For Sonika Bhasin, sustainability is not something she wants her children to learn from textbooks. She believes they can understand it simply by being part of everyday life.
Sonika, who runs the Instagram page @sonikabhasin, shares easy ways to live more sustainably. Her content includes composting, making bioenzymes, reducing waste, and raising children with a greater understanding of nature.
At her home in Mumbai, composting has become a part of her son’s childhood. He has been doing it since he was just two years old.
The process is easy. Kitchen waste goes into the composter, followed by a layer of what are known as browns. She uses cocopeat for this. The mixture is then covered and left to do its work.
For her son, though, composting is much more than putting food scraps into a container.
A lesson that happens naturally
Over time, he has watched the compost change and has come across maggots and grubs along the way. Instead of being taught to fear these creatures, he has learnt what they do and why they are important to nature.
“He knows the life cycle of maggots and grubs,” she says. “He knows these creatures are an essential part of our ecosystem and not to be feared.”
For children, experiences like these can make ideas about nature easier to understand. They can see that food waste does not disappear once it leaves the kitchen. It breaks down and becomes part of another cycle.
Sonika says her son has begun to understand this circularity without her having to formally teach it to him. She also sees composting as something that children can genuinely enjoy. They get to take part, watch the changes, and slowly understand what is happening around them.
For her, that is the beauty of involving children in sustainable living. It does not always need to begin with a lesson. Sometimes, it can begin with a composter at home and a child who is inquisitive enough to look inside.
