Green Parenting Challenge

I'm starting a new campaign called:

Used is Cool for Back to School!

I refuse to blindly buy the items on my child's teacher's supply list. This has gone on for too long and we must STOP the madness!!!

Let's face it, many of us are trying to break our consumer habits. Whether we're doing it to save green $$ or be green shopping habits are hard to break.
And we're teaching our kids the same bad habits. Buying them things they don't really need... Maybe even charging them!

It's time to stand up to the peer pressure, and the advertising. It's time to tell our kids:

Used is Cool for Back to School!

My children and I will spend a few hours going through their rooms and their past four or six pencil boxes (or zippered pouches).

We will locate perfectly fine scissors, rulers, glue sticks, pink pals, and calculators... And put them in one of the least worn pencil boxes or zippered pouches.

We will re-sharpen the pencils with intact erasers and we WILL use the fancy decorative pencils they got from the Easter Bunny, Cinco de Mayo Pinata, and yes, as reading prizes from last year!!

We will rip out the 17-used pages from those 80 sheet spiral notebooks and recycle them. Then we will proudly put the notebook, with its remaining paper, into the backpack!!
(Put a blank mailing label over their messy fourth-grade writing and let your child re-label it with their fifth grade hand.)

We will only buy what we ACTUALLY need.

Obviously kids grow over the summer and will want and need some new clothes (even this is debatable, and it's worth a look-see at your local used clothing store).
They may actually need a new backpack or lunch pail if they were rough on the last one... But let's all try to limit ourselves to buying only what they really need.


Are you with me? Spread the word...

Used is Cool for Back to School!