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The other day, while I was pulling out my recycle bins to the curb, T. asks me "Can I recycle?" I stand up, beaming with pride and a little bit smug thinking my kid is so brilliant and say "Of course you can!" Excited but a little expectant, he says back to me "Ok!..." But then, he gives me a blank look. "Um, hon, do you know what recycling means?" "Nope!" Oh, alrighty then. Its time he learned. Its time he understands what it means to be (yup, I'm gonna use it, the cool, oh so "Al Gore" word of the moment is...) GREEN.
Now I am no uber-green mom. I hate myself for it but sometimes I do buy things out of convenience rather than their level of "greeness". I live with guilt wondering what sort of carbon foot-print I am leaving when I buy the individual packages of goldfish for playgroup rather than the one big pack. And how many times do I forget the cloth bags for groceries and use the plastic instead? I'd say that has happened 75% of time recently. Not cool of me. I try though, I honestly do what I can. I'm just saying I'm no environmental rock star. But that doesn't mean I can't start teaching my son how to be more aware of what he is doing and how he might make a positive impact on his environment. Plus, if I show my kids how to be better with the environment, this could be my way of paying back the universe for years and years of sort've, kind've doing only the basics.
To kick off getting my kids green, I thought I would put together a list of what I could realistically do with my sons. And selfishly, I think if I can succeed at teaching them to be more responsible with their environment, they can keep me on MY toes and maybe I will finally do a better job too.
But there are a couple things I want to do before I begin.
Firstly, I need to sit down and explain to my son what waste means. This is sort've a tough thing for them to get. What, there isn't an endless source of everything like the endless source of crackers and water bottles in mommy's purse, always there whenever I need it? Things actually RUN OUT!? I may need to sit down and physically spell this out to him. I might have to do some sort of demonstration or use a good website (I will get to those soon too) but it might break his heart to realize you can't just keep going back for more of whatever you want. Honestly, its just a good old fashioned life lesson he needs to learn anyway.
Secondly, as I begin this process, one thing I absolutely DON'T want to do is make my children feel guilty or bad about the environment. There is plenty of time to feel bad about it as grown-ups (ugh, we're screwed, seriously, my guilt is 100% "in check", thank you very much...). Being a regularly green kid needs to be fun. It needs to turn into a habit. They can't feel like the polar ice cap is melting JUST because they didn't recycle that last water bottle. Lets make this a positive experience for them. If it makes them happy, they'll actually do it right?
So here we go.
1) Turn the lights off when you leave a room. That's not so hard to do! Maybe I could introduce a reward system? Or a glow in the dark sticker over the light switch that they can get excited to see? I think they can do this.
2) Be aware of water. Brush your teeth with the water off. Both kids should be in the bath at the same time and it doesn't need to be "swimmable" full. Set a timer with the sprinkler or hose time. Have fun in it but, when you're done, turn it off. Or even better, fill up the kiddie pool and play with water that way! Also, have them drink from a Brita or water filtering system and explain why.
3) Make a stack of recycle paper (usually left over from the printer) to color on. Make sure to use both sides before getting another piece!
4) Make the different recycle bins accessible and easy to identify. Make sure your child knows how to sort cans, plastic and paper (see cool websites
