Growing Sustainable Together: Practical Resources for Raising Kind, Engaged, Resilient Children

by Shannon Brescher Shea

Overview

Tips, tools, advice, and activities for raising eco-friendly kids while nurturing compassion, resilience, and community engagement.

Drawing from cutting-edge social-science research, parent interviews, and experiential wisdom, science writer and parenting blogger Shannon Brescher Shea shows how green living and great parenting go hand in hand to teach kids kindness, compassion, resilience, and grit—all while giving them the lifelong tools they need to be successful, engaged, and independent.

Growing Sustainable Together is packed with easy tips, expert parenting advice, and practical hands-on activities for the toddler years up through the early teens. The enriching activities, resource guides, and recommended book lists in each chapter distill core sustainablility knowledge, like:

Understanding energy efficiency and renewables

Instilling anti-waste and anti-consumerist values

Learning where our food comes from

Developing a lifelong love for environmental activism, volunteering, and community engagement

The book concludes with a practical appendix that gives talking points for engaging teachers, school systems, and fellow parents in eco-friendly activities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623174712
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

SHANNON BRESCHER SHEA is devoted to telling authentic stories about green living and parenting. She writes the parenting blog We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So and is a long-standing environmental activist. After receiving a master's degree from Oxford University in Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy, she's worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Department of Energy. Shea is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, and she likes to walk the talk: She's biked from New York City to Washington D.C. to raise money for climate change advocacy, protested the Keystone XL pipeline when she was pregnant, and led family community bike rides. Shea has bylines in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, Sierra Magazine, Scary Mommy, and Romper.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Cultivating Kindness 9

2 Connecting with Our Food 19

3 What Do You Do Without a Minivan? Walking, Biking, and Public Transit 51

4 Not Your Mother's Household: Energy Efficiency, Waste Reduction, and Renewable Energy 77

5 Breaking Free of "Stuff": Rejecting Materialism 107

6 Getting Dirty While Doing Good: Environmental Volunteerism 135

7 Listen to the Children: Engaging in Environmental Activism 163

8 Envisioning a Sustainable Future 191

Appendix, Organizing Environmental Activities at Your Child's School 211

Bibliography 219

Acknowledgments 237

Index 239

About the Author 249

Editorial Reviews

This is an important book, in content and in tone. Too often, sustainability is seen as energy-efficiency, as a technical task with a slightly punitive tone. Shannon Brescher Shea takes an entirely different approach. She shows how family members can grow closer to each other by becoming closer to the Earth. I can imagine thousands of parents, grandparents, and kids following her wise words.” 
—Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and Our Wild Calling
 
“Growing Sustainable Together offers modern parents a plethora of realistic ideas for engaging their children in activities and family habits that will sustain the environment. From gardening, recycling and picking up litter to eschewing a car and overload of material possessions, author Shannon Brescher Shea shows how our everyday choices can help protect our planet. This readable, persuasive and accessible book will inspire both parents new to environmental action and long-time activists struggling to continue sustainable practices post-baby. If you want to raise justice-seeking, responsible, green-minded children, Growing Sustainable Together is the guide for you. An exciting, research-grounded book for environmentally oriented parents!”
—Katherine Reynolds Lewis, author of The Good News About Bad Behavior

From the Publisher