TEACH THEM WELL AND LET THEM LEAD THE WAY

I might have you now singing this gorgeous song from Whitney Houston in your head for a week. As parents, educating our little ones on our values is key. Reading, eating healthy, connecting with Nature, shopping only what we need, sharing,  enjoying time with friends and family are all part of our personal philosophy. Today, with the fast-paced times we live in, demanding jobs, and the current post-Covid social awkwardness it might seem difficult to achieve just to breathe, slow down, be thankful and keep working. But that might just be the most important thing to teach our children.

Our values reflect our sense of right and wrong. They help us grow and create the future we want. The decisions we make every day are a reflection of our values. Being a social entrepreneur and sustainable fashion activist, for me, it is very important to share with my 4-year-old daughter my beliefs. We love spending time together, cooking, playing, and singing. I can see how she is a little sponge getting the best and the worst from everyone around. 

I found a way to help her understand better how it is important to recycle nowadays. In fashion, the recycling percentage is really low. Take the USA, only 13% of the textiles get to be recycled. The rest ends up in landfills or burnt to generate energy (and pollution), according to the EPA-the United States Environmental Protection Agency. When I started digging more about fast fashion, how terrible is for our environment and how unfair can it be for the garment workers, I decided to start Goshopia. The name is coming from Go+ Shop+ Utopia. It might be utopic but I want to create a space where you can go shopping and have a positive impact. In this mission, I put all my effort and love.

I wanted to share with other families how we are slowly introducing how to segregate the garbage and place it in the right bin. At home, we have some recycling containers from Ikea. They are stackable and we gave each of them a number. 1 is paper, 2 is plastic and 3 is everything else recyclable. Gamification is a great way to make recycling fun. Every time we have some packaging, she will bring it to our attention and guess the bin number. A little bit of reinforcement (Good job!) works wonders for our Alegria. With the plastics, she now knows they need to be cleaned before going into the bin. She loves doing the dishes, so she jumps over her little stool and cleans her Yakult bottles. 

We also get to read her the books of the EcoHeroes. She still doesn’t know how to read, and some concepts are too advanced for a 4-year-old but she likes the images and it helps her follow the story. The fact that the main characters are children is very powerful. I cherish every single eco-gesture and I can see in her a future EcoHeroine!