How to Survive: Your Eco-Friendly Kids

So your kid has been excitedly learning about how to save the earth at school – which is a great thing! Unfortunately, now your little angel has turned into a plastic hating, no-waste loving monster and you’re like, “Can we only save the planet a little bit today? Mommy needs to use her hairspray.” Although you want to foster their love for the planet, some of the requests they’re making, while sweet they may be, are totally inconvenient!

So, here are some tips for how to survive your Eco-friendly crazy kids. 

1. Your child has decided that plastic is bad and now demands the use of eco-friendly, renewable items in your home at all times. As you scour Taobao for natural tableware, you realize that drinking coffee out of a cup made from bamboo seems like a good idea – until you realize how gross the inside will become over time. Instead, you buy yourself a thermos with a bamboo looking exterior and pray your child doesn’t see the stainless steel inside. If all else fails, threaten to go through the toys in their bedroom – they’ll start compromising when they see Darth Vader hovering over the trash can. 

2. Your child has pointed out that air leaks in the home are bad for the planet. They can push your home’s HVAC systems into overdrive to make up for the constant loss of heated or cool air, adding to the amount of pollutants released into the environment. Buy lots of duct tape, in any color your child likes, with the intention of sealing up all the spaces around the doors and windows. Instead, you can use this opportunity to play pranks on your kids, including duct taping their toys to the ceiling or taping down the toilet lids (which may backfire…but it would be funny!). You can also always duct tape your kids to a chair. 

3. Your child has told you that cars are bad, as they’re one of the major polluters of air. Agree to start either walking or biking to school every day to help decrease the family carbon footprint. Jealously watch your driver sit in the car, snoozing as you pass him on your 20 minute walk with your child – the one who has just started to whine that it’s too hard, they’re too hot and their feet hurt. Compromise by loading everyone onto the scooter (yay for electric!). You can ride alongside people you know, all dropping their kids off with their drivers while you begrudgingly inhale their car fumes. 

Caring for our environment is not only good, but necessary, as the population of our world and our demand for its natural resources continues to increase. Although your child may seem a bit eco-friendly obsessive, it’s wonderful to embrace and encourage their new-found love for the environment – and you don’t have to go crazy doing it. 

Just make sure to let them know that switching from toilet paper to wash-cloths is not going to be one of the ways that your family reduces its carbon footprint. Ew.