Green Parenting
Raising Eco-Conscious Kids through Play
Most busy parents face a common paradox of feeling stretched thin by the demands of life and while trying to raise well-rounded human beings. Considering the environmental pressures of today’s world, teaching children how to live sustainably is imperative. Lessons on sustainability can be tailored to each child’s interests, their age group and ability, and the budgetary guidelines or time constraints of any family. Benefits of nature-play extend beyond learning to live sustainably by fostering curiosity, executive function skills, resilience, and creativity. Following the Seven C’s Criteria, parents can feel confident in children developing skills and character traits essential to living an eco-conscious lifestyle into adulthood.
Learning is best done through play. Instilling eco-consciousness into young minds and hearts is no different.
The Seven C’s and their Function in Developing Eco-Literacy
Character
Inspiring an emotional connection to nature leads to curiosity and empathy toward the environment. Create space for children to engage all senses in nature. Encouraging children to observe, smell, and feel nature gives them the opportunity to “know” their environment in context with themselves.
Context
Engagement with nature should feel relevant and familiar to children. Familiarity allows for children to feel that their lives are integrated within the environment. It eliminates the idea that humanity is outside of nature.
Connectivity
Practices that explore sustainable choices through indoor and outdoor spaces can be integrated into play. Impacts of eco-conscious decisions can be taught through a culmination of the Seven C’s of nature play.
Change
Centering play around observation to develop a deeper understanding of environmental adaptability and resilience through seasonal changes. Crafting experiments that integrate observation can shift focus to cycles of growth, eventual decay, and regrowth.
Chance
Imploring children to push experimental learning further by getting messy through their discovery. This allows children to have agency in sustainability while learning.
Clarity
Navigating eco-consciousness without confusion is imperative to learning and makes play, play! Create space for “simple” forms of play that allow children to take in the environment at their own pace.
Challenge
Implementation of unstructured play fosters an appreciation for physical challenges, develops problem-solving skills, and strengthens resilience.
Little girl with strawberry shirt and purple cardigan joyfully posing with flower vase between thrift store aisles. She appears to be enjoying her experience at the second hand store.
Second Hand Treasure Hunts
Seven C’s Focus: Character, Context, Connectivity, and Challenge
While it might seem obvious how the impact of shopping second-hand is an eco-friendly choice, the act of shopping at thrift or second hand stores not only provides children with an opportunity to develop sustainable habits, it can actually promote the Seven C’s!
Character: Thrift stores offer a unique experience of browsing through eclectic varieties of items. The reason that I have chosen to rebrand our thrifting trips as “treasure hunts” is not just because it simply sounds like an adventure, I also find that it more adequately describes the experience. As children look through aisles, they will stumble across once loved items that are rare finds. This is contrasted with modern consumerism, where many items are merely mass-produced and lack the novelty of items found at thrift stores.
Context: The relevancy of second hand stores, and the environmental impact of repurposing items, is immense! The practice of reusing and repurposing has been around since the beginning of time as we know it. Though most believe second hand stores took off in the 1800s, they continue to remain prevalent in our culture today.
Connectivity: It might appear that the eco-impacts of treasure hunting at second hand stores is too abstract for children, but the mere act of shopping for and repurposing used items fosters an intrinsic understanding of that impact.
Challenge: In more recent years, I have allowed my children to cultivate their own collections. My youngest daughter collects small porcelain or ceramic animal trinkets. Whenever she learns that we are making a trip to our local second hand store, she lights up with excitement. She often creates mental lists of different animals to be on the lookout for as we browse the aisles.
Crafts with (Re)purpose
Another way to play is through crafts! By using secondhand goodies to boost creativity, there are various ways that children can engage in sustainable practices.
Seven C’s Focus: Character, Change, Context, and Clarity
Character: Eco-consciousness relies on traits of emotional connectedness and empathy. Finding a new purpose in a used item through care and mending assists in developing those traits. There is also an exposure to items with textures and personality. Through this exposure, children learn to embrace and appreciation imperfection and uniqueness.
Change: The simple act of repurposing is a transformation. Transformation = change. This spring, my daughter is crafting a fairy garden and bird houses using renewed materials. She has since transformed an old bottle cap into a kitchen stool and a ramekin dish (once used to dip nuggets into ketchup) into a table for any fairies residing in our garden.
Context: Crafting with (re)purpose can be elevated through our Second Hand Treasure Hunts. While looking through the aisles at our local Savers, these candle lanterns caught the eye of my little one who immediately imagined giving them a new life as bird houses.
Clarity: Despite the intention behind the “first life” of these materials, through creative vision, children find clarity through the process of their creation. There is a confidence that develops when children embark on a creative, and sometimes complex, endeavor.
Sustain DuPage embraces the value of crafting, creativity, and community by hosting Craft & Chat events. Please join us for our Creators Craft Prep for Summer Solstice on Sunday, May 18th from 2-4pm in the Sustain DuPage Garden. While the all-ages event is centered around crafts, creativity is not a requirement, as we simply look forward to connection and building community!
Little girl is carefully cleaning two lanterns with dish soap and warm water to repurpose them into colorful bird houses.
Small baby in a light blue onesie browses library shelf of books on gardening, environmental concerns, natural history, and Native American practices.
Book and Blanket Bash
Seven C’s Focus: Character and Chance
While it might not seem directly correlated with environmentalism, one way to incorporate the spirit of sustainability is by using the public library. The framework of the public library has actually inspired philosophy around sustainable and eco-conscious practices. The Library of Things is a movement that encourages a community centered approach to the management of economic resources inspired by the library system. This movement addresses social and economic inequities, issues with accessibility and environmental concerns. According to the Georgetown Law Review, a library economy will “decrease the amount of raw materials like metals, minerals, and timber we extract and consume” leading to an overwhelmingly positive impact on “ecosystems, as less land is required for resource extraction and less chemical waste is created in the processes of creating plastics and other synthetic materials.” Additionally, “the library economy could significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need for fossil fuels in the manufacturing and transportation of new goods.” Reports from 2022 state that the industrial sector made up 23% of total U.S. GHG emissions. This only provides a deeper urgency for instilling eco-conscious practices into children. Appreciation and frequent use of the public library can help accomplish this!
Character: Books are a pathway to empathy and deeper understanding of complex or nuanced issues. Allowing children to explore the library, a space often filled with natural lighting and diversity in patrons and resources, creates connection and deepens understanding. Libraries create accessibility for people of all ages, physical and cognitive abilities, race and ethnicity, gender identity, and socioeconomic status. Books can also teach us about our environment and the people we share it with. Borrowed items can be enjoyed at a picnic, where children can embrace their environment while practicing mindfulness through the act of reading (or listening) to a story!
Chance: Libraries are the cornerstone of communities and beyond creating a space for resources, they hold events for all members of the community. While events are often listed on library websites for our convenience, going to the library without a prior understanding of activities affords children the opportunity for spontaneity. It challenges children to try something new and opens the possibility to create friendships with other library patrons.
Sustain DuPage is honored to host Plant Swap Events at local libraries. Please come see us at the Wheaton Public Library on Saturday, May 17th from 1-3pm. Can’t make it? Check out our events calendar to see about other library events!
Pollinator Pal Patch
Seven C’s Focus: Context, Change, Chance, and Clarity
Even those without a green thumb can create a small pollinator garden. This is a great way for parents to allow their children to learn and play a part in helping the environment.
Context: Creating a pollinator patch places children directly in their environments. For older children, they can learn to identify which native and local plants are most popular among pollinators. Younger children engage in a sensory experiences and integrating grounding techniques through contact with nature.
Change: As someone who lacks a green thumb, I cannot put into words the excitement I felt when I noticed the initial sprouts that came from my first zinnia garden. It was such a satisfying and reassuring experience that I wanted to pass on to my kids. As soon as my daughters were able to hold a shovel, they were outside with me, listening to music and planting whatever we could grow. For novice gardeners, I recommend zinnias as a first plant. Despite being annual plants, zinnias are beautiful, hearty, extremely easy to grow, and the bees and butterflies love them. Some of our favorite perennials are butterfly milkweed, purple cone flowers, and Black eyed Susans.
Chance: Gardening is my favorite avenue of play where children (and parents) can really take a chance! Children can dig holes, play with dirt and water, look at bugs and examine the roots of plants, scatter and arrange seeds, and so much more. The sensory aspect allows children to get messy while encouraging experiments and creativity.
Clarity: When we let children take the lead of the pollinator patch, they become project managers. My daughters have used their organizational skills to layout the pal patch, using colorful popsicles sticks to label the plants and learn where they thrive best. When pollinators come to grub out, children can identify them. There have been times where we have noticed a particularly plump bee or colorful butterfly as a frequent visitor our pal patch. Last summer my then 7-year-old decided that one chubby bee was named Mr. Bob the Great. These experiences strengthen our children’s relationships with our environment and their commitments to protect it.
Every Saturday from 9-11am, Sustain DuPage hosts a workday in our garden. Warmer months also include Wednesday night workdays from 5:30-8pm. Children and Parents are invited to come learn gardening and composting tips, ask questions about starting their own gardens (or pollinator pal patches), learn through getting their hands dirty, or just come build connections with members of the community.
Toddler assists in digging up grass to make room for pollinator-friendly plants. She is using all pink gardening equipment and making quite the mess.
Backyard Bites
Seven C’s Focus: Character and Connectivity
As warmer weather is upon us Chicagoland-suburbanites, many of our families will start having dinners outdoors. This is an act that not only incorporates a necessary daily function, but it also encourages an appreciation for the environment. This becomes especially true after the winter season kept us from enjoying a meal outdoors.
Character: Sharing a meal outside involves various senses that enrich the dinner (or lunch, or breakfast, or snack) experience! Listening to the sounds of birds, feeling the warm, watching as tree leaves dance along the cool breeze, fosters an awareness and appreciation for the environment. Work demands and time constraints can sometimes limit opportunities for family meals, let alone family meals outside. This was my experience as a single parent for six years. To navigate these barriers, sometimes that looked like grabbing a happy meal and sitting by a local businesses pond near our apartment so we could watch the ducks and get some fresh air. While fast food isn’t exactly the pinnacle of a sustainable living or healthy choices, sustainability isn’t a one-size-fits-all— and that’s okay! Sustainability needs to be sustainable!
Connectivity: ‘Backyard Bites’ models the interdependence between people, the environment, and resources. Family dinners are associated with various benefits for children. I know that having sit-down family meal five times a week can be unrealistic. This is especially true for low-income and single-parent families. While research typically shows that benefits come from five meals a week, Dr. Anne Fishel, expert in children’s mental health and executive director of the Family Dinner Project, expresses that even one to two meals a week can have an impact. Even if you can only get one ‘Backyard Bite’ in a week, these meals afford opportunities for meaning discussions and moments of deep connection within families as they connect with their environments.
Sustain DuPage is committed to making food and other necessities available to everyone in the community. On Saturday, June 7th from 9:30-11:30am, we are hosting a Food Pantry Drive sponsored by the Food Security Squad at the Sustain DuPage Garden. Donations will benefit the Glen House Food Pantry in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. If you would like to donate items, tour the garden, or participate in our regular Saturday garden workday, please join us. This is a great opportunity to teach children about food security, sustainability, and various ways that they can get involved in helping their communities.
Get out there and play!
Whether you are trying to instill values of eco-consciousness in your children, or engaging your inner child, play is an integral part of the way we view and interact with the world.
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