“After a while, are they just sick of it? Are they just like, ‘Not another climate march!’?” an interviewer asked me on a podcast about my book.

That question came back to me on Bike to School Day, after we had stood in the drizzly rain that morning.

I had asked my kids, “Are you sure you want to bike in?” My younger son nodded. My older son looked up at the sky and commented, “Well, it’s not really raining hard. Okay.” While neither of them were exactly enthusiastic, they chose to anyway. They knew it was important to me.

It reminded me of my kids sitting at our dining table, drawing on large pieces of poster board. They were designing their posters for a climate rally for Earth Day. My older son drew a picture of his animal alter ego, a rabbit, with the line “Bunnies are already hot – they don’t need to be hotter.” My younger son drew his favorite animal – an elephant – with a somewhat more straightforward message of “Protect elephants from climate change.” In neither case did I tell them they had to come to the rally, much less make posters for it. When we were talking about our Earth Day plans, I told them that I was going to go and asked if they wanted to. They both said, “Yes!”

Then there was one of the many times I was standing in my older son’s doorway, nodding and smiling. He was telling me all about the intricate details and strongly-held opinions about the latest video game he was playing. I was exhausted and had to put my younger son to bed, but at the same time really did want to hear what he had to say. While I eventually did cut him off and closed the door, I tried to let him finish as much of his long, long thought as possible.

Just today, I thought of that question when I heard yet another, “Did you know….?” from a small voice on the back of my bike. “Uh huh,” I answered. “I’m an elephant. On the back of your bike!” I laughed and said, “Ah, that’s why you’re so heavy.”

While I had never been asked that question before, so much of my experience continues to reinforce the truth of my answer in the interview.

I said, “Well, I ask them if they want to go. I wouldn’t make them go if they didn’t want to. So far, they’ve said yes. I think it’s in part because they know it’s important to me. And I show that I care about what’s important to them. I’ve listened to them talk for hours about Mario Bros.”

While so often it seems like the kids don’t care about the things I do – like getting to bed – it turns out that on the things that really matter, the things that reflect my values, they do. I think so often adults write off what kids care about and then wonder why the kids don’t respect what the adults care about. It’s pretty amazing what mutual respect will do.