5 Ways To Teach Children How To Look After The Environment ♥

As a parent, it's very important for me to teach my sons about the environment and to teach them about all the things they can do to protect it and preserve it for future generations - such as recycling, reducing waste and re-using things whenever they can.

Here in Ireland we are lucky enough to have mandatory recycling so that children learn from a young age how to separate waste and why it's important, but as a parent how to you teach a child what it really means to go green?

We're a family of outdoor lovers - evident to anyone who visits this blog and our Instagram @dollydowsie. We love being outdoors and spend as much time outside as we possible can. I always tell the children not to interfere with the plants and flowers growing around them, to respect the places we visit, to take their rubbish home with them, etc. I've shared before how I teach my children to love and care for nature, if you're looking for some inspiration.

I recently saw on Family Days Tried & Tested Instagram that she took the kids out picking up rubbish around a local landmark and gave them an ice-cream sundae treat station at home afterwards as a reward for their efforts. I think this was such a great thing to do and image how cleaner our environments would be if all parents did this with their kids? It's definitely something I'm going to do with mine.

Mark Group have come up with a great infographic which is easy for children to follow. It points to five important areas to focus on to contribute to going green such as saving water, not wasting items, i.e. getting things fixed before buying another, reusing items, etc., switching to solar energy, getting active and giving to your garden such as growing your own fruit and veg and making your own compost heap.

I think all of these points are fantastic and quite easy to do and stick to. I think this particular infographic can promote such positive messages to children about how to go green and look after the world they live in. With climate change being a big talking point at the moment too and a real urgency for change, I think it's the perfect time to show and explain this infographic to kids and to help them become more eco-friendly and conscious of the world around them.

You can have a read of the infographic for yourself below. We follow these eco-friendly guidelines in our household, do you or would you like to implement them?