green kids

How I Became a Third Grade Environmentalist and What Happened Next

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

How I Became a Third Grade Environmentalist and What Happened Next (Photo: Manatee swimming in water)

My parents didn’t have a clue what the impact of bringing me to Homosassa Springs State Park in Florida at the tender age of nine was going to be. It ended up not only shaping my elementary school passions, but determining my life’s work.

I first wrote this essay about the strange ways childhood experiences shape us for the wonderful live show (and podcast), The Story Collider. I performed it live at Busboys and Poets in Washington D.C. on January 26, 2017 and you can check out the video on Facebook. As I’ll be returning to Homosassa Springs tomorrow with my kids, I thought now was an appropriate time to share it!

Continue reading →

How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Has your child heard about climate change and are starting to ask questions? Or do you want to broach this difficult topic but don’t know where to start? Here are good ways to talk to kids about climate change.

How to Talk to Kids About Climate Change (Photo: Group of kids in front of a capital building holding a poster saying 'Kids Want Climate Justice')

“We’re going to tell the people who make the rules that we want clean air and water for everyone,” I told my then three-year-old as we made signs for the People’s Climate Mobilization. As we got ready for the march, I struggled with what to say to him about it. In the end, I settled on the vague “air and water” statement. A clear mom fail at avoiding the issue.

Or was it? After all, three is awfully young to face the fact that our everyday choices could affect everyone on the planet in both in the present day and hundreds of years from now. There are plenty of adults who can’t grapple with that reality. Climate change activism is my personal passion, but it’s not right to force it on him before he’s ready.

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about explaining climate change to our kids. More than a year later, we still haven’t directly explained it. But now I see it as more of a process than a one-and-done conversation.

In addition to my personal interest, my professional background is informing a lot of my approach. As a science and environmental communicator, talking about climate change and related issues is one of my specialties.

Here are some big principles to consider if you are going to  talk to kids about climate change:

Continue reading →

How to Teach Your Kids to Love Biking and Walking

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Want to get your kids outside, have more exercise, and lower your carbon footprint? Try biking and walking places with your kids with these five ways to help them love non-car transportation. 

How to Teach Your Kids to Love Biking and Walking (Photo: One little kid pushing another in a little pretend car)

“You said we were walking! Noooooooooooo!” my four-year-old yelled as we tried to get in the car. Oops. I may have mentioned that we would be walking to the library instead of driving.

While it can be inconvenient on days when we’re running late, I do love that my son loves walking and biking places. Active transportation gets kids outside, keeps them moving, builds relationships with neighbors, minimizes greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, and increases kids’ independence.

While our society advertises a minivan as the ultimate family vehicle, it’s actually possible to shift trips away from driving. One of my friends with four kids under seven years old actually doesn’t own a car at all! (I am still in awe of her.)

If you’re interested in making the shift, here are some tips to get you started:

Continue reading →

10 Big Ways Your Family Can Accumulate Less Stuff

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 8 Comments

Want to reduce the flow of stuff into your house? Here are 10 principles to follow to accumulate less stuff (particularly toys) and cut down on clutter.

10 Big Ways Your Family Can Accumulate Less Stuff (Photo: Toy plastic house and wooden walker on the floor)

Looking at the spread of toys and books scattered across our basement floor, I shake my head. “We have way too much stuff,” I think. “And we have birthdays coming up.”

Like many families, we suffer from the disease of Too Much Damn Stuff. While it’s frustrating, I take some hope in the fact that the flow of stuff into our house has slowed substantially in the four years we’ve been parents.

We’ve worked hard to cut down on the amount of toys in particular because having fewer toys can encourage creativity and reduce stress. When presented with four toys or 16 toys, toddlers who could choose from four toys played with individual toys longer and played with them in a larger variety of ways.  Laura at the blog YouShouldGrow has nine more ways that kids benefit when they have fewer toys. For more on the advantages of having fewer toys, be sure to check out the book and website Simplicity Parenting.

From an environmental point of view, producing and shipping all of these things uses natural resources and energy. Not to mention the waste when you need to get rid of them. Of course, buying all that stuff costs money that can be used in other ways!

As I’m (clearly) far from an expert in this realm, I asked my fellow bloggers for their tips on accumulating less stuff as a parent of young children:

Continue reading →

How to Limit Advertising’s Influence on Your Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

How to Limit Advertising's Influence on Your Kids (Photo: TV playing a McDonald's advertisement)

“I think they’re trying to sell you beer,” stated my son after a Bud Light commercial during a football game. While I didn’t really need my kid to be watching beer commercials, I was proud of his analytical skills. After all, he understood that commercials are more than just fun little videos.

An average kid above the age of two sees more than 25,000 commercials a year. Although peers influence what toys children want, commercials play a major role in preferences. Ads also reinforce the mindset of needing to buy the latest and greatest “stuff,” regardless of what you already own. As hardly anyone advertises the benefits of playing outside, eating vegetables, and buying simple toys, most of us want to counteract advertisements’ influence.

My kid is inquisitive, so we’ve used his questions as an opportunity to help him become more savvy about advertisements. Here are four steps that can help you teach your kid to be more media-aware:

Continue reading →

How to Start Seeds for a Garden with Little Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Thinking about starting seeds for your family vegetable garden? Here’s step-by-step instructions on starting seeds and getting your kids involved.

How to Start Seeds for a Garden with Little Kids (Two photos, both of small white children leaning over bowls of dirt with their hands in it)

Watching my kids plunge their hands into a mix of seed starting mix and water on our back deck, I know there’s something simply right about what we’re doing. And messy. Very messy.

But after planning a garden with kids, seed starting is the next logical step. While I could fill my backyard garden with seedlings from the farmers’ market, starting everything from seed is both cheaper and more rewarding. It helps the kids see the full life-cycle of plants, from seed to fruit and back to seed again. It’s also a great way to get them involved before spring shows up.

So every year, I flip through the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog, order too much, and start the process of bringing up seedlings. (If you’re not in the Southeast U.S., Home for the Harvest has a great list of sustainable vegetable seed companies.) While my older son (nicknamed Sprout, appropriately) has helped start seeds the last few years, my younger son started helping this year too.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

Continue reading →

How to Plan a Vegetable Garden with Your Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Planting vegetables in your and your kids’ garden is a great way to build a connection with their food source. But to get the most out of it, planning is key! Here’s how to effectively plan a family vegetable garden. 

How to Plan Growing Vegetables in Your Kids Garden (Photo: White woman and white boy reading a book labeled Week By Week Vegetable Garden)

The bright illustrations of the seed catalog beckoned us, reminding us of spring among the dreary February slush. The cover featured gnomes frolicking among eggplants and tomatoes. With my older son sitting next to me, I opened it up, my eyes scanning the options.

“What do you want to plant?” I ask him. His mouth twists in thought. “Tomatoes. I want to plant tomatoes.”

“We’ll definitely plant tomatoes,” I say, nodding.

It was garden-planning time once again. Each year, as we find ourselves sick of Washington D.C.’s endless freezing rain, this season comes along to greet us with hope.

Perhaps it’s my background in understanding the connections between things in nature, perhaps it’s my focus on sustainability and minimizing interference after the fact, or maybe it’s just my love of to-do lists, but planning is the most important step of gardening for me. Even though the garden itself often ends up a bit of a mess, I always start with a solid plan.

Planning has become even more important with kids. Thankfully, getting kids involved in planning from the beginning is a great way to introduce them to gardening.

Here’s how we plan our kids garden:

Continue reading →

The Reality and Fantasy of Green Living with Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

 

The Reality and Fantasy of Green Living (Photographs: - set of three - Upper left-hand corner, very neat arrangement of produce; upper right - photo of the overgrown garden, Giant cargo bike holding two children and also not interested in learning.

Skimming through Pinterest, I’m slightly overwhelmed looking at all of these lovely photographs. Let’s be realistic. I’m a lot overwhelmed.

I squint looking at homesteading blogs, wondering how these women grow all of their own food and make time for their kids. I sigh looking at the “green living” posts with their homemade cleaners. Does it count as green if I just don’t clean at all?

Maybe you feel the same way looking at me. You may think, “How does she find time for all of this stuff?” The answer is that I don’t. Not really.

Personally, here’s how my reality doesn’t come even close to matching my fantasy:

Continue reading →

How to Help the Environment While Making the Most of Your Time

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Do you want to do what you can to help the environment but can’t find the time? Here are eight ways you can do both!

How to Help the Environment While Making the Most of Your Time (Photo: A photo of a green tree in a field with a clock superimposed over it)

“I don’t have enough time!” I lament to my husband, as I stay up too late washing the dishes yet again. I’m certainly not alone in this cry, as anyone who raises small children knows. The days may be long, but it still feels as if there are never enough hours. But despite all that, our family still lives in as environmentally-friendly a manner as we can. As many “green” activities take more time than conventional ones – I’m looking at you, dish rags that we need to wash – how do we find the time to help the environment?

Some of it is reorganizing our priorities. But in many cases, I’ve found some shortcuts to save time and still help the environment.

Continue reading →

Why I Love Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm Box

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Why I Love Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm Box. (Photo: Box saying "Fresh Vegetables" with vegetables in front of it)

Poking at his dinner, my son eats around his vegetables, going straight for the tortellini. Examining the colorful array on my plate, I ask my husband, “Is everything here from the garden or farm box?”

“Yeah, except for the sun-dried tomatoes,” he responds.

Pointing out the vegetables to my son with my fork, I say, “It’s zucchini from our garden and mushrooms and peppers from the farm box.”

He hestitates, then stabs a mushroom and puts it in his mouth. “It’s good,” he says with a full mouth.

“Isn’t it?” I say and smile.

The “farm box” is the weekly delivery we get from our community supported agriculture (otherwise known as CSA) program. For those not familiar with it, a CSA involves pre-paying at the beginning of a season for produce and sometimes other farm goods, like meat and eggs. Throughout the season, you pick up a box of food each week that the farm delivers to a specific location. LocalHarvest has a list of CSAs around the country.

While I love local food, I had stayed away from CSAs for years. The last time we subscribed to one, I was in graduate school ten years ago. Because we lived in England, it was full of root vegetables that we had no idea what to do with. Sometimes that was great. I did learn to love parsnips and still use them. Other times it was disastrous. When I tried to use up the beets, I ended up burning a borscht soup that was already pretty bad. Despite pretending “it wasn’t that bad,” it was one of the worst things I have ever eaten in my life.

This year, we thought it might be time to try a CSA again. While we love how locally-grown is fresher and connects you to the farmers, we were finding it harder and harder to get to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings.  Here’s why I’m glad that we subscribed to Bending Bridge Farm’s community supported agriculture program:

Continue reading →