Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

interdependence between ourselves, nature, and others shows children how their everyday actions affect Earth and its inhabitants.
From Awareness to Action
     
    Understanding and stewardship of Mother Earth begins when children gain an awareness of the natural world in which they live through hands-on experience. That awareness should then pique their curiosity and inspire them to gain knowledge about how nature works. This knowledge then gives children the desire and capacity to act to protect Earth.
Past, Present, and Future
     
    Because children have little experience, they tend to view the world in the present. When children study nature, they are able to expand their perspective to include the past, present, and future. They can learn about how the Earth used to be and how nature has evolved over the eons. Children can see how the evolution of both nature and humanity has resulted in the current state of the environment. Theycan then project Earth into the future and consider possible futures based on where we are now and whether we make environmentally beneficial changes. Then, as children gain both love and understanding for nature, they can project themselves into the future and contemplate how their actions might help foster the brighter future that they envision.
MESSAGES ABOUT THE EARTH
     
    You have a powerful influence on your children’s attitudes toward Mother Earth because just about everything you do has an impact on the environment. From the moment you wake up, you use water and electricity (e.g. when you adjust the heat, turn on the lights, brush your teeth, and flush the toilet). For your breakfast, you select, store, and prepare certain foods and drink (your appliances use energy, you absorb the carbon foorprint of the food, and you use water for cleaning dishes). You choose the means by which you get to work and your children get to school (walk, bike, car, or public transportation) and where you shop for groceries (e.g., supermarket or farmers’ market). This constant use of our natural resources continues until you turn off your light and go to sleep (and, even then, it continues to a lesser extent all through the night).
    Of course, you can communicate messages about the value of being green to your children by talking to them about it, but, particularly when they are young, they won’t understand many of your messages. The best messages you send are through role modeling and action. But I should point out that the messages you send will depend to some extent on where you live and the kind of life you lead. For example, in the city, you can send messages about taking the bus or subway rather than driving your car. In the suburbs, your messages might emphasize shopping at farmers’ markets and recycling. For those who live in the country, green messages might includegrowing your own food and heating your house with solar energy instead of oil, natural gas, or electricity.
    Regardless of the specific messages you send your children, their initiation into being green will involve allowing them to connect directly with Mother Earth and gain a real love for nature. As that feeling develops, you can teach them practical steps they can take, such as turning off lights and recycling, to honor and protect their planet. In doing so, you give your children several essential gifts. You connect them deeply with the most basic source of their lives. You educate them about the impact that they have on the Earth. And most importantly, you give them the power to ensure that Mother Earth continues to live a long and healthy life.
    A useful exercise to help you figure out how you can model a green life for your children is to look at your life and see all of the ways that you have an impact on our planet. Questions to consider include where you live, what and how much you drive, the types of food you eat and where you shop for groceries, what kind of waste you generate and where it goes, and how much time you spend in nature. Your answers to these questions will clarify the messages that you send your children about the environment. They can also provide you with direction on changes you might want to make to convey greener messages to your children.
CATCHPHRASES FOR EARTH
     
    Our catchphrase for sending positive messages about the environment to Catie and Gracie is “We’re a green family.” Whenever a situation arises where a lesson about conservation or nature can be taught, we point it out and say