How do we encourage children to love the natural environment without ruining it?

Question

If our children are to respect the environment, they must form a love of it and a connection to it.

How do we encourage this without them actually contributing to it's destruction?

Answer 1

Kids love to get involved, and are a deep mine of questions. The first way to get kids interested in nature is to be interested yourself. Grow a garden, and give them small and fun tasks, like digging holes and choosing where to plant things. Walk out to see how your garden is growing and get them to look for bugs and weeds, show them how the cycles work.

Plant things they can eat, not just flowers. It doesn't take many organically grown strawberries to convince anyway of the benefits of growing your own. Explain that most supermarket veggies are selected because are good at lasting, and not because they taste good to eat.

Take them to local farms, when they are old enough, show them the difference between a battery farm and a free range chicken farm first hand. Show them how the food supply chain really works. Take them to a landfill site and compare that to your garden compost.

Take them to old forests with diverse trees and take them through forestry monocultures. Talk about biodiversity and explain how different plants and animals need each other in the big world, just like in the garden.

Encourage them to find out about different animals in their natural habitat.

Let them learn things be seeing them and experiencing them, share their sorrows when they understand the devastations, and share their joys in discoveries. Marvel at their wonder in old forests.

That which we love, we cherish, and to love something is to begin to know it.

Answer 2

I DO believe it is right and okay. However, my belief comes from the fact that I am a Christian. The Bible states that parents are responsible for training their children up the "right way". The Bible containing many examples of those beliefs. On another note, how is it possible to not "influence" a child in some way. Influence comes from what we DO NOT do as well. If I never talk to my child about God then he/she will probably come to the conclusion that I am in fact not a believer. If you never serve seafood for dinner odds are that the child will not like seafood. They may even come to believe that seafood is "wrong". Does that even make any sense? lol Also, where are these children to go for instruction? The ideal learning situation would be one where the choices were presented and the child chooses. For this to happen, you would simply teach the child how to make decisions not right or wrong. How is that possible without teaching them right and wrong though. You should read Mere Christianity. It might help solve this question better than I have. :)

Answer 3

Tonight author Richard Louv is doing a talk based on his book, "Last Child in the Wood; Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. Below is an excerpt from the book description:

"As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention-deficit disorder."

You don't need a book to tell you that children benefit physically and mentally when they are connected to nature, but Louvs' book serves to illustrate how in just a few generations kids have pulled away from nature in a way that's never happened before.

Totally agree about children that love the land respect it. Children that are raised by conscientious parents always stand apart from the pack.

Read the book, get out in nature with children and model good behavior, and, as adults, work with schools and churches to help keep the connections alive and reinvigorate them.

Answer 4

it's quite impossible to be a part of nature, to be present in it's midst without leaving behind the trail of our 'human footprint'...but, to merely 'enjoy' it as an absentee species is disrespectful to the biodiversity of our landscape.

teach your children the how's and why's mankind has evolved with nature and why we have to use the land and it's many gifts for our own future, our destiny as a species. our food comes from the soil, our shelter comes from the woodlands..without either we are lost.

we have the unique gift to make decisions to become a part of the this earth and likewise we have the ability to destroy it. you cannot tend to the earths needs by ignoring our place on this planet.

plant a garden and get them started by understanding where their food comes from....the basics to human survival!

Answer 5

Take them top the park!!

Answer 6

planting trees,growing gardens in everyone's back yard

Answer 7

By example.