How to talk to children about climate change, without terrifying them
By: Tabitha Whiting
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Education, Children, Teaching

How to talk to children about climate change, without terrifying them

Children are crucial to tackling climate change, but they’re also scared about their future. And fear leads to inaction.

Children are crucial to our climate crisis. Teenagers, like Greta Thunberg, are now leading the way when it comes to climate action, educating world leaders on what needs to be done, and when (i.e. now!) The school strikes for climate taking place every Friday across the world demonstrate their passion, and their anger at the inaction of adults thus far.

When it comes to younger children, though, the danger is that learning about the reality of climate change, and the devastating impacts it will have on our planet and on our people, could just terrify them.

I recently attended an event with the Low Carbon Hub, where members shared their experiences and current community projects. Mim Saxl, representing the community group Low Carbon West Oxford, told us how her child came home from school one day incredibly concerned, having learnt that ‘my children are going to die in 2050’.

We don’t want to end up scaremongering our children, or providing them with misinformation. We want to give them accurate information and empower them to do something about it, in their own way.

So what’s the best way to talk to children about climate change?

Mim’s solution was to set up Kids CAN (Climate Action Network), providing free ‘fact-based and empowering’ resources which can be used by teachers and parents when talking to their children about climate change. This includes their ‘fact buster booklet’ which explains the basics of climate science and greenhouse gas emissions in an accessible way (with lots of diagrams!) as well as actions that children can take to stop this happening. There is also a lesson plan and powerpoint presentation to accompany the booklet.

Resources like this allow discussions of climate change to be integrated into the school curriculum in an accessible, seamless way, laying a foundation of knowledge without overwhelming children with every aspect of the science.

An education in nature

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s also important to allow children to connect with nature, and become curious about the planet in which they live, and the plants and animals they share it with. It helps them to understand why taking care of the planet is important, so that when they learn about the risks of global warming they will naturally care about preventing it.

This might be through watching nature documentaries, visiting a wildlife centre or natural history museum, taking walks in nature, introducing them to different habitats and environments such as beaches, woodland, mountains, and more.

Empowering action

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As we’ve said, the danger is that children become fearful and disempowered when learning about our climate change. Instead, we want to empower them.

One way to do this is through sharing stories with them of youth activists who are making a difference — and there’s certainly no shortage of them at the moment! Knowing that ordinary people, just like us, are taking action and driving change can inspire us to think about our own role in the future of our planet, and to act ourselves.

Similarly, we can focus on talking to children about what actions we can take as individuals against climate change. Even the smallest things can start to make us feel empowered and want to do more. NASA have developed resources on ‘how to help’ as part of their Climate Kids project, which is a great place to start.