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

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.

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.