Category Archives: Parenting

Going Green, Going Healthy, Health, Life, Parenting

How to Turn Your Kids into Environmental Ambassadors

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Later, hotter summers and colder winters prove that global warming is a real issue. The impact of this will affect those we care about most- our children. 

In 2020, working toward protecting our environment and global warming has never been more important. We should, every day, be doing our bit to help to protect, sustain and care for our natural world before these irreversible issues take hold too quickly. 

As adults with children, it is our job to teach them about the damage being made to the planet- a vast topic to understand, but a valuable, lifelong lesson to learn. 

Here are some of the things to teach our kids about the environment, and how they can care for the world around them. 

What areas Should You Cover When Talking to Young Children About the Environment? 

Children are very receptive to life lessons. They will be highly influenced by the people around them- friends and family, and will want to start doing some of the same things as them. If they see you recycling, then they’ll want to know how and why they should do that and want to get involved.

Some topics of conversation to help to engage your children with environmental issues should be: deforestation, global warming, recycling, and endangered animals. Talk to them about how some of the smaller changes and habits they engage in now will help them to make an essential impact for the future generations.

Help them to understand the ways in which they can help to save electricity and water around the home such as, turning the tap off when it’s time to brush their teeth, and to unplug items when they are not being used, as well as turning off the lights when they leave a room. 

Here are Some Fun Activities to Help Children to Understand the Importance of Caring for the Environment 

  1. Invent craft projects using items that would usually be thrown away- for example a jar for pasta sauce can be used again to hold trail mix snacks, or painted brightly and turned into a pencil pot.
  2. Get outside in nature. Visit a nature reserve, a farm or a national park and help them to point out all the wildlife they see. Why not create a finder mission activity where they can tick off each animal or bug that they see. You can laminate an activity sheet and have them circle pictures with a dry wipe marker so they can be used again.
     
  3. Read articles and listen to talks about the environment. Stephen Troese has a wide range of these  that are accessible for most audiences. You can read some before speaking to your children to get a better understanding of this area yourself. 
  4. Create a small compost box to keep outside. Teach children the items that can and cannot be collected in the food waste tubs, and have them watch these items decompose to turn into compost.
  5. Use the compost to plant their own vegetables. It’s exciting to watch a seed begin to sprout and then turn into something recognizable as something to eat!
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Going Green, Going Healthy, Health, Parenting

How To Set A Green Example To Your Kids

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If you care about your kids doing the right thing, and you care about the planet, then you are probably going to want to find some way to make these both coincide. That essentially means that you are going to be looking into some of the ways in which you can hope to set a green example to your children, and that is something that might be easier than you think. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the best ways you can do this, so that you are more likely to help the next generation cope with the demands of the world when they grow up.

Build An Eco Home

Everything starts at home, and when you are trying to set an example to your children this is certainly the place to do it. If your children grow up in a home which is distinctly ecological, and which is clearly doing its part in helping to keep the planet going strong, then they are automatically going to understand and appreciate the importance of that way of living. So one of the best things you can possibly do for them is to build an eco home which they and you can live in, and in so doing to ensure that they understand what it is that makes it ecological. You should find that this makes an enormous difference to how they think about the world, and it can only be a positive effect.

Teach & Research

The more you know, the more you can pass on to your children while they are young, which in turn helps to give them a head start when it comes to being green. So you might want to spend some time doing some research around the whole issue of climate change, just to make sure that you are clued up on it as well as you could be. Then you can spend some time home-teaching your children about its importance, why we need to be taking action now, and what it is that they and you can do to help things along. The more you do this, and the more they hear it directly from your mouth, the more engaged they are going to become about the whole issue. If you can start them young with that, they are going to have much more chances of helping to change the world.

Recycling, Energy Use & More

Finally, remember that it’s all those daily actions you carry out which really matter, and which they are going to watch with intrigue. These are the things that affect your children’s behaviour, so make sure that you are always remembering to do the essentials: that means recycling as well as possible all the time, being sensible and conserving your energy use, and all those other little things that we know add up to make a huge difference. If you can instill these behaviours in your kids now, the world might stand a chance.

Life, Parenting

How to Tell Your Kids You’re Getting Divorced

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Telling your kids that you’re getting divorced can be a difficult conversation. Here are some helpful things you can do to make the conversation easier for everyone.

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Plan Your Conversation

Don’t go into a conversation that has as much weight and gravity as this unprepared and fumbling over your words. It’s going to be an emotional conversation and knowing what you want to say and communicate to your children is of the utmost importance. You should plan not only what you want to say but also when you want to say it. Consider having the conversation on a weekend or when you can spend some time with them directly afterwards. Don’t drop the bombshell on your way out the door to work This planning should be done together with your soon-to-be ex so that you’re both on the same page.

Get Everyone Together

It’s important that when you do have the conversation, you have it as a family. Everyone involved and who is going to be affected should be present and both parents should absolutely be there. It will help show your kids that you are going to be in this together and are committed to working together when it comes to their future. You want to make sure that when you first announce it that all your children are there, including stepchildren if you have them. The last thing you want is for your kids to find out from their siblings. Once the initial discussion has happened, you can engage with kids individually if they need it, particularly older kids who might have more questions.

Explain Why It’s Happening

Be clear about why you are getting divorced, but don’t overshare. This means you need to avoid blaming each other or calling out specific issues, but you do need to be honest and open with your children. This explanation should be general and non-specific, and you want to avoid any accusations of infidelity. A simple explanation that lets your kids know that you just can’t fix the relationship and that you are friends but are no longer in love will usually do just fine. Avoid complex adult themed problems – you are talking to kids who probably won’t understand them anyway. When it comes to the why, the truth isn’t as important as being there to support you children.

Be Able to Tell Them What Will Happen Next

Ideally, you want to be able to answer the questions that will undoubtedly be asked. Your kids are going to want to know what’s going to happen and which of you is going to be moving out and where they are going to live now. Knowing this will give them the answers to help cope with the conversation. Try and be able to tell them this along with how visitation and co-parenting is going to work.

Divorce is incredibly difficult on children because often they just don’t understand why it must happen. Do your best to reassure them and disrupt their lives as little as possible. Be there for them no matter how they react to the news, and if they shut down, don’t pressure them into talking.