in a very short time.
If you live in the country kids know about trees, they are living breathing entities. So a great place to start here, could be a visit to the local library and reading a book from there you have been wanting to, instead of buying a new one. You are saving money and the trees we need to breathe. Some other great ideas for the country are rain barrels, they are fun to make, and again reusing any number of types of materials to make it. An example of this would be an old bathtub or maybe a used 55 gallon drum, (these are especially great if are gardening also) to catch the rainwater. This is known as recycling, the reuse of materials we have been filling up our landfills with, damaging the earth. So what to do in the city? A great example here would be to visit your local used clothing store or charity mission, taking your old clothes in and picking up new ones (though used) and creating your own unique wardrobe. It’s affordable and kids love shopping for their own clothes. Being the green parent of a green family, I couldn’t imagine life any other way.