Teaching Environmental Protection Ethics to Your Child

Parenting: Recycling Children?

Environmental awareness is the basis for Earth Day, recycling programs, community refuge collection and other community environment protection events. Environment experts and volunteers teach environmental awareness and protection in most schools. The kids know that we are supposed to recycle, not litter and care for endangered animals that look so ‘cool’. 

Children participate in occasional projects like Plant a Tree or a Environmental Protection Poster Contest.
Therefore it is not a case of ignorance when society brings ruination on the earth because of laziness or greed. Yet, there is still illegal trash dumping, littering, household chemicals and auto fluids dumped on the ground. The worst part of the pollution problem is that we are teaching the future generations to do as we do. 

So how can parents impart the understanding of the environmental lessons taught in school? Easy. Teach them to feel responsible for the planet by active examples. Parents can set up a day a month for the family to pick up litter near their home or another loved vicinity like the baseball or soccer field. 

This is also a good time to casually chat about anything or everything with your growing child. Teaching environment ethics can and probably should take back stage to bonding. After all, the plan for teaching understanding and positive habits is strongly rooted in the amount of faith the child has in you, and in the amount that your child identifies with you. 

The children may very well be amazed at the amount of litter associated with beverage packages, candy and fast food wrappings. It is almost inevitable that the child will complain about the people to lazy to throw the trash in a trash can. The question of why would they do it might have to be approached by you. Answers like maybe their parents never taught them better, or maybe they was irresponsible and uncaring, is a great leading line to brainstorm ideas about what could be done to correct that problem.