My husband and I tried to raise green kids. We birthed most of them at home. We chose for me to nurse them into toddlerhood. We joined a community based agriculture farm to feed them. We taught them about edible “weeds” before they could even spell.

Our kids learned about clay, paint, and crayons rather than about games fueled by batteries or worse. They literally napped on sheepskins, had “dolls” made of cotton and batting, and were granted full permission to dig as many holes in our backyard as they fancied.

We carried them around in a sling, bought them herbal soaps, and took the door off of one of the closets in their shared room so that they could have a secure “reading corner,” complete with a bean bag chair. Our children, when young, befriended alpacas, sheep, dogs and cats, became skilled at how to gingerly handle lady bugs, and could espouse, to any willing listener, the virtues of earthworms.

Time passed. We intentionally moved into a community that was less about recycling and more about religion (we found that the two world views often intersect). Whereas the kids gained lots of knowledge about faith and about its mundane manifestations, such as prayer, in their second community, they also were exposed, regularly, to white flour and candy. At least, our “granola” lifestyle and our spiritual one both eschewed television.

More time passed. We moved again, this time across a vast geography. This third metamorphosis had us ferrying teens and preteens. That is, our most recent relocation found my husband and I transporting family members who correctly insisted on co-regulating their lives.

Teens must build autonomy from their primary care providers. This improvement can be actualized in many healthy ways. Increased independence can take the form, for instance, of kids making individual choices about health and beauty aids and about eating habits. Keep in mind that teens are not overgrown, fickle children as much as they are youth experimenting with life’s possibilities.

In our home, more specifically, that meant that when our oldest daughter asked, politely, if I would buy a third generation shampoo-conditioner mixture, marketed by a conglomerate rather than our regular herbal hair care, instead of referring her to the ingredients on the back of the bottle, I put the item in our shopping cart. She graciously pointed out to me, thereafter, that the two-in-one liquid would save her time and space.

Similarly, her younger sister asked me to add yogurt topped with chocolate sprinkles to the shopping list. When this daughter told me that the sugary stuff was the only form of fermented milk that she would imbibe, I complied.

Meanwhile, our youngest son remains convinced that violent games, which come with the children’s computer’s software, are among the best of available pastimes. My oldest son has begun to obsess about expensive, late model cars. Neither my husband nor I have encouraged those values nor have we forbid our boys to research them.

As parents, we are trying to “pick our fights.” We believe that shampoos, yoghurt, and free-time activities are not really worth going head-to-head over.

Part of the work of adolescents is figuring out personal standards. While our oldest has remained a vegetarian for more than five years, others of her siblings have gone through temporary stages, including: parting with favorite childhood objects (which I, fortunately, saved for the time when the child wanted them back again), wanting to own a desert island, needing to collects LOTS of ear rings, and much more.

Though I wish our kids would consistently embrace a healthier way of life than the one offered up by most of the influences within their spheres, I know that at this point, it is better for me to do than to say. Testing and rejecting is part of teens’ growth. For now, my husband and I have to put our efforts into less overtly green parenting.

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