“Green” Kids – Your Kids LOVE Being Eco-Friendly!

Top Tips for Eco Friendly, Green Kids

If you want to live a greener, more eco friendly life, you need to make sure your kids or grandchildren are also green, in terms of what you buy for them, your lifestyle, their safety and health – everything you do for them.

Here are some suggestions.

1.  Activities

It seems that children today spend less time outdoors than ever before.  That’s sad.  It’s difficult to be green if you’re indoors all the time – kids need to know about nature and why it’s worth protecting!

Here are some ideas:

1. Go for a walk and try to identify trees, flowers, weeds and insects.  Even animal tracks if you can find any.
2. Look out for migrating birds, and find a spider’s web and examine its incredible structure.
3. Look for at least 2 major constellations in the sky at night.
4. Find out the age of the land on which you live.
5. Play a sport with your kids – one that you all enjoy
6. Watch a sunset.
7. Volunteer for something with the kids.
8. Engage them with foraging for wild edibles 
9. Get them involved with gardening – growing vegetables (they might actually eat them!), or rummaging in leaves.
10. Kids love camping!  It’s a great way to spend a fun weekend that doesn’t cost the earth.  Click the link for 9 tips to make sure it’s ‘green’ camping.

2.  Sun Safety

Infants need to be protected from the sun, but as they grow, children need to spend time in the sun – otherwise they (like us) become deficient in vitamin D.  This is now a very common problem.  Like adults, kids shouldn’t burn, but don’t automatically slather on the sunscreen – many products contain harmful ingredients.  This article has some safety tips for kids

3.  Gifts

When buying presents for children, look out for gifts that are safe – formaldehyde-free, BPA-free and so on.  Try to avoid plastic.  And definitely try to avoid products with huge amounts of packaging that will simply end up in landfill.

You might like to read this article which tells how one person’s holiday to Africa made her change her way of gift-giving.

4.  Halloween

When it’s that time of year, make halloween celebrations greener with these tips

5.  Buying Power

One of the most important things you can do for the planet is to buy eco-friendly products for green kids.  Kids need a lot of ‘stuff’ – food, clothes, gifts, entertainment, transport….. So vote with your wallet and buy products that are:-

• Sustainable
• Have minimal packaging
• Not disposable
• Not plastic
• Things that they genuinely need and want, so they’ll value them

Remember …..

These are all great ways of ‘greening’ your kids – but remember that the one thing that many children want is more quality time with their parents, grandparents and family.  It’s evenings around a campfire, family sports competitions, time spent together talking and laughing, that will create lasting memories.  Not the gadgets.

They grow up all too quickly.