Reflect

Children’s responses to climate change range from very small worries and concerns, to severe mental health concerns which impact on sleep and eating. Young people often report feeling a significant burden of responsibility for making positive changes to ‘save the world’, something which can cause understandable and quite rational feelings of anxiety. These feelings are not uncommon. In fact, the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ website states that over 57% of child and adolescent psychiatrists in England are seeing children and young people distressed about the climate and state of the environment. As far back as 2020, the organisation launched a resource to support young people and their parents to manage fears and anxiety about the environment, and in 2022, ACAMH (the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health) devoted an entire journal edition to the subject. As parents and educators, we need to validate how our children might be feeling about the challenges that our planet faces and, at the same time, try to help them navigate the pressure of solving these crises.

But what can we do as parents and educators to help? Well, to give us some ideas, this week’s Wednesday Wisdom is written by Dr Louise Edgington, a Chartered Educational Psychologist, specialist in climate psychology.

Earlier this year, my eight year old paused while looking at images of hurricane damage. Eyes wide, he asked, “Will we get hurricanes here, Mummy? I notice a twinge in my gut as I yearn to hang onto his innocence. Keep things simple. But he knows about climate change and knows that weather patterns will intensify. “Gosh”, I say, “I don’t think so… we tend to get the end of Atlantic hurricanes, so they’re not as bad as in other parts of the world. But the weather is changing, so we will probably get stronger storms… I don’t really know”. I studied atmospheric physics and climate physics at Oxford University, but learnt there that weather systems are chaotic and hard to predict, as is human behaviour. We can only talk about possibilities, not certainties.

Later, my son and I go online and watch videos to learn about the risky wind speed (58 mph) and safety measures like securing outdoor items and staying away from windows. He seems satisfied. So far so good. But I know that this is the tip of the fast-melting iceberg. There is more to come. These conversations are a harbinger of the real existential questions, collected by my colleague Jo McAndrews in the Climate Psychology Alliance. Teens and young people have asked her questions like,“Are we going extinct?” “Should I not have children?” “Why have the adults done this?”

Children tend to want answers. In the Climate Psychology Alliance, we hold youth support spaces for young people to come and express their often-hidden concerns and feelings around their altered futures. By far the most commonly reported experience is that they can’t talk about this with their parents or even peers because they ‘don’t get it’. It is a relief and novelty for them to experience their innermost fears and sorrows being truly heard and accepted in a non-judgemental and non-corrective space. Talking about what’s really going on, it seems, is taboo.

In education, it can be particularly hard to face this head on. In workshops and events with teachers through the Climate Courage Schools Campaign, we hear about teachers’ sense of being unqualified to field these concerns in a class of 30 children, even if they had the time (which they don’t).

Many well-meaning teachers talk about ‘focusing on solutions’ and ‘giving hope’. Yes, we need to focus on solutions alongside the science, sure. But I’d suggest that giving hope that things will stay the same is doing young people a disservice. The narrative that we want children to get good grades, go to university, get a good stable career, buy a house, have a family, then retire seems like an anachronism. Just look at the headlines. Buying a house and even getting an entry level job is tougher than ever.

Like it or not, the pace of change in the climate, ecological degradation, AI and geopolitics is such that uncertainty and change are here to stay. Many communities in the UK are grappling with the very real impacts of floods and storm damage already. My hope is this: that (young) people are equipped with the skills to move through this turbulent time of polycrisis and create societal structures that enable them all to live well.

We’re aiming for a middle way when talking with young people about their and our futures; as Climate Majority Project co-director Rupert Read says: neither dystopian nor utopian, but a thrutopian vision that acknowledges difficulties we will face, and how to get through them together.

I practice these perspectives when the latest question comes my way from my son: “Mum, will war come over here? Would we have to move house?” I feel it again - dread and the wish to wrap him up in a bubble and hide him from the world, preserve his purity. Instead, I dive in. “It’s possible. I hope not. But if it does, we’ll handle it as a family. Things might feel the same day-to-day if there’s a war or we may have to make some changes. We’ll handle it, whatever happens. How does all this make you feel?” “Scared”. “Yes, it can feel scary. Thank you for telling me. The scared feelings come and go. We can still enjoy life and feel scared at times. I’m here to help you move through those feelings when you need; do you want a cuddle?”

By now, you might be thinking: ‘crazy climate lady is inducing fear in her own children’. That’s ok. That’s a defence mechanism kicking in. It absolves us from having to have these kinds of conversations ourselves. You might, alternatively, be thinking, ‘I know climate is a big deal, but I just want to enjoy myself and not stress about things I can’t control’. I get it, that’s the same reason I didn’t watch the film Don’t Look Up. I know we’re in a state of collective complacency and avoidance, but I’d rather enjoy my evening than dwell upon western hyper-individualism. We all slip into psychological defences from time to time, just to get by in the world as it is; it’s only a problem when we do it all the time, or when our children are asking us for the truth.

Motivate

All of this means that children are then less likely to turn to the myriad denial narratives online which offer a soothing and simplified explanation. Climate change is a hoax, you say? Oh good, I can relax.

This isn’t a one-off event, but an ongoing process. Providing appropriate, bite- sized truths is recommended by the climate psychology researcher, Caroline Hickman. Comparing child growth to seedling growth, she suggests that children need ‘just enough grit to grow’, meaning that some hard truths (grit) in their nurturing environment (soil) will enable their roots to grow strong. There’s a similar analogy to be made with exposure to wind and the elements. If a seeding doesn’t have the chance to ‘harden out’ outdoors, it won’t have the inner strength to stand up in a storm. I’m raising hardy little seedlings, outdoors in the real world.

Learning to cope with a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world takes our concept of resilience to a whole new level. We know that there is a mental health crisis amongst the young, fed by misinformation and the comparison and competition baked into social media. What if we can equip them with the tools to live well, stay healthy, engaged and balanced, even in times of loss and challenge?

This is exactly what eco-psychology and climate psychology approaches address. Author Chantal Burns suggests that we can uncover our ‘bulletproof’ innate resilience when we develop an awareness of how our thoughts and identity are shaped by cultural and societal influences. This looks like identifying the ‘shoulds’ and the assumptions that keep us locked into the status quo. Burns, and indeed many indigenous and ancient wisdom traditions, assert that we can all learn to step back from thoughts and truly ‘be with’ the physiological experience of a feeling, without numbing it out through distractions, suppression or process and substance addictions. All feelings are valid and all feelings come and go. We don’t need to be afraid of feeling, we’re powerful, capable and brave.

Ecopsychology also includes a willingness to engage in Joanna Macy’s concept of Active Hope - actions that bring us in community with others to work towards creating a world that we would like to live in, not because we’re certain of the outcome, but because we know it’s worth doing. It’s a brave, open-hearted, engaged and ‘alive’ way of being which builds a sense of belonging, peace and confidence. Rather than preparing pupils for a future we imagine, let’s prepare them to cope with whatever comes their way. This is what we mean by ‘inner adaptation’.

Support

It really helps to have your own ‘inner work’ practice, to develop some degree of awareness of your own emotional world. The last thing we want is to shut these conversations down because we’re too overwhelmed ourselves.

We’ll all have some degree of denial and resistance to work through and we all have much to learn. If you’re really brave, try the denial self-inventory Gifford’s ‘dragons of inaction’ or take a Climate Fresk workshop. Climate Cafes, offered by the Climate Psychology Alliance, are another great place to start in processing our feelings. There are a cornucopia of free emotional regulation and meditation resources online. I love Insight Timer, personally. Once we have some awareness of our own internal emotional world, and capacity to self-regulate, we’ll be less likely to minimise or get overwhelmed by our children’s anxiety, anger or apathy.

Adopting an attitude of curiosity and learning together with your children is a good starting point. We won’t have all the answers, but we can help young people navigate the mess that is internet misinformation and opinion presented as fact.

When difficult feelings do come up, I repeatedly come back to the Gottman emotion coaching approach. Helpful in any parenting situation, this approach invites us to:

1. Notice that an emotional reaction is taking place (both in the child and ourselves). Recognise it’s an opportunity for emotional support and learning.
2. Listen to and validate what’s being said.
3. Label the emotion.
4. Set limits if necessary.
5. Work on problem solving together.

This can happen very quickly and might look like this in practice:

Child: “I don’t want to visit Grandma. It’s so unfair how they get to have normal lives and fly around on holiday when we’ll be paying the price for their choices. She doesn’t even recycle!”

Adult: “Yeah, it is unfair. I understand why you’re angry at it all. Grandma is just part of a bigger system. I wonder what we could say to her to help her understand how you feel? Do you have any ideas?”

Or

Child: “There’s no point in recycling, it doesn’t make a difference, I might as well just do what I want.”

Adult: (deep breath to calm self). “Yeah, you’re wondering about the impact of recycling or our individual actions, when climate change seems so big. I wonder if you feel a bit hopeless? Is that right? That makes sense. It can feel like that sometimes when we don’t see all the progress that is being made. There might be more happening locally and nationally than you think, shall we have a look together?”

Taking practical climate action helps. In the largest eco-anxiety study to date, Hickman et al., found that perceived inaction of governments was linked to increased eco-anxiety. In other words, when adults ‘do nothing’ it makes anxiety worse. Show your young person that you’re taking steps to keep them safe, both now and in their futures. Measures like flood and damp prevention or home insulation demonstrate to the child that you are taking this seriously, not dumping the problem on their generation.

Even better if you can involve and include your young person in planning what you do together. Ask them what they care about, listen to their ideas and help them learn new skills along the way. Half term has already started for some, offering a lovely opportunity to reconnect with nature and channel any feelings of worry or overwhelm about the planet into curiosity, creativity and action. You might create a collaborative leaf mandala using a mix of colours and textures. Or perhaps take some time to “let go”: invite children to write or draw something they’d like to release, a worry, frustration or unhelpful thought, and throw it into the compost as a symbolic act of renewal. If you have a garden, but no compost bin, consider starting one together, or set up a mini version in a jar and watch materials decompose over time, as you explore the question “What is soil?”. Go mushroom spotting outdoors, take photos, identify species and watch Merlin Sheldrake’s short film on fungi. These remarkable organisms, which quietly recycle life beneath our feet, can open fascinating conversations about interconnectedness and hope. Fungi are even being studied for their ability to break down plastic. Activities like these help children feel part of nature’s ongoing story, transforming eco-anxiety into appreciation, agency and care.

When young people contribute to climate action in meaningful ways, choosing their projects, implementing ideas, and seeing real outcomes, they develop the self-efficacy critical for ensuring sustained engagement and preventing burnout. We can create a generation of bullet proof, hardy, ‘can-do’ changemakers.