Recycling is so important, and it is something that all members of the family should be involved in. Recycling is a great way to reduce environmental waste and teaches children to respect and look after the world around them.
With climate change being such a popular topic right now, here are some ways you can encourage your children to recycle.
Encourage Donation Of Old Clothes & Toys
Children grow so quickly which means clothes quickly become too small. Every few months, encourage your child to go through their clothes with you and see what no longer fits, putting those to one side. These can either be donated to a charity shop, added a local reuse group on Facebook for local people or given to people you know who have younger children.
The same can be done for their toys. Children’s interests change quite quickly and the toy that used to be the flavour of the month may not be as interesting a few months down the line. Encourage them to donate those items they no longer play with in favour of being able to get some newer stuff in the future.
By encouraging your child to go through their old stuff and donate it to charity, you are reducing environmental waste and also emphasising the importance of charitable behaviour.
Make It Fun
The reason why many kids don’t like doing chores? They’re boring. If you make them fun, they are much more likely to want to do them! You don’t even need to offer payment for chores for some children to want to do them as long as they see them as a fun activity!
There are many ways that you can make recycling fun for a child. Challenge them to gather up as much recycling as they can. Then they can either take it to a local recycling centre, put it in your own recycling bins or perhaps even use the materials in different arts and crafts projects – toilet roll tubes, bottles and old magazines make fantastic craft materials!
Another way is to give them something to fix up themselves. This is particularly good for older kids. I helped my eldest (12) to fix his own watch that needed doing, we just looked for some watchmakers tools and got the things we needed. It was a simple job, but by doing it together, we made a project out of it and it saved us from throwing it away and buying a new one.
Make It Easy For Them
Children sometimes need things simplified so why not make it easier for them? Set up stations in your home for children to put the recycling and then help them when it comes to putting in the outside bins. Also, show them how to prepare the items for the recycling bin. Many recyclable items need to be washed out before being put in the relevant bin. By showing them once or twice, they will learn what needs to be done so that they can do it themselves. However, don’t allow them to handle fragile glass recyclables by themselves.
These are just a few ways that you can encourage your child to recycle and to help you with recycling. By teaching them and getting them involved at a young age, they learn things that will stand them in good stead for later life, such as looking after the world around them and learning the value of charitable giving.
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