5 Tips to motivate your kids to develop environmental awareness

Kids are our future, therefore raising children that are environmentally aware is one key for the health of our planet. Sustainability can be fun, so here some tips to motivate families to lead support our goal of raising earth-friendly kids.

We’re at an environmental tipping point in the world today. The actions that we and future generations take to create a more sustainable life could make or break the planet. 

That’s why it’s so important to ensure that lessons in environmental awareness are part of your child’s curriculum. 

Although your little one might learn a little about the environment and how it works at school, it’s usually up to families to ensure that they develop the right habits growing up. 

Teaching your child how to recycle, be aware of the world around them, and protect the fragile ecosystem that they live in is one of the best ways that you can make the future a little brighter. 

Here are just some of the ways that you can motivate your children to develop and use environmental awareness in their lives. 

1. Teach by Example

The most important thing that you can do when you’re trying to encourage a more environmentally conscious child is lead by example. Children soak up the behaviors of their friends and family. 

Most often, they take the actions of their parents most seriously, which means that they’ll be looking to you for hints on how to behave. If you try to talk your child through everything that you do to help the planet, then they’ll be more likely to take those habits on themselves. 

For instance, tell your child why you use organic hair care brands, rather than sticking to conventional options. Discuss the benefits of growing your own veggies with your youngster when you’re in the garden and get your children to help you with things like sorting out the recycling trash. 

2. Ask Your Child to Give Their Input

Children are often more excited about things that they believe are their own ideas. Rather than telling your children that you have to find ways to be less wasteful, teach them how waste is leading to considerable problems in the world. 

Show your kids pictures of the overflowing tips and dumps around the globe and ask them how they think they can make a difference. 

You could even think about taking your children to any local community meetings that you have about environmentally friendly activities in your neighbourhood. They can listen to the ideas of other people, get involved with things like picking up litter, and more. 

When your child feels like they’re part of the solution, they’ll be much more likely to get involved, rather than thinking of tasks for environmental protection as chores. 

3. Encourage More Time Outside

Kids love spending time in the great outdoors, so this should be a pretty easy tip to implement. However, whenever you’re outside, you should also be thinking about how you can reaffirm the lessons they’ve learned about protecting the environment. 

For instance, consider working with your child on an outdoor scavenger hunt, where you identify different kinds of leaves or learn about the insects and tiny organisms that live around you. 

If your child is interested in growing things, you could ask them to help you design a bee-friendly garden that welcomes pollinating insects with plenty of bright and beautiful flowers. Once your garden grows, you can count the number of bees that appear together. 

Some families even create their own vegetable patches, where they can grow the food that they eat together. Once your child successfully grows his or her first batch of potatoes, get them involved in cooking them with you! Food tastes so much better when you know that you grew it yourself. 

4. Teach the Basics of Sustainability

Help your child to understand how fragile the world can be by introducing them to the concept of sustainability. Here, you can talk about things like wind farms and solar farms that harness the power of the earth without damaging it, and how those compare to something like fossil fuels. 

You can even introduce your kids to the basics of solar power by adding some solar panel lights to your back garden and watching them light up together. 

When you’re out shopping for groceries and other essentials, consider helping your child to assist you in pinpointing the most organic and planet-friendly brands. You can make a game of spotting certifications together, so you know that everything you buy adheres to the same set of principles as you. 

5. Get Online with YouTube videos and Apps

The internet is one of the easiest and most effective ways to supplement a child’s education these days. With the right smartphone or tablet apps, you can instantly introduce your child to a range of amazing environmentally friendly efforts and ideas. Apps can teach your children about the changes that the planet is going through, showing them pictures and videos that help them to understand concepts like global warming. 

There are also apps that help your child to understand the part that they can play in making the world a more sustainable place. These tools often offer rewards for things like recycling every day, using home-grown foods, or even just making sure that you don’t waste water or electricity. 

Just remember that you’ll need to make your devices as safe as possible for children before you hand them over. Child-proofing your device will reduce any accidental access to dangerous sites, and even protect you from things like viruses and damage. 

Supporting the Next Generation

All generations have a part to play in protecting and helping the environment at this crucial time in our planet’s evolution. As a parent, you have a unique opportunity to influence the future by making sure that your child grows up with the right education. 

Teaching your youngsters about environmentally friendly practices is how you can ensure that they continue to respect and care for the world around them as they grow. 

You might even find that your child passes the lessons that they learn down to future generations too, creating a new team of environmental activists ready to save the world.

How do you motivate your kids to become more environmentally aware?

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