Green Options

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This post reflects on the third week of my seven-part “Healthy Children, Healthy Planet” curriculum, a fantastic discussion group by the Northwest Earth Institute.

40,000 television commercials a year. That’s what the average American child sees. That’s around 100 ads for every 4 hours of television.

What’s that, you say? No TV in your house? Oh, but your kids will still see plenty of ads. There’s online adver-gaming. There are ads on school buses. Ads in the classroom. There’s product placement in movies. Not to mention billboards, posters, textbook covers, …it’s all fair game.

Week 3 of the Healthy Children, Healthy Planet series, the 7-part parenting discussion course from the Northwest Earth Institute, was all about ads. Namely, the pervasiveness of ads in our children’s lives, and whether it is even possible to create ad-free spaces in their lives.

What’s clear is that advertising is different in both quantity and quality than it’s ever been before. The amount of money spent on marketing to children — $2 billion annually — is close to 10 times greater than it was even in 1990. And the nature of it has changed, too — mostly, because there’s no place safe from it. Not schools. Not movies. Not even your daughter’s sleepover party.

Even our littlest crafters deserve hip eco-friendly clothing, and that is exactly what you will find at Sweet Pepita. This green crafter extraordinaire dropped her metalsmithing tools for a sewing machine after the birth of her daughter Pepita, in an effort to make environmentally conscious and Pepita friendly clothing.

She now makes the coolest hand sewn toddler t-shirts (and pixie hats) made from 100% organic cotton and recycled fabric. Have an old Poison t-shirt [...]

Um. Look I don’t want to be an alarmist or anything. But. Um.

See, I’ve got kids? And, see…they’re kind of…energetic enough? I mean really, truly. Spend five seconds in my house and you will see: they are doing just fine bouncing off the walls of their own accord. So, I’ll thank the world for not encouraging them to bounce off the ceiling, as well.

Oh, but I can‘t thank the world, because apparently the world is instead choosing to fill them with caffeine when I’m not around.

As this great article from Metroactive explains, “these days, constraints on caffeine consumption for kids and young teens are nonexistent. Kids are having caffeine early and often.” It’s not just in their drinks, apparently. Candy bars? Increasingly filled with the stuff.

I made the decision over the holidays to spend part of my child’s gift money on activities instead of toys or tangible goods. As I watch her each weekend taking gymnastics or learning to swim, I know I made the right choice for several reasons.

For one, these activities will help build coordination and strength as well as help foster a lifetime love of fitness. Second, the gift is an experience and not a material good. Arguably, experience is often the greatest gift we can give to our children, often holding more lasting value than just another toy or consumer good. In fact, it is just this kind of parental encouragement or “belief” that can be a much more powerful influence on our children’s level of activity than even role modeling.

In a study done by SpencerHall in 2003, mothers of children whose activity levels ranged from low to high were interviewed in order to better understand the relationship between the mothers’ attitudes toward physical activity and the activity level of their children. (After the jump, study results and four ways to encourage your child’s healthy activity level).

The best way to find out how important the environment is to Korean youths, I thought, is to ask them. Luckily, I happen to know a number of Korean youths: they’re my English students. Ah! A captive audience.

So, I handed out strips of paper to each student and asked them to anonymously mark the answer choice that they agreed with. On the paper were three lines:

• Protecting the environment is very important to me.
• Protecting the environment is a little bit important to me.
• Protecting the environment is not important to me.

Today’s guest blogger is Environmental Defense scientist Tim Fitzgerald.

Last month’s New York Times report on high mercury levels in tuna sushi was certainly cause for concern for serious sushi lovers. (See my previous post Plenty of Safe, Eco-Friendly Fish in the Sea.)

The report might have also made many parents uneasy about the ubiquitous tuna sandwich in their kids’ lunch boxes. Many of us rely on canned tuna for a wholesome, high-protein meal. Once considered a “nuisance food” or “pauper’s food,” today almost half of all American households serve canned tuna monthly. Only shrimp surpasses canned tuna as Americans’ favorite seafood. But does this beloved fish in a can deliver a helping of toxic mercury, too?

One of the things I’m enjoying most about being an author, is the chance to go new places, meet inspiring people and make new connections. I recently had the pleasure of meeting the folks from Green Options Media at the Green Festival in San Francisco.

I’m thrilled to be asked to be a regular blogger here at Eco Child’s Play. I want to tell you a bit about myself and what I hope to contribute here. [...]

When choosing Christmas gifts for your eco-child, check out the extensive collection of DIY kits for children. Kids can benefit from creative construction–they develop their fine motor skills, their creativity, and their ability to follow written directions. Plus, it’s just downright fun to make stuff and the sense of accomplishment that comes from making an actual functional item is addictive (just ask crafters!). I focused on kits that had some kind of eco or environmental spin, and all are available online.

1. Glee Gum has three DIY kits featuring edible projects: chewing gum, chocolate, and gummies. The kits come with all the ingredients necessary to create these treats, along with information on how those items are produced. For example, how do chicleros gather chicle in the rainforest? Actually, it’s quite sustainable. But you can find all that information on the origins of our favorite sweets in these kits. $13 each.

It might be the biggest cliche about Christmas for a kid: coming down the stairs on Christmas morning to find a shiny new bicycle. I can think of worse things to buy your kid than a mode of transportation that uses no fossil fuels. Biking is a lifelong activity that takes place in the great outdoors, is good for your health and good for the planet. However, buying a child’s bike can be a lot more difficult than an adult’s, mainly because there are many more low-quality bikes out there, sold by people who don’t really know a lot about bikes. And how do you teach your kid the rules of the road so they can grow to become responsible adult cyclists? Here’s a few resources to answer questions you may have about your child and biking.

The International Biking Fund is a wonderful resource for information on cycling in general, and that means children’s cycling, too. I don’t think I could give you better advice on the ins and outs of buying a bicycle for a child of any age. They have a guide for sizing a bike and what to look for when purchasing a bike for you kid. Once you know what you are looking for, don’t be afraid to check out Gigoit, Craigslist, or Freecycle for used bikes that meet the specifications you are looking for.

“35 percent of toys contain lead”

“Testers bought most popular children’s products at major retail dealers.”

The headlines from an Associated Press story out of Detroit, on the results of tests performed by the Michigan-based Ecology Center, along with the national Center for Health, Environment and Justice, and groups in eight other states.

What’s a parent to do? Of the more than 1,200 children’s products tested, 35 percent contained lead, while only 20 percent of the [...]

As my 4-year-old son starts his first year of preschool this month, my concerns for him have entered a whole new realm. School means new friends and new experiences, which are great. But it also means exposure to new habits, preferences and ideas that aren’t always good for him. Some kids might bring in lunches heavy in junk food, which I try not to feed my son. Some might be obsessed with

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