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I can’t tell you how often I have heard someone say “teach the kids, and they will go home and teach the parents.”
Others often support the statement with nods and expressions of agreement. “Yes, it is the best way to reach the parents,” someone will almost always add, to back the point up.
And often someone else will describe a time they were about to throw a can in the garbage, and “my granddaughter said ‘Grandpa, you don’t put the can in the trash, it goes into the recycling.'”
There are many cute anecdotes about kids teaching adults. While children can raise awareness in grown-ups, but they don’t have much effect on adult behaviour. Grandpa may have learned he should recycle cans, but it doesn’t mean he will.
Effective Behaviour Change programs are designed to have direct contact with people. During those contacts, we dispel myths, remove barriers and seek commitments. No child coming home from school has the knowledge and training that is required to foster effective Behaviour Change.
Does that mean that it is a waste of time to teach kids about environmental programs in schools? Not at all. It is critical to teach children about taking action to protect the environment, as they are the future and have a whole lifetime of opportunity to protect our planet. I have spoken at schools often over 30 years, and have designed and developed school education programs and materials. We encourage education in the schools as part of environmental program promotion. And sure, they may convince a few parents and grandparents. If they do, that is a bonus.
If your goal is to change the behaviour of adults, you have to target the adults directly. No matter how cute the anecdotal evidence may be.
Beyond Attitude Consulting acknowledges we operate in Mi’kma’ki – the unceded territory and ancestral homeland of the Mi’kmaq First Nation. Our relationship is based on a series of Peace and Friendship treaties between the Mi’kmaq First Nation and the Crown, dating from 1725 to 1779. In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada, in R v Marshall, upheld the 1752 treaty “which promised Indigenous Peoples the right to hunt and fish their lands and establish trade.”
We also acknowledge that we work and play in many unceded territories and ancestral homelands of Indigenous Peoples across North America, and respect the rights and traditions of the many First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples therein.
We are all Treaty People.