Why Is It Good To Teach Children To Respect The Environment?
The benefits of teaching children to respect the environment are many. Respect for nature is not something we can instill in just one day; Rather, it is a process that we must start from when our children are very young.
Today, concern about what affects the planet has increased. However, we also need actions to counteract the negative effects of human hands on the earth.
Every little contribution that an individual makes from his home or workplace will bring ecological benefits both for him and for future generations.
If we care about the environment and show it to our children, surely they will not understand a different way of life than that, one that is in harmony with nature and animals. Sensitizing our children to the environment is a way of educating them for life.
When they internalize how important it is to ensure the well-being of our natural spaces and animals, in the future we will have adults with an ecological conscience and multipliers of a conservationist message.
In addition, teaching children to respect the environment brings many personal benefits, since in this way they develop empathy and savings. Empathy because they put themselves in the place of the plant or animal that is being abused and they become sensitive to them; savings because we teach them to reuse and recycle.
How to teach children to respect the environment?
From a very young age, with simple activities at home we can instill in our little ones the preservation of the environment. Put the following tips into practice at home and you will train a child with pure ecological principles and renewable ideas.
Painting and outdoor activities
Most children love to draw. What better strategy to teach them the preservation of the environment than through painting.
You can go with your little one to a park with a basket of fruits, their toys and tools to paint. Once there, have a few hours of games with him; For example, ask him to represent the day’s activity in a drawing.
Take advantage of that moment to emphasize how important it is to take care of green areas. Tell them that if they didn’t exist, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have as much fun as they did.
Making crafts and homework with waste materials
Teach your child thousands of ways to reuse household waste. There are many fun activities with which we can make crafts, toys and much more with containers that we discard at home.
Plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard cylinders of kitchen paper or toilet paper are excellent options to take advantage of our creativity, that of the little ones and make fun and useful creations.
On the other hand, at school many times activities are assigned for the home, such as making a model or representation that involves the use of wood, plastic or others.
This is an excellent opportunity to reuse. In addition to teaching your child the value of things and reusable materials at home, you instill in him the habit of saving, since he observes that it is not necessary to spend more money if you have so many options at hand.
Separate materials at home to take to collection centers
Surely, in your city they will have arranged collection centers for citizens to bring their waste materials, clean, dry and separated to be processed.
For your part, have a space in your house to separate recyclable materials; ask your child for help to do so. Once one of them is generated, tell your child to put it in its place so that he knows that the only option that exists at home with these types of objects is recycling.
When you have enough supplies, take your child with you to deliver them. Make this a habit, a family activity.
Teach him to enjoy movies that protect the environment
There are many children’s films that dedicate their main message to the preservation of the environment. For example: Pocahontas, The Lion King, Wall-E and Avatar – ideal for teenagers. In the same way, there are very good documentaries and programs aimed at children on this topic.
Enjoy them with some delicious popcorn, as if it were any movie. Make it natural for these activities to be done at home; Teaching children to respect the environment is so easy and fun that you will do it without problems.
As a conclusion, a child with strong ecological principles will be an environmentally responsible adult. This is an indispensable condition of the human being today, and even more so for the future.
