Turn off or pay up! How to raise energy-conscious kids

Saving energy, one room at a time

Kids are full of questions about how their world works; like why the sky is blue and what makes the garden grow? Use their innate curiosity and their natural desire to please you when they are still young (you know, before those pesky rebellious teen years) to instill an eco-friendly, energy-conscious mindset in their heads, and you might be able to curb their electricity use and, certainly, their energy abuse.

Rewards vs. penalties

Reward good electricity use versus penalizing energy abuse. Some parents prefer to deduct an amount from a child’s allowance every week, throw a nickel in the “energy jar,” or take away time from the electrical appliance that was left on, like the television. But rewarding good behavior can be far more effective than punishing bad behavior. Respond to your child for doing something good, like closing the door when the air conditioning is on or putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat. An acknowledgement of this behavior is likely to go a long way and he’ll be sure to remember to repeat this act again if he knows you noticed it.

Be an expert

Explain, explain, explain and then explain some more. When you leave a room, emphasize that you turn off lights to save energy. When you shop for new appliances, ask your kids to help you look for ones that have the Energy Star logo and talk about why that’s important. Look for ways to explain why energy consumption isn’t just important to your family, but that your family’s conservation of energy helps other families, which in turn helps the planet. Your model is the most important factor in getting your kids to follow suit. But the more things you stress, the more questions their curious brains will have. You’ll need to know your stuff!

Make a connection

Devise some fun electricity-use conservation tricks that specifically relate to your kids. If your kids can tie conservation to their everyday lives, it will be easier for them to remember to do it. Ask them to police their own areas for energy waste. Instead of hounding them about turning out their lights, make them the captain of their room’s electricity,putting them in charge of seeing to it that no energy is wasted in there. They’ll be far more likely to be conscious of turning out the light. As they show they are responsible in their own area, show your pride in their accomplishment by assigning them more responsibility, like the hall or the living room.

Brainstorm as a family

There are many ways that you can curb electricity use. Involving everyone in the mission to find solutions helps children feel invested in the problem, making them less likely to waste energy. Sit down and look for solutions like the following:

Energy-efficient light bulbs

If every family replaced even one light bulb in their home with a compact fluorescent bulb, enough energy would be saved to light 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million dollars in annual energy costs would be saved, and we could prevent the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to more than 800,000 cars. These new bulbs use about 75% less energy than a typical light bulb and they last 10 times longer.

Energy-efficient night lights

Electroluminescent lights, which use phosphor particles that light up when they are excited by the electrical field generated by applying AC power received from an outlet, provide adequate light to reach the bathroom at night, and don’t cause night blindness. They cost pennies a year (about three cents!) and they are even available in kid-themed designs.

Thermostat settings

By setting your thermostat during the day at 68 degrees in the winter and 78 degrees in the summer and lowering the temperature 10-15% at night in the winter, you can save 10% on your heating/cooling bill. Using your air conditioner only on the hottest days will save you more.
Avoiding the abuse of electricity use can be a challenge. The trick is to teach kids that electricity is a part of the intricate web of services that we rely on that cost money and that we can conserve, not only to save money but to save the environment. Teaching kids to appreciate those concepts can be a challenge, but it can be done.
Resources :
http://www.energystar.gov

http://www.eere.energy.gov

http://www.limelite.com