A Visit With Ecomom

By Kimberly Danek Pinkson, Co-Founder of ecomom.com and ecomomalliance.org

“How do you raise an eco-friendly kid?” someone in the audience asked. I answered something along the lines of “Well, you talk to your kids about what you’re doing and why. You explain the choices you make so that rather than lecturing, they learn from your model. In your every deliberation, as the Iroquois quote goes, you think of the seven generations to come.”

With Earth Month in full swing, and my ongoing work with mothers via ecomom, I think about this question of raising children as stewards of the environment on a daily basis. Indeed, it is a driver behind my every action and like most issues of import, I believe it starts with oneself. As goes the Michael Jackson song, “I’m looking at the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways.” To start with oneself is to realize we are part of nature so perhaps the best way to raise eco-friendly kids is to restore their innate bond with nature. Our children may grow up to rebel against us in one way or another, but instilling a sense of self-efficacy and a sense of interconnection with our natural world can only do good.

In his award winning book, Last Child In the Woods, Richard Louve writes, “As the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically and this reduces the richness of human experience. Healing the broken bond between our young and nature – is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it.”

Tips for Spending Time with Kids in Nature:

·     Walk to school or go to the local park for 15 minutes each morning before school.

·     Go on family picnics where you’ve got nothing else planned other than to sit and eat outside    and then see what happens.

·     Take walks in the local forest, field or park, and count how many live things you see. Toddlers are especially good at finding bugs and worms you never would have noticed without their closer-to-the-ground eye.

·     Plant a garden – even if you live in the city and it’s just a window-sill pot.

·     Tell teens that all “technology time” (a.k.a. screen time spent in front of iPods, pads, games, TV’s etc.) must be matched with equivalent time outside with you. Yes, eyes will roll, but time will bring gratitude.

·     Lie on the ground together and watch the moon rise.

·     Notice the sun rising each morning.

·     Join a watershed restoration project.

·     Visit a local farm.
 

·     Sleep outside, and look at the stars.

Lying in a field staring up at the clouds, there is no question that there is something much greater going on here than any one part. Planting a flower and watching it grow leaves no question that one can make a positive difference. A parent looking to raise an environmentally conscious child need not do much more than make sure the child gets plenty of time hanging out in nature. “Unstructured play”, as Louve calls it. “Chilling,” is what my son says. The rest - the recycling, composting, carpooling, eating organic, reducing waste, shopping responsibly, avoiding toxins in cleaning and personal care products – it will all fall into place in due time.

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Kimberly Danek Pinkson is a mom to Corbin, an Aunti to Luke and Sebastion, Co-Founder of ecom.com and ecomomalliance.org. 

She speaks regularly at mother’s groups and conferences, appears as a green living expert on media outlets from ABC to the TODAY Show, and loves cooking veggies from the garden, making up recipes with her son, going on adventures in nature, music festivals and eating organic ice cream.