Have you heard the term Eco-anxiety? 

According to a white paper by Earth Rangers, Eco-anxiety includes feelings of worry, fear, and even despair that someone may experience as a result of their exposure to the realities of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental problems. 

It is easy to forget when talking about the state of our planet, that kids can feel overwhelmed with facts and figures and the environmental challenges they see around them. 

How can we, as parents, support and help them? Here are easy-to-implement sustainability tips for turning eco-anxiety into eco-action. 

Train smart shoppers from the start:
Talk to your children about pausing and reflecting on choices before they purchase. Don’t overwhelm them, but choose your moments to have conversations about simple positive decisions that they can make. 

For example, choosing an ice cream cone over ice cream in a cup. Doing so means you get to skip the plastic spoon and the plasticized paper, plus the bonus is you get the yummy cone as your reward for choosing sustainability! 

What’s the price and how much / how many do you get for that price? Teaching tomorrow’s grocery shoppers that the cheapest price tag isn’t necessarily the best option goes a long way to considering quality and quantity in the future.

Litter-free lunches:
Encourage your kids to pack a lunch that has only the reusable metal utensil left in the lunch kit at the end. If you have concerns that your utensils will get tossed at the end, make a game out of it and reward them with extra dessert at dinner if everything makes it way back home. It is amazing what an extra little treat will do for kids' memories! 

Include a cloth napkin and drink from a reusable water bottle. If juice boxes have already been ingrained in their daily diet, encourage them to save it for a once-weekly treat, and eventually, you can include juice made from concentrate in a reusable container.

Dish duty:
It is a surprising fact that using a dishwasher is more sustainable than hand washing. A University of Bonn study confirmed that with newer dishwasher water use and the ability to heat the water on demand, it’s actually a more sustainable choice than standing at the sink. Kids can load the dishwasher and collect allowance for the chore.

Pick up after yourself and your neighbour:
Coach the kids that if they are out and about and their eyes lay on some litter, they should pick it up if they can also see a garbage can in the vicinity. 

The example of spotting someone picking up a stranger’s trash will give pause to tossing a wrapper on the ground the next time that person feels inclined to. Remember to have the discussion with your children about what litter is safe to pick-up and which ones should be left for proper disposal.

Birthday presence…not presents:
Change in the community starts at home. Discuss with your children how satisfying it feels to give back. Have them consider that for their next birthday, party-going friends bring a small donation to a charity of the birthday child’s choosing, rather than or in addition to a gift. Organizations such as the SPCA have benefitted from this type of generosity. The charity gift is a great way to cut back on your own clutter and teach your children that quality is much better than quantity. Plus giving while you’re getting makes you feel good too!

Make sustainable living a mission:
Making sustainability fun will reduce eco-anxiety and create a lifetime of best practices. Educating kids about eco-action in empathic and exciting ways will help kids think with a sustainability-first attitude and make them feel empowered in making choices that have a positive impact on our planet.