Talking About Green

With growing awareness of the negative impact that we, humans, have on the planet, more and more parents want to raise their kids to be greener. The environment, global heating, and carbon footprints were not even on our radar when we were growing up, and many of us have had to change our habits to live a life that is more gentle on our world. We can all make small changes that leave a big impact on the environment, and teaching our kids to treat the earth with respect is the biggest contribution that any of us can make!

What can we do to teach our kids to live greener lives, while having some fun at the same time? By nature, kids are eager to learn and always prepared to do stuff they enjoy. I’ll share some activities that me and my four-year old daughter love, and that will hopefully make a lasting green impression on her life.

Recycling

My daughter is in charge of recycling paper and cardboard at our house. She takes this “job” of hers very seriously, and usually rips cardboard packaging out of my hands as soon as it catches her eye! When the old paper basket is full, and we take it to the collection point, she also loves dumping it into the container.

Another great way to recycle old paper (newspapers, drawing paper gone bad, magazines, bills) is to make new paper out of it. What you do is make a bath with water and paper, and mix it until it turns into a pulp. You can either do this manually, or put your mixture in the blender for a while, after it has had the chance to soften a bit. You do have to add a couple of teaspoons of liquid starch. Then you pour the mixture onto a frame covered by an insect net, fine net curtains, or flat gerber diaper, and leave it to dry. Sun drying is the best. Voila, DIY paper ready!

Plant trees

If you have a backyard, you could plant a small tree there, but people who don’t have yards can also do this in a forest. Watching your tree grow teaches your kids that new life is fragile, and trees take an awful long time to get big. After planting your tree, you can look up information about the effects that cutting down the rain forest has on the earth.

Visit a landfill site

That sounds rather gross, doesn’t it? Landfill sites are disgusting, huge, and very smelly. Who would want to go there? Well, it is difficult to realize just how much garbage most of us are throwing out on a daily basis, and how difficult it is to process that same garbage. Take disposable diapers, for instance. They are said to take around 500 years to degrade completely, which means that every disposable diaper that was ever made still exists now. I have no doubt that visiting a landfill site will leave a lasting impression on just about anyone.

Save energy in your home

Make sure that you only run full-loads in your washing machine, turn off lights and appliances when you don’t use them, and buy energy-saving light bulbs. Don’t keep the tap running while you are brushing your teeth, and resist the temptation to shower for hours. There is nothing like modeling good behavior.

BIO:
At Trying-to-conceive.com we are passionate about all topics related to the female body, trying to conceive, pregnancy, and birth. Everyone’s road to motherhood is different, and we all face our own obstacles. In this blog, we are trying to provide as much information on the topic of getting pregnant, and pregnancy as possible, to hopefully make the journey a bit more easy to navigate through, for everyone trying to conceive and those for whom making a baby didn’t turn out to be as simple as they hoped. A new addition to our site is free and personalized Ovulation Calendar.