#7 Step-by-step with our children

Meet Katrin Dreiling, a Queensland illustrator, our blogger for a new family-friendly page, katrin’s klimate kids korner ... coming soon!!!

My name is Katrin and I am a kid-lit creator, born and bred in Germany, and relocated to Australia with my family about 16 years ago. In my work as a children’s books illustrator, I often try to achieve a conversation or a a certain emotion on the topic of environmental issues.

News coverage on our bush fires left me feeling powerless and sad. Was it too late already? Of course, I wanted to help, too, but the reality that hit, and I have been trying to teach my children more than ever is this: donations and fundraisers are wonderful and yes, we should all join. BUT long after the fires are out, we need to become more climate active … and in our own families to live sustainably. Every day. Not just in times of crisis.

However, these days I feel that we must speak to people more directly.  We even need to seek conversation with those who don’t want to listen, because … we are simply running out of time. What we have done so far in our small radius was not enough, quite frankly.

In katrin’s klimate kids’ korner, I will share with you our family’s modest attempts of living sustainably, and about teaching my three children. Truth be told, I make eco mistakes like any other and would not call myself an expert. Sometimes I drive my three children to school when they could well walk the distance. But I want to improve. Step-by-step … NOW is the time!

And if we can create a community base on this thinking we are not powerless anymore.

What if every month we could together lead by example with only a little habit, and tell someone about it? What if our actions had a snowball effect?

Let’s start from scratch again. Step-by-step with our children. Little things can make a huge impact if only more of us did it every day. And there is absolutely nothing hysterical about this.

The idea is to introduce one little habit on our kkkk page once a month. A habit we can all easily incorporate into our daily lives and tell our children about. If you already have other sustainable habits going on at home – even better!

These posts will be short and snappy so you can quickly read and tell your children or even let them read themselves. You will also find a reward chart in katrin’s klimate kids korner to download and print out to make it more fun.

To spread the word even quicker there will be extra awesome points for telling someone new about this month’s habit or for taking the chart to school, kindy or work for others to join in.

Remember, the aim is not only to do one of these ‘green actions’ but to regularly do them and to spread the word. Sometimes we forget or we need to remind others but that’s ok. It’s all about progress, not perfection.
Katrin x