Understanding our Eco-Emotions

and

How to Talk to Kids About Climate Change

Managing Eco-Emotions

It's hard to watch the news, scroll through Instagram or listen to the radio without hearing or seeing something related to climate change. We recognise the impact of climate change on the earth in the forms of seeing polar bears starve, hurricanes hit new veracity, picnics in February and snow storms in June and fires raging, but we are also becoming increasingly aware of the impact on our mental wellbeing. As psychologists, we are noting the rise in presentation of eco, or climate anxiety. It can be a crippling worry that can manifest in the forms of difficulty in concentrating, difficulty in being present, panic attacks, depression, low-mood, or insomnia. This can leave us feeling overwhelmed, detached, hopeless, grieving, angry and paralysed, all of which stop us from taking necessary action to mobilise against climate change. But hold on. There is good news: the solution to climate anxiety is climate action.

So that is you sorted. But you pare likely reading this because for you, it’s partly or mostly about managing this anxiety for children. It is fundamentally important to recognise in all of this is that our children are living through this too- undeniably, they will experience the impact much more than we will. They are discussing the climate on the playground and in the classroom. They are seeing it in the headlines and on social media and may silently be struggling or openly vocalising the stress and worry it can provoke. Children receive a lot of information, some of which may be inaccurate, or misrepresented, or they may feel that they don’t understand it at all. Some children may feel they don’t have enough information. They may feel confused and feel they have no agency on the subject. If we don’t manage conversations about climate change with our children, this could lead to deeper angst and misunderstanding about their power and role in their future. They may not have a sense that small changes can make big differences.

As parents, we are in the best position to equip our children with knowledgable information, support and positive actions. Having open, well-informed, but contained conversations about climate change and its effects with our kids will help to create a space where they are not paralysed by fear, anger, and disempowerment but can instead be enthused by motivation and optimism. It is our apology to them for letting things get this bad, it is our duty to support them to repair the errors of the past so that there is hope for their future. By teaching children resilience and creativity in a time of uncertainty is an important, if not essential, life-skill in the context of climate change and beyond and can make a huge difference.

Our Journey for Context…

Here is a brief explanation of how and why I have committed to helping people process eco-emotions. At some point there has been an ‘Aha’ or perhaps more probably, a “Oh No!!” moment that has lead you to read this material. Mine is described below. as this is a relatively recent phenomena for us, one which will bring up different feelings at different stages, it is meant to give context to the fact that we are all navigating our eco-emotions and processing differently. Understanding a validating this will help us be kind to ourselves and support our kids. If you are short for time, scroll on! The practicalities are below. Otherwise, this was the start of feeling resonant fear for our future and the motivation to take action for me:

I was added by a friend of friend to a WhatsApp ‘ClimateClub’ chat of parents from another nearby school. To be perfectly honest, this was a somewhat of a typically ‘North Oxford’ middle-class school. Known for having a fierce PTA, being quite ‘green,’ with conscientious, vocal parents who mostly had careers in academia of some sort. This particular group chat consisting of a disproportionate amount of scientists, economists and policy strategists, all with some focus on environment. (This is something that has been identified as a criticism for climate activism, particularly in the Extinction Rebellion campaigns, as representative of an identified ‘white, middle class issue’ and to be fair, this Whatsapp chat group was not a very good rebuttal to this criticism, however, I would argue that when schools closed in Delhi in November of 2019 due to mass floods, parents there, who are not of this white, middle-class demographic, would maintain it is very much their crisis too. The point is it doesn’t really matter how long we debate who has a right to be up and arms, because frankly, we all need to be, This fight needs everyone, doing as however much, with whatever they have got, that can make a difference.

In our first meeting, we sat in the living room of a geologist who intermittently nursed her two-week-old baby. Being a mother of a 5 and 6 year old, I oscillated between broodiness and the smugness of a full 7 hours sleep. My husband and partner, Patrick, and I were in the “If we are going to have another one, now is the time” stage. I mentioned this to my own father a few weeks earlier and his response was, ‘There are enough people in the world, the climate can’t take anymore.’ This flattened me out a bit. This is the man I have been arguing with about driving his diesel everywhere and eating red meat for every meal (It’ the American way!). He was ‘woke’ enough to see the impact but not making any changes himself, expecting me to help the process by not having anymore children. I realised this is what we are asking our own kids to do: take charge as long as it doesn’t interfere with our accustomed comforts.

Another consideration of a new addition I wondered about was, is it a plus or minus to bring another child into the world? What if their impact was positive enough to counterbalance their carbon footprint, and I vaguely imagined my own little Greta Thunbergs. I recognised in myself, that this thought process isn’t really okay. It’s perpetuating the myth that we should put this pressure on our children to undo what the generations before them have incurred upon them.

The reality is that these are the terms in which we need to now think. What if in two generations time, there is a per couple cap on children? What if infertility is the new epidemic? What if there isn’t enough food? I sat in this living room, sipping coffee and spinning in and out of potential Handmaiden, Orwellian apocalypse scenarios that I desperately hope my children won’t have to experience, but the reality is, there are very big decisions to be made-very big changes and quickly, if this is not going to be a reality for their generation and the ones to (hopefully) follow.

There were 38 phone numbers in that WhatsApp group. Five of us were able to make the end of term, 9 am, Tuesday morning start. The initial discussions swooped in and around a child’s recent diagnosis, how the school was managing it, how the siblings were adjusting to the new baby, if violin had been moved to Wednesdays, coffee or tea?… Eventually be broached the subject of the drop-off rate of the WhatsApp, which set us upon our intended topic: climate change and our kids. We discussed a range of initiatives, beginning with the ‘Climate Change Song’. I could feel myself growing slightly apathetic, impatient and then aggravated as the conversation turned into a debate about the usefulness of the hand actions, then to the hesitation of the school head to have any involvement in the climate discussion, as it was seen to be ‘political’, then on to how rude the secretaries in the front office can be, ‘except for that one with the brown hair..’. I caught myself bubbling up with the stress and anxiety thinking “STOP IT! STOP IT! None of this is going to help at all,” but I realised, these are the kinds of things that we all get caught-up in to anchor ourselves away from the gravity of this reality. These little delineations give us respite from the Big Picture because the Big Picture feels like too much to take on, let alone even think about. This is not a criticism of these parents. They were awesome. They were sitting there, one of them with a two week old in her lap, as drops in the bucket of catalyse for change. They were the fantastic five of the thirty-eight and as the morning progressed, so did the productivity of our goals and actions.

I realised early on that the conversation needed to be focused, positive and goal orientated. This is usually what I recognise with both groups and with individuals in my coaching. The tangents are the demise of the intended outcomes and staying on topic with clear facts, messages, goals and identified outcomes are the antidote to this trap.

When I introduced myself as a Coaching Psychologist who was developing a program with my husband, a Clinical Psychologist, on ‘How to Manage Climate Anxiety’, I found I had a captive audience and there was clearly a need for this in supporting our kids. The tone changed. There was a desperateness. Their anxiety and the anxiety they were holding for their children was palpable. ‘How do you talk to your children about Climate Change?’ was clearly a hot topic. ‘Should I be taking them to protests?’, ‘My son thinks global warming means there is going to be lava pouring from every mountain of the earth.’ ‘My daughter puts her fingers in her ears every time I mention it.’ This worry was coming from a place of love and protection, and a desire to help their children understand, just as there was a desperateness to have an impact on climate change.

Thus began our work on “Managing anxiety and how to talk to kids about climate change”

We Must Identify Our Own Anxiety and Purpose as Adults in the Climate of Change

We do all we can to protect our children. We buy them organic food, we teach them to look both ways before crossing the street, we take them to Baby Einstein class and stare at them when they sleep to make sure they are still breathing. We just want them to be okay. I feel this desperateness too. But I have had to change desperateness to determination. I feel this determination to protect them. Knowledge is protection. Positive action is protection. Perseverance is protection and I am determined; many people are determined and this, I believe is going to create the generation of change. This can be the start of ‘Climate Change for The Better’. Remember, the solution to climate anxiety is climate action.

Easy Ways to Tune in to Your Own Eco-Emotions:

Talk about it. Isolation is one of the key weapons of anxiety and depression. Connecting with others is hugely protective. Connecting with ones self is also hugely protective. If you are someone who journals, great, if you aren’t I invite you to give it a try or at least give yourself some mental time and space to process this. Give yourself a minimum of 15 minutes and commit to writing this entire time. I would encourage you to have something restorative planned upon completion of this exercise so that you can decompress, as recognition of these big emotions may feel quite heavy. Here are a few questions to get you going. I really encourage you not to feel like there is a ‘right’ answer but to be honest with yourself about your experience.

How do I feel about the impact of climate change?
How do I feel about my children living in uncertain times?
What sensations in my body do I experience when I think about Climate Change?
What are you grateful for right now?
What has worked in the past to overcome problems you have experienced as a family?
How do you enjoy time together?
What is my purpose in this?

Protective and Productive

Again for context, my relationship and engagement with climate change is something I need to continuously monitor because it is fluid. My commitment and concern is not. As parents, we must recognise our own emotions in order to efficiently support our children. I want to emphasise that this can change. It can wax and wane and develop and then you may find yourself diving in, hitting pause, coming back- it’s an ongoing relationship and experience. But by keeping this understanding of where we are in check, is more protective and productive for you and your kids and in the long term will keep you more resilient within your resonance and action.

Getting Help When Eco-Emotions Become Too Much

If you are noticing that emotions are debilitating you from living your day-to-day life, you may need to think about getting professional or peer support. If you are experiencing anxiety attack, insomnia, depression and grief, speaking with a psychologist can be hugely helpful in managing negative thinking. If you are experiencing moderate or low levels of these negative emotions, speaking with others, creating communities and getting out in to nature can be restorative to your mental wellbeing. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Protective Actions

Engage with local grassroots communities
Make changes at home. Use technology! (Some great apps worth googling: Olio Ducky Climate Challenge Ecosia THRIFT+)
Volunteer for conservation projects
Give yourself ‘Mental Breaks’ where you don’t engage in social media or news about climate change. Overloading yourself with bad news may send you into a space of resonant inaction.

How to Open the Subject of Climate Change with Your Children

You know your child better than anyone. You will understand how they like to be approached, over dinner, on a walk, this may mean speaking to siblings separately, as their age and personalities may dictate what’s most appropriate. The important thing is that you feel comfortable answering questions based on facts and that you are honest if you don’t know the answer. It is okay to pause, review and come back to the conversation after you have done your research. We suggest doing this separately, as Google can produce anxiety-provoking headline-grabbers that may not be useful information for your children (at the end of this book, there will be a list of age appropriate resources).

Models and Concepts to Understand our Thoughts and Emotions about Climate Change

We have pooled the principles from CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) and coaching doctrines to tailor them to help with the process of anxiety, anger, grief, depression and anxiety in relation to climate change. We need to understand that climate emotion is different.

We can akin the experience of climate change to the work done as psychologists in a children’s hospital. In this context, parents are often given very serious news about their unwell child. With this, we see all the anxieties of the parent bubble up and their coping mechanisms fire into action. These may be; rage, fear, denial, grief, disempowerment for examples. They are then often told by experts what ‘The Plan’ is to either solve or minimise the effects of the prognosis. Often the response parents give to this mechanical, factual information it still interpretted from that place of emotion. The problem may seem too big, or they may want to minimise it. If you have a child who has experienced this kind of illness or injury, you will most certainly understand. If you are a parent who hasn’t experienced this scenario, I imagine you can relate. Unless you are extremely lucky, most parents will be faced with a moment when the life of their child felt it hung in the balance. There was a fall and it took their child a second too long to make a noise, or they were gone for 30 seconds in the supermarket and in those 30 seconds they experienced their own version of ‘the worst’. We respond with panic and protection and the parasympathetic nervous system which is known as our ‘feed and breed’, state is no where to be found. Instead there is ignition brains for our sympathetic nervous system: fight-flight-or freeze mode. This essentially means that our nervous system is operating as if it were under threat.

Now, the similarity again to this sort of work and climate change is like dealing with a very serious long-term prognosis. It’s there but we are trying to function, manage it and maintain our child's hope and innocence. This is so hard.

You see, once we understand the impact of climate change, there is a justification to feel a lot of big emotions. As information spreads (as it must) we see that each individual has their own experience from this, and this must be honoured and supported with different means.

The benefit of having a model is that we can see the potential for thought traps and negative thinking. Please understand that negative thinking will be part of this process because we are recognising negative realities in the context of climate change, however, there is a difference between negative dissonance that leads to inaction and negative resonance that leads to postive action. Here is the basic idea: identify the Fact and the Thought, understand the Emotion is about the Thought and not the Fact and realise your control over the Action you take based on the Emotion which leads to your Result. Are you with me? Don’t worry, I will break this down:

There is a Fact: Climate Change is a serious, scientifically based threat.

Claudia hears this Fact.

Claudia has a Thought: humanity is doomed

Claudia has an Emotion about this fact: I am terrified

Claudia takes Action: She retreats into her house and experiences depression

Claudia’s Result: She is sad and isolated and has made no contribution to helping fight climate change

Now let’s look at the same fact but change the Thought:

There is a Fact: Climate Change is a serious, scientifically based threat.

Nicole hears this Fact.

Nicole has a Thought: ‘This is wrong, we have to do something’

Nicole has an Emotion: ‘I feel anger’

Nicole takes Action: She gathers together her cohort and they petition their local Council.

Nicole’s Result: The Council listens and implements green energy policy in all council buildings.

We have the same Fact but what we think (our Thought) about that Fact changes our Result. We can decide how we feel about our thoughts.

Climate Change is a serious, scientifically based threat.

We can’t control Climate Change by worrying about it, by inaction or despair, but we can control our Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, and our own Results about Climate Change and this is what will be impactful.

When our child says, “I am scared of the monster under my bed,” it can be easy to dismiss this with a, ‘Don’t worry, Darling,” but Climate Change is a real monster that can’t be ignored. If our child says, “I am scared of Climate Change,” it is our duty as parents to manage that appropriately. This will help you better understand them, help them to interpret Facts, formulate Thoughts that better serve them, manage Emotions to support more positive Actions, ultimately Resulting in positive changes.

Takeaways:

We must, as parents, support our children through conversations about Climate Change so that they move from a place of anxiety to action.
Teaching children resilience and creativity in a time of uncertainty is an important, if not essential, life-skill in the context of climate change.
The tangents are the demise of the intended outcomes and staying on topic with clear messages, goals and identified outcomes are the antidote to this trap.
Knowledge is protection. Positive action is protection. Perseverance is protection.
Identify the Fact and the Thought, understand the Emotion is about the Thought and not the Fact and realise your control over the Action you take based on the Emotion which leads to your Result.
Your child could be the next Greta Thunberg

A Time and A Place to Talk About Climate Change

Think about the timing of your conversation. Right before bed or an exam is probably not ideal, and this may seem obvious, but sometimes, as parents, when there is a topic we are aching to discuss, we may find ourselves blurting out at inappropriate times. Make sure it is a time that you are distraction free and there is time room after the chat for them to ‘check back in’ about thoughts that may develop post-chat. This will likely be a rolling conversation the same way that the Sex Talk may be. It’s always okay to postpone the conversation if you feel it isn’t an appropriate time, as long as you acknowledge their concerns or questions and ensure that you ‘come back to this’ when it is a better time.

Think about locations. I was driving with my daughter the other day and I could see her physically wriggly and worried. After asking her what was up, and getting nowhere, I pulled over and said, “We need to get this worry out of the car”. We needed to change the scene and she needed focus. We plonked ourselves down on the nearest garden wall and she found a snail shell. We started collecting them and I gently asked her what she thought was going on. If I felt her pulling away, I would redirect to another snail shell, or suggest we order them in size. She was able to talk about her feelings without feeling pressure or urgency.”

Pay attention to the vibes you are giving off. Timing and location is important for us as well. Kids do pick up on our stress and anxieties. When we are talking about Climate Change, we need to feel we are in a space and time that we feel calm and supportive. I felt the tension rising in the car and we simply relocated. Be flexible. If the conversation isn’t picked up by them, don’t push and try again another time.

Climate Conversation Key Tips

Ensure you are in an emotionally safe space yourself.
Keep it short and simple.
It is important that you feel confident in your definition of Climate Change and it’s impact.
Don’t over explain, if you feel yourself waffling, take a breath. It’s a great time to demonstrate to your kids the importance of thinking before you speak and reflecting on your own feelings and thoughts.
Give them space to think and speak.
Manage the effects of your own environment. Be completely focused and have time after (physically and mentally) for follow-up conversations and questions.
If you don’t know, be honest and come back to the topic.
Talk about how you feel but don’t put your emotions on your kids.

Understand What Kids Know About Climate Change

Best to begin by getting a sense of what information they already have. Ask them open questions:

‘What have you heard about global warming or climate change?’

‘Who talks to you about this?’

‘How do you feel about this happening?’

‘How do your friends feel about climate change?”

“Is anyone doing anything about it?”

“What could we as a family be doing about it?”

Moving the Conversation From Climate Change Anxiety Towards Constructive Action

They have the information, now what? Kids want to have an impact but they need to know the facts-not so many that they despair, but now they need to put their energy towards productive impactful projects.

I can see that a certain level of threat drives action. I am not saying that we underwrite the pivotal moment we are in, but we need our children to develop the skills in order to make up their own minds about how they feel. I believe that when a child sees a starving polar bear, their reaction will be similar to ours; sadness, then anger, then- and this is the important bit, a drive towards action, the ‘What can we do?’ moment. But it is their process to have.

Be sensitive to cues that they may be finding the conversation difficult. It is a difficult conversation. Are they fidgeting, dis-engaging? This is when having a side project is helpful. If they are drawing, give the conversation a pause and ask them about a picture. If they are older, ask them what their friends think about it to remove some of the pressure from them. Then gently guide them back to the topic.

Walk them through the process by using yourself as an example:

“So now that we know about Climate change, what do you think we as a family can do about it? I know what I am going to start doing:”

“I see that Global Warming is a real problem.”

“It makes me feel angry and a bit scared because I want you to have a safe environment”

“I have decided that I will use this emotion to make a difference.”

“I am not going to take as many flights. I have switched the energy company to a green energy company. I understand that the ost sustainable fashion is the clothes I own so I am not going to shop ‘fast fashion’

By demonstrating that you are actively committed to making changes in your life will show them that you are committed to their future and you are taking action. This will help them find the impetus to make their own conscious choices and actions for change.

Now is the time to ask them to try:

What they think the fact is, what is happening (what global warming or Climate Change is)
Ask them what they think about that fact.
Ask them how they feel about that thought.
Ask them what they want to do with that feeling. (Here you can describe age appropriate actions that they could take and how you as a family can make a difference.
Ask them what they think that the result would be and help them evaluate. This is an important stage. They need to not feel discouraged that the problem is ‘too big’. By giving them ideas about their actions, and supporting them with this process, they can accept that they are doing their best to make a difference and that matters.

Takeaways:

Threat drives action
Be sensitive to cues that they may be finding the conversation difficult.
Don’t be afraid to hit pause and come back to the conversation.
Demonstrate your own commitment to change
Kids want to have an impact
Kids need sincere support to have a productive impactful projects.