If it is change that you seek, then children are the best vectors to carry it further into the future and bring about the expected results. How? They are the perfect vessels to carry your ideas unquestioned. Thus, inducing the good ones becomes your responsibility.

 

In this blog, our focus is on sustainability. All of us are familiar with the term. In layman’s terms, “it is the ability to support or maintain a process continuously over time.” It means to initiate habits that will help sustain life on Earth through reducing the use, reusing the same non-biodegradables, and recycling the available resources.

 

All these concepts, if imbibed into those young minds, will change their perspective on life and its value when compared to our careless generation. We might want to do the right thing, but it will not help until the whole population thinks in the same direction. Instead, we can raise better children with an awakened conscience to protect nature. That is the only way to bring about long-term and permanent changes in our lifestyle and alter the earth’s current future course.  

 

This is a topic that must be included in your children’s curriculum as a significant and sensitive subject. Their sense of preservation and guardianship towards their place of inhabitation and also towards the future generation must be kindled. That will build the next generation of warriors defending the planet against insidious threats from the inside.

 

 

How to do it?

Let them fall in love first.

Children love to play outside. Let them play! Don’t scare them with the idea of getting infections if they play in the mud or outside in the rain. Let them get a little dirty and a little wet. Let them develop that immunity against all those pathogens. Let them fall in love first with their surrounding.

 

 

Help them understand the process of nature’s regeneration.

Teach them how life flourishes in nature. Teach them to plant saplings and nurture and nourish them. Let the kids get attached to the life they sowed. Ask them to spend time watering it daily. Bring that curiosity to plant more trees out and help them satisfy it.

 

 

Teach them about the harmful surroundings that we live in.

Tell them stories about how industrial wastes and toxins are depleting the life-sustaining resources on Earth. Tell them how man is alienating the concept of coexistence with nature through his inventions for his short-lived idea of comfort.

 

Make them aware of the importance of- man with nature, rather than- man Vs nature.

 

Reduced needs mean that reduced burden on nature to provide that extravagance to the human race. Teach them the value of being content with what nature naturally provides (e.g. organic farming) to mankind rather than trying to extract more out of it through manipulation and genetic modifications that have long-term implications.

 

This whole process will not only bring love towards nature but also to fellow beings. This will surely build grown-ups with compassion towards nature who will help life to flourish and sustain on earth for generations to come. It is a sure-shot insurance for life on earth.

 

When all this is successfully done, give them the freedom to choose that lifestyle on their own, which will guarantee an awakened conscience that is not forced by any means.

 

You are responsible for sowing the ideas, and so shall you reap.

 

Certain activities like gardening, separating non-biodegradable and biodegradable wastes, water conservation, and reducing the use of fridges, Air conditioning and other household items for luxury must be encouraged. With all these habits in place, your child will turn into that compassionate human being we all seek to become.

 

You just need to start early.

 

Before one attempts to connect to nature, they must be taught about their roots. We in India learn our love towards nature mostly through our folklore and mythology. In these texts, we learn how man coexists with nature, and how he defines nature as his extension and is equally divine that he celebrates.

 

To understand it further one must learn his mother tongue first. If, in case it is Malayalam, then it is a language with an abundance of such stories and folklore for one to explore and understand the values of nature.

 

If you are a parent who is concerned about their child’s Malayalam learning skills, then no need to brew over it. Teach your kid Malayalam through  ‘Akshharam’ an Online Malayalam Learning School. Akshharam has an efficient method of teaching so that your child can learn Malayalam effortlessly.

 

 Akshharam also conducts Malayalam language reading classes online, so that your child can learn to read well and understand the stories and folklore well on their own.

 

Sustainability is not just a practice, it is a mindset and a process leading to a drastic change. Thus, parents must induce it into their children at an early age and help them build a balanced and sustainable future.