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Whether you're a diehard recycler who shops with canvas bags and keeps a compost bin in the corner of your backyard, or a busy parent looking for some quick tips on sorting glass from plastic, it's easy to get your family on the path to greener living.

But the best earth-friendly practices require the cooperation of everyone in the household. So, how do parents get kids to reduce, reuse, and recycle and embrace the other basics of environmental responsibility?

As with most good habits, the best way to teach them is to be a good role model yourself. By showing that you care about and respect the environment, your kids will do the same.

It's a Family Affair

Here are some suggestions you can try as a family:

• Teach respect for the outdoors. This can start in your own backyard. Help kids plant a garden or tree. Set up bird feeders, a birdbath, and birdhouses. Kids can clean out and refill the bath daily, and clean up seed debris around feeders and restock them.
  
  On a larger scale, you can plan family vacations that focus on the great outdoors. Maybe a summer trip to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park appeals to your adventurous clan. Shorter trips might include a day at a state or national park. Even a couple days at the beach can offer plenty of opportunities for you to point out and discuss the plants and animals you see and why it's important to protect their habitats.
• Recycle. Recycling is easy, and in some communities, mandatory. Check with your local recycling office and be sure you know all the rules. Some communities allow co-mingling ― all recyclables can be placed in one container ― while others require sorting into separate containers. You may need bins for each type of recyclable: One for plastic, one for glass, one for paper, and one for cans. Kids can sort (and rinse, if necessary) items, place them in the correct bins, and take the containers out to the curb for collection. After the bins have been emptied, ask your kids to rinse them out (if they're dirty) and bring them back into the house or garage.
• Drink your own water. Bottled water is expensive and, experts say, not any cleaner or safer than tap water. In fact, much bottled water is actually tap water that has been filtered. The water that comes out of home spigots in the United States is extremely safe. Municipal water supplies are monitored constantly and the test results made public. And unless they're recycled, the plastic bottles ― most commonly made from polyethylene terepthalate (PET), which is derived from crude oil ― can end up in landfills. So have your kids tote water from the tap (you can add a filter to improve its taste) in reusable bottles.
• Clean green. Many natural products can replace commercial — and possibly hazardous — cleaning preparations. Just a few examples: to deodorize carpets, sprinkle them with baking soda, wait 15 minutes and then vacuum; use vinegar and baking soda for everything from oven cleaning and drain clearing to stain removal and metal polishing. Lots of websites offer green cleaning tips, and many stores carry pre-made nontoxic cleaners for those who don't want to make their own.
• Lend a hand. Many communities sponsor green activities, like pitching in to help clean up a local park or playground. Maybe the area around your child's school could use sprucing up.

Getting Kids to "Go Green"

In their own day-to-day activities, encourage kids to find ways to limit waste, cut down on electricity, avoid unnecessary purchases, and reuse items that they already have. Here's how:

• Conserve energy. Remind kids to turn off lights when they're not in use, power down computers, turn off the TV when nobody's watching, and resist lingering in front of the refrigerator with the door open.
• Hoof it. If kids can safely ride a bike or walk to school or to visit friends rather than catch a ride from parents, encourage it! Or if safety is a concern, consider organizing a "walking school bus" ― this activity allows kids to walk or bike to and from school under the supervision of an adult.
• Let there be (more) light. Older kids can help replace regular light bulbs with energy-efficient ones. Compact fluorescent light bulbs provide about the same light output as incandescent bulbs, but last much longer and use a fraction of the energy.
• Reuse and recharge. Buy rechargeable batteries for your kids' electronics and toys and teach them how to care for and recharge them. This reduces garbage and keeps toxic metals, like mercury, out of landfills.
• Pass it on. Ask kids to gather toys, books, clothes, and other goods that they no longer use or want for donation to local charities. Have them ride along for the drop-off so they can see how groups such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army use donations to help others.

These tips are just some ways to get your family to become more earth-friendly. Once you get everyone on board with conservation, challenge your kids to come up with new and interesting ways of going green.

Can your grade-schoolers cut back on the amount of paper they print from the Internet? How about your teens: Can they agree to take shorter showers?

Engaging your kids in this way will get them to start thinking about how their individual efforts affect the world they live in, and how little changes can ― and will ― make a difference.

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: January 2012

5 Things to Ask Your Toddler (When You Need a Good Laugh)

Posted by Jacqueline Burt 

on January 10, 2012 at 6:07 PM

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Kids of pretty much any age make great conversationalists, but toddlers have the most entertaining things to say, hands-down. Forced to choose between chatting it up with a roomful of well-informed, wine-drinking grown-ups and the milk-drinking, crayon-wielding 3-year-old sitting at a table in the corner, I'll pick the kid with the coloring book every time.

Out of the mouths of babes, as the expression goes.

I miss the funny, meandering talks I used to have with my kids when they were toddlers. Of course I love talking to them now, too, but thoselittle kid quotables are beyond priceless. Completely hilarious. And believe it or not, you can actually learn a thing or two from a 2 or 3-year-old.

You just have to know the right questions to ask ...

1.What If? The point here is to kickstart the imagination, but you don't want to stray too far into fantasy land -- responses rooted in reality require more thought. (And it's cute to watch toddlers think.)

Examples: What would you do if you had a penguin/lion/alligator for a pet? or What would it be like if all we had to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches?

2. That's Silly! This is a good one to pull out when you're stuck in a tantrum-inducing situation, like waiting in a long line at the store or sitting in an airplane that's stuck on the runway.

Examples: How about if I take off my shoes and put yours on instead? or What did we put in our grocery cart -- did we put puppy dogs in there? Did we put tractor trailers in there? Did we put Cookie Monster in there?

Be sure to remain unconvinced for a good long time. ("I don't know, those look like puppy dogs to me." "No, they're bananas!")

3. Really?? Only to be attempted around good friends and family who won't be offended, this one puts another adult on the spot (the kid won't be any the wiser, don't worry).

Example: Do you like Grandma's new "friend" Barry? Yeah? What do you think they do together, do they go to the park? Do they ... watch Dora the Explorer? Do they play with Play-Dough?

4. Seriously, what do you think? Sometimes you need a little perspective on a bigger issue, maybe which car to buy or job offer to accept. And kids make surprisingly good points (probably because they've got their priorities straight).

Example: Hmm, should Daddy work for the nice man who gives him a little bit of money but a lot of time to play with you or the kind of nice man who gives him a lot of money to buy you toys but only a little bit of time to play with you?

5. Can I get away with this outfit? You'll never find a more honest opinion on what you're wearing than that of a toddler (beware, you might end up wearing sparkles or pictures of turtles).

Example: Do Mommy's red shoes make you think of pretty dancing slippers or funny circus clown feet?

What questions do you love asking your toddler? What were some of your favorite answers

For more information please contact us

Improving the quality of early 

education is VITAL

January 8, 2012

OPINION

Giving children a good start has lasting benefits. Photo: Phil Carrick

THERE is a famous maxim, attributed to the Jesuits, that says: ''Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.'' While it's usually taken to refer to the lasting effects of moral and religious instruction on the very young, an increasing body of evidence suggests that it applies equally well to their academic and social development.

Those words, in fact, introduce a 1994 study into early education, a study that went on to conclude that what happens to a child before he or she reaches primary school plays a major role in their life. ''Good preschool education,'' it found, ''leads to immediate and lasting social and educational benefits for all children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.'' In the US, for instance, poorer children who attended preschool were twice as likely to grow up to hold full-time jobs as those who did not.

Those findings were reinforced recently by the EPPE report, Europe's largest longitudinal study of preschoolers, which also found that not all early education was equal, and that benefits were derived most in high-quality environments. Among the hallmarks of such environments were the presence of well-trained staff, and activities that could traditionally be described as ''teaching''.

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For more information on The VITAL YEARS Early English Literacy Programme please contact us or visit our website.

January 2, 2012, 11:17 AM

New Year’s Resolutions to Parent By

By KJ DELL’ANTONIA

Either you’re the kind of person who makes New Year’s resolutions or you’re not. I most emphatically am and a few of my resolutions are very specific to me as a parent. I’ve made the whole idea of “the parent we want to be” versus the “parent we actually are” something of a meme for Motherlode in part because for me, there’s often such a huge gap between the two.

This January, I’m seizing the opportunity to work on three things that I’ve realized are eating away at the amount of pleasure I get out of being with my family. My resolutions are easy — easy to remember, at least. This year, I’m going to “clean it, own it and enjoy it.” What do I mean by my cute, shorthand phrase?

Clean It

This is the most pragmatic of my three resolutions. A few weeks ago, my mother said about a friend of mine, “She’s always nagging at her kids to clean up, but then you go into her kitchen and there are just stacks and piles of things falling all over everything.”

Busted. As it happens, mom wasn’t talking about me (I don’t think). But she had my number just the same. I can’t count how often I’ve come roaring through the living room, gathering up books and toys and hollering at my children that if their stuff meant anything to them, they would surely put it away, while conveniently ignoring the piles on the floor of my office and bedroom. I value the new bag my mother gave me for Christmas, even though it’s sitting on top of the pile of empty lunch boxes in the bin in the kitchen and not tucked away neatly in my closet. But you wouldn’t know by looking at it and apparently if my children are going by my example, they don’t know it either. There have been (a few) times in my life when there’s been a place for everything and everything has been in its place. I’m determined to make 2012 one of those. Then I will go back to scolding my children to clean up their mess.

Own It

This is a simple phrase for a complicated resolution. Too often, I find myself making excuses for doing the things I love to do and excuses, again, for not doing the things that really don’t interest me. I downplay the giant gingerbread house I made with my children (we’re still working on it), insisting that it was all my oldest’s idea and that I’m only doing it for them, when really I love to build and bake. Why shouldn’t we make a gingerbread train and depot, even if the results look more like something from outside London in 1945 than the picture on the pattern we downloaded from Ultimate Gingerbread? It doesn’t make me Martha Stewart but it makes me happy and it’s fun.

But as for that African dance demonstration for children at the college? Or the board of the preschool or the new book club? No thanks. It’s not that I don’t have time. I’ve got time to make maple syrup and bring home not just a new kitten, but the poodle friend who lives with her and who needs a home as well. As my friend Laura Vanderkam wrote in her book, “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think,” there is time for everything that matters. It’s just that for me, those things don’t. You expose your children to African drummers and I will expose mine to royal icing and we will both be happy. We all have to do things we don’t want to do sometimes and we can’t always do just what we want. But when I can, I’m going to do what I love. No excuses, no regrets.

Enjoy It

I admit it, I’ve made this last resolution for years. I’ve made it at every fresh start, with the arrival of every child and with every one of the various events throughout any year that remind me that life is short and childhood is even shorter. In 2012, I’m going to “be here now.” I’m going to take a deep breath when we run crazy late for hockey practice and remember that it’s not the destination that matters but the way we make the trip — which won’t take any more time if I do it without slamming doors or even speeding down the driveway.

If I’m honest, most of the time, I still won’t take that deep breath. I’ll still get too frustrated with the child whose willful refusal to put her boots on (combined with my refusal to leave a child that young at home alone) created the late departure and all the tension that came with it. But in 2012, again, I’ll try. I’ll try to laugh at the spilled milk and the torn coat and the marker that went right through the paper onto the table or at the very least, not let those little things color a whole afternoon.

And those are my personal resolutions as a parent for 2012. I could make more (and maybe I should make more), but for now, those are what I’ve got. How about you? Will you make resolutions to change as a parent this year? Or are you resolved to ignore the ritual entirely?

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Attention parents! here's a taste of what to expect to see coming to your Vital Years Centre over the next 6 months! enjoy... any enquiries please contact us.

Amazing Kid Inventions!

kidshealthtips Maggie LaBarbera RN 

Babies, broccoli and carrots. New research "Babies are smarter than you think": ow.ly/76xzq via @CNN

ParenThots: Why you should be coaching your kids

parenthots.com

Coaching your kids is the way to go. It will empower them and help them learn to problem-solve. Find out why you should coach your kids, and how to go about it.

Evian roller babies soooo cute.....
Worth watching for a laugh!
view video>>>

Why nagging your kids to eat their greens is counterproductive........
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047534/Why-nagging-kids-eat-greens-counterproductive-claims-study.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Expert advice on finding me time when you're a parent, from ParentsConnect. http://at.nick.com

A perfect example of how children can learn using interactive technology...

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