There’s a road near my house in the Forest of Dean that looks like it’s been sponsored by Walkers Crisps and Stella cans.

Plastic bottles, chocolate wrappers, plastic bags… a confetti of human apathy sprinkled across one of the prettiest corners of Britain.

Last week, after driving it one too many times and muttering the usual “someone should really do something,” I realised, I’m someone. So I grabbed my daughter, two bikes and a couple of bin bags, and we launched a small act of rebellion.

So off we went - a dad and his six-year-old on bikes, pedalling down a country lane armed with bin bags and misplaced optimism.

Within metres we’d found our first trophy: a sun-bleached can of Monster wedged in the verge like an ancient artefact. Then came a sliced salami packet, a lonely flip-flop, and part of a car bumper. My daughter started yelling out “Rubbish alert!” every few metres and swerving over like a tiny eco-ninja.

It was revolting and utterly brilliant in equal measure.

By the time we reached the end of the lane, one bag was completely full and we were buzzing. This wasn’t just a clean-up. It was a small, sweaty lesson in giving a shit.

We sat down for hot chocolate, a cookie and a debrief. She wanted to know why people throw stuff out of car windows, where the rubbish goes, whether we could recycle it, and if we could do it again next week.

We talked about what kind of earth-leaching twerps think it’s fine to launch their rubbish out of a car window.

“Really mean people,” she said. “You can’t just care about yourself, because otherwise the Earth will be really sad.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Parenting, I’ve realised, is mostly about trying to pass on values while your kids pretend not to hear you.

They don’t care about your lectures on recycling or your rants about single-use plastics. But they do notice what you do.

That’s the quiet rebellion in all this, not just teaching our kids to care about nature, but showing them how. And that starts by simply spending more time in it.

Caring isn’t soft. It’s gritty. It’s local and lived-in. It’s picking up other people’s mess, even when it’s gross. It’s fixing things instead of binning them. It’s saying this place matters and proving it with your hands.

It’s the hill where they stacked it on their bike, the tree they call Big Steve, the worms they rescue mid-rainstorm.

That’s how it sticks. Not through eco-facts or guilt, but through formative, vital memories that smell faintly of damp socks and triumph.

The world doesn’t need more perfect environmentalists - it needs more tiny rebels with twigs in their hair and big, wild hearts.

You don’t need a composting PhD to raise kids who care. You just need to make caring fun, messy and slightly ridiculous.

Here’s how to start a small household rebellion (i’ll be doing dedicated posts on these in the coming weeks/months):

1. Trash Safari

As above, grab a bag, some gloves and head to a local park, trail or beach that’s on the wrong side of clean. Whoever finds the weirdest bit of rubbish wins. It’s grimly satisfying and weirdly addictive. This 9 year old ledgebag has pledged to do 100 bags in 100 days.

2. Seed Bomb Squad

Mix soil, clay and wildflower seeds into little mud grenades and lob them into dull patches of earth. Guerrilla gardening at its finest. Warning: may trigger uncontrollable pride every time the flowers bloom. (For inspiration, check out this glorious, green-fingered nutter.)

3. Tree Besties

Let your kid pick a favourite tree, name it, hug it, draw it, defend it from imaginary chainsaws. Visit it through the seasons. Nothing teaches love for the planet like having an arboreal mate.

4. Build Wild Homes

From bug hotels and hedgehog hideouts to milk-carton bird feeders, help your kids turn your garden into a miniature wildlife estate. Give each new resident a name and backstory (e.g. Barry the Bin Beetle, Toad Tony) and watch your garden turn into a live action movie.

5. The Rewilded Kitchen

Grow herbs on the windowsill, save veggie scraps for compost, keep a “food waste leaderboard.” When kids see cause and effect - growth, rot, renewal - they start to get the cycle of life (and occasionally eat more greens).

You don’t need to raise eco-saints. We all just need curious kids who see nature as something beautiful and worth fighting for.

Start small. Get grubby. The rebellion begins at home.