How to Teach Kids About Pests

One of the best parts of being a parent or guardian is teaching your children about the big wonderful world that we live in. Most topics can be approached in a hands-on approach, which is extremely beneficial to a child’s cognitive and motor development. When it comes to insects and pests of all kinds, there seems to be a divide in children’s draw to the subject, depending on the personality. Some become obsessed with insects and excitedly bring any creepy-crawlie they find to their less enthusiastic parents, while others scream and run away from the smallest critter they find outside. So it is up to you as the parent or guardian as to which way is the best to teach your children about insects. Let’s look at some ideas for teaching methods and basic principles to remember when showing kids the wild world of insects. 

Fun Activities 

As stated earlier, one of the best and most focused ways to teach children is for them to get their hands dirty, sometimes literally. In the golden age of technology and accessibility, an infinite amount of teaching resources and activities are readily available online. You can research anything from a very specific insect, like Carpet Beetles, to a broad family, like ants. 

One great resource that has a million and one activities to teach children of all ages about insects is https://www.pestworldforkids.org/ (not sponsored), which has interactive games, craft instructions, and printable word puzzles. Sometimes, an interest begins with the smallest activity that focus on a topic. A child making a set of ladybug wings out of construction paper and string may develop a fascination with those very insects. 

Here are a few specific activity and topic ideas to get you started on this fun learning journey. Feel free to alter the depth and delivery of each one for the age and learning style of your child.

• Create an insect journal where your child records all of the different pests they find. They can include drawings, facts, and observations if they want to make a more detailed log.
• Check out insect-related books from the library or a local bookstore (more to come on this!)
• Research any insects found around the home. Look up facts like its diet, habitat, and defense mechanisms. 
• If you find a bee or butterfly on a flower, gather your children (at a respectful distance) to watch it work. It’s fascinating to see these beneficial insects pollinate!
• Lift up rocks and logs in the yard or the park to see what insects are underneath
• Have your child spray plants with a hose or a watering can while teaching them about how it helps the plants and prevents harmful insects from eating them
• Draw or color a cartoon insect and talk about what kind it is, how many legs it has, etc.
• Mold a model of an insect out of clay or safe-to-eat modeling dough

There are many more activities you can do with materials around your house, but hopefully these ideas will get you started!

Insects to Focus On

Learning about any type of pest is a valuable and educational experience, so it doesn’t really matter where you start when you teach your little ones about insects. It may help to divide them into two camps: beneficial and harmful insects. There are many more specific subgroups you can use, but these are easy starting points. 

Beneficial insects are the ones that aid us by helping our plants and crops. Many of them eat smaller, more harmful pests that damage our greenery. Ladybugs eat aphids, praying mantids eat crickets and grasshoppers, and dragonflies eat flies and mosquitoes. They eat other insects too, but these are the most common and easiest to explain. Pollinators – like bees, butterflies, and soldier beetles – are also important to talk about. Since they collect pollen and nectar to keep the plants healthy and produce organic material for us, like honey, we want to keep them alive to the best of our abilities. You could talk about the food chain and how  larger insects help us by eating smaller ones. It can be beneficial to focus on the importance of these insects in the ecosystem, and how we should leave them be if we find them outside. If they mistakenly come inside your home, you can make a spontaneous lesson out of it and carry it outside with your child to set it free.

On the other hand, harmful insects are not our friends, and children will learn this very quickly in some cases. Slugs and potato beetles are interesting to look at, but they are very harmful to our plants and flowers. They eat through the leaves and roots, rendering the plants defenseless. These insects aren’t harmful to touch, so your children won’t be hurt if they decide to poke them, as kids do. Potato bugs may bite, but only if they are feeling very threatened. Conversely, other harmful pests should be emphasized as ones for your children to avoid. Black widow spiders, fire ants, and wasps are some of the most common dangerous pests that are found in the yard. It is important to show your children what these insects/arachnids look like, and why they should avoid these. Wasp stings and fire ant bites are very painful, and could have potential medical effects if there are enough of them or if there is an allergic reaction. A black widow bite contains deadly venom that can have serious consequences if it goes unchecked. If you believe your child has been bitten, please seek medical attention immediately, and instruct them to tell you if they are ever bitten. 

Books

Books are some of the most impactful and focused educational tools, and insect books have a wide range to include all ages, common insects, and reading levels. A trip to your local library or bookstore might be a fun field trip idea in your insect instruction. Search for pest-related books with your children and ask them which ones interest them the most. One dependable series of books are the National Geographic children’s books that have plenty of clear pictures and reliable facts to teach your kids about the insects and critters of our world. They are also found at basically all bookstores and libraries. Another fun series of books is the Are You A… series by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries, like Are You a Butterfly?. This interesting series takes the insect in its title and takes a closer, beautifully illustrated look at it. Books are the gateway to a lifetime of wonder and learning, and that applies to the world of insects as well.

Principles to Remember

While the details and extensiveness of the insect lessons are up to you, there are a few basic stepping stones you can use to get started on teaching your children. These also serve as basic safety rules when it comes to insects. Principles can open up a time for questions from the kids, since they will likely want to know more about these general facts and values.

• If an insect is making a strange or scary sound, it is telling you to stay away. Any sort of hissing or clicking sound is an insect’s way of warning a potential enemy to get back.
• Be careful in any kind of thick shrubbery or tall grass. Insects and pests of all sizes like to hide in these spaces, and not all of them are friendly. Try to avoid stepping into these areas as much as possible.
• Any insect that has black and yellow stripes (bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets) should be left alone because they will sting if you get too close. 
• Don’t squish friendly insects! Butterflies, bees, ladybugs, and other beneficial insects are our friends. It’s more fun to watch them fly or crawl around on a plant, anyway.

Teaching your children about insects can be fun for both parties, but it seems overwhelming at first due to the multitude of insects that exist. It’s perfectly fine to start small and begin with one common insect or question, and go from there. Your children will enjoy learning about the world regardless, so the starting point is up to you!

How to Talk About Pest Control

While learning about all of the colorful, unique insects that inhabit our natural world, it may seem difficult to talk about pest control and what the technicians really do. Questions about why anyone would kill bugs or rodents might arise from your children who have been learning about these small critters. But there are a few different logical reasons you can explain to your children when they ask why the “bug guy” comes to the house sometimes. 

One general reason is that insects in the house bring germs and dirt. You can explain to your children that while it’s fun to find bugs outside, they are icky inside our home. They can come from our neighbor’s homes as well, so it might help to explain that your own yard isn’t exactly infested with pests. A neighbor who puts bark in their yard may have an influx of bark beetles that find their way into your yard and home. If you have any crawling toddlers or young children, you don’t want their toys and the floor covered with insects. If there are mice in your yard and you have a dog, you can explain that you don’t want your beloved dog to keep chasing these rodents, so pest control will take care of it. Any kind of dangerous pest nest, like a wasp or fire ant nest, can be easily explained by emphasizing that you want to keep everyone safe. 

It is important to be honest with your children, but there is a way to talk about services like pest control in a caring and educational way. The technicians aren’t here to exterminate all insects because they don’t care about them; they care about helping people live a pest-free life in their homes. Our kind technicians are happy to explain every step of the process to your family. Who knows, it may be an educational experience for everyone!

Citations

20 of the best bug and insect books for kids. (n.d.). Early Learning Ideas. Retrieved on March 29, 2022, from https://earlylearningideas.com/bug-and-insect-books-for-kids/

Durbin, M. (2017, September 24). How to teach your kids about bugs. GrowNetwork. Available at https://thegrownetwork.com/teach-kids-bugs/ (Accessed on March 29, 2022).

Dyer, M.H. (2022, March 22). Garden bug lesson: How to teach about insects in gardens. Gardening Know How. Available at https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/teach-kids-about-insects-in-gardens.htm (Accessed on March 29, 2022).

Pest world for kids. (n.d.). Pest World for Kids. Retrieved on March 29, 2022, from https://www.pestworldforkids.org/