Category Archives: Eco Friendly Parenting

Use Those Old Cereal Boxes

Many families go through cereal boxes quite regularly. The good part is that they’re recyclable, but what if you could add a step before recycling your cereal boxes?

Depending on the ages of your kids, you might be able too.

A simple idea is to just cut the boxes up and let the kids paint or draw on the plain insides. Kids don’t have to have fresh paper for that, and sometimes a firmer surface is nice to have.

Boxes can also be cut up into simple puzzles. This is nice for kids who are just starting to enjoy puzzles but aren’t up for anything too complex yet. They probably know pretty well what the end result should look like.

You can also cut out the larger letters for children who are just learning their letters or how to form words. Playing with the letters can be much less frustrating than having to write the word when first trying to figure out how to make a word.

And of course, you can leave the box whole to wrap appropriately sized gifts.

The nice part about these ideas is that in many cases you can still recycle the boxes after the kids are done with them. You’re just making a little more use out of them first.

Bringing Kids Down From the Christmas Crazies

Even when you keep your own Christmas fairly simple, kids get really wound up around all the presents they get at Christmas time. If you’re like me and have a lot of family giving presents, it can be hard to control just what happens.

With the new year, kids need to recover from getting so much fun new stuff and really taking a look at what they have that they really don’t care about.

This is the time of year to go through the old toys and get rid of any that aren’t really played with if you didn’t do that before Christmas. Send them off to charity. Teach your kids about giving to those who have less!

Honestly, my kids resist the clean out and then love giving the toys away. I don’t hide the process from them at all. I could, very easily. Especially this year with so many of their toys still boxed away in the garage.

But I don’t do that because it’s a great lesson.

They get to do the first sort, which is to get the toys they are absolutely not interested in keeping into the give away pile.

Then comes the challenging sort, when my husband and I get to decide if they’re keeping things we know they really won’t use. This one generates a number of protests often followed by an admission that yes, it’s really not used that much. But it’s special, you see! And they just know that they’ll start using it more soon!

That plea works some of the time but not that often.

We don’t aim for tears or a lot of frustration or anything, and it rarely goes that badly. Talking about the children with very few toys who might be able to get their old toys works pretty well. Children can be amazingly sympathetic if you play it right.

Checking Out Disney’s Give a Day, Get a Day

What child doesn’t want to go to Disneyland or Disney World? It’s a hard siren call to resist, even knowing how well they work kids to get them to buy this, that and the other. Especially girls with Princess gear.

But their Give a Day, Get a Day project is still pretty neat. You volunteer for a day and get a ticket to a Disney theme park.

I’ve been looking over the opportunities in my area as well as the ones in my area. Kids as young as 6 can volunteer for certain opportunities within this program, although there are relatively few of those. Makes things challenging for me, as my daughter has been begging to go to Disneyland for a long time now, and it’s not something I’m willing to spend money on just now.

Combine it with the learning opportunity of volunteering and my resistance goes way, way down.

Some are full already, but they say more opportunities are posted daily. Many want you to contact them to set a schedule.

So many of the ones I know my daughter would love to do are either full or say she’s too young. There’s a trail cleaning one, for example, that you have to be at least 11 for. My kids pick up trash when we go hiking, so it would have been a natural match if it had been available. Rats.

This is one of those things for us that either works out or not. Volunteering is good even if you aren’t getting a Disney theme park ticket in return, after all. But I’ll be checking back for that perfect opportunity.

My 10 Favorite Green Parenting Posts for 2009

2009 is almost over and I’m having a bit of fun looking over the work I’ve done here this past year. While there were times that I struggled to post at all, overall it’s been a good and interesting year.

As a mother, the green parenting posts are generally fun to write. Kids matter a lot to me, and helping them respect the planet they live on is something I want to accomplish.

These are the posts I wrote this year about being a green parent that I liked the best:

What More to Do for a Green Baby and Green Nursery?

So much of January this year was spent thinking about my pregnancy and planning to keep things as green as possible with baby #3.

Is It Safe to Let Your Kids Go Free Range?

I consider giving children a lot of freedom to go outdoors a big part of being a green parent, provided it’s done in an age appropriate manner. But it’s challenging these days when even the police can overreact to a 10 year old walking a third of a mile on his own.

4 Places to Connect Online with Other Green Moms

Being a stay at home mom can be lonely. I found a lot of places you can connect online with other green moms.

Consumer Reports Blows It?

I mostly love Consumer Reports, but I really disagreed with them on their report on baby slings and cosleepers.

Can Baby Go Organic?

Sigh. Reading this post really makes me miss my garden at the old house.

Keeping Kids Green and Busy While School’s Out

This summer was so crazy for our family, with the move and all. But taking the time to be green was still worth it.

The Advantages of Walking the Kids to School

When the school’s within walking range as ours is, there are a lot of advantages to walking to school with your kids. It’s good for you, for them, and a great time to just talk with them. It also saves a lot of gas!

Peer Pressure and Healthy School Lunches

My poor daughter got some pressure this year about her healthy eating habits with the lunches she brought from home. Overall she coped well.

What Equipment Do You Need to Make Baby Food?

Who knew that making homemade baby food could be so much fun? I love having the ability to make fresh baby food with my choice of produce. It’s a bit time consuming sometimes, but really worth it.

Baby Food Making with the Kidco Food Mill

I really do adore my food mill. I’ve used it with three children and it’s still going strong. It’s wonderful to be able to feed my babies exactly what everyone else is eating when the food type is appropriate.

Remember the Reason for Christmas

With all the craziness of this time of year it can be really hard to keep in mind the real reason we celebrate at this time of year. For my family it’s the celebration of the birth of Christ, but even if that’s not your belief there should be more to celebrating at this time of year than just “gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Appreciate Your Family

The holidays are a great time to remember just how much your family means to you. Not just your kids, but your spouse, your parents, your siblings and extended family. Make the most of the time you spend together this holiday season and try to really appreciate each other.

Fun things to do can include sharing favorite stories, baking or doing crafts together.

Appreciate Your Good Fortune

Even if times are tight for your family, you’re probably better off than a goodly percentage of the population of this planet. A good way to remind yourself and your family is to give to charity.  Feed the Children, for example, lets you give animals such as goats to families that need help. Or you can seek out a favorite charity of your own.

Appreciate Your Faith

The entire holiday season can be exhausting, but don’t let that keep you from celebrating your faith. Get to church or otherwise join in the celebrations at this time of year that so many faiths have.

You can also talk to your children about why we celebrate at this time of year. Get beyond Santa and the excessive consumerism that are so dominant at this time of year.