How to talk to your kids about Climate Change (without scaring them for life)
By Lili Popper
Climate change is an issue our kids will, unfortunately, have to battle within their lifetimes, and as such, it is important to prepare them properly. However laying out the plain facts for them might not be the greatest idea, unless you want your offspring to fill your living room with an ocean of tears. The increase in ocean salinity levels is bad enough already, thank you. So in an attempt to save your kids from years of anxiety, here are some tips on how to do it more delicately.
Credit for the tips in this blog post goes to Danielle Cranmer’s article, published on Rainforest Alliance’s website.
1. Start Easy
No need to scare young children with the Earth drying up or cities disappearing due to rising sea levels. It might be too complex for them to understand anyway. Danielle Cranmer from the Rainforest Alliance recommends starting with something small, like a house plant. “Explain how plants “breathe in” the gases that we breathe out, and vice versa, in a mutually beneficial cycle,” says Cranmer, “understanding the basics of the carbon cycle is essential to eventually understanding climate science.”
Here’s a little cheat sheet on photosynthesis, in case you need one. Once they understand the importance of plants, they can become mini-advocates and organise tree-planting parties at their school or on unused lands within your community.
2. Use Your Environment
Explore your neighbourhood by visiting sites that help your kids (and let’s be honest, probably you too) to better understand the interdependent systems we live in. Where does our water come from, and does it disappear after it’s been used? How does our food end up on our plates? How does the air that we breathe in form? What happens after we throw our rubbish into the bin? Find out where relevant sites are in your local area and visit them with your kids. Explain to them that “the environment” is not some intangible concept, but our immediate surroundings that makes us all connected, and that we all have an effect on.
3. Game On!
We, adults, know that climate change is scary. But they don’t need to. They should internalise their knowledge based on fun experiences rather than fear. You can use these games, also recommended by Cranmer, where they can impersonate a carbon atom and explore its life through the carbon cycle. If you’re into hosting children at your house, you could organise a get-together with other kids and make it into a theme party about climate. Let’s face it, most kids could use some more information about the topic delivered from a fun and exciting angle.
4. Dig Deeper
Once you covered the basics and think they are ready for more, you can dig deeper into how the carbon cycle works globally. Explain that for most of Earth’s history, the atmosphere has managed to balance out carbon sources and sinks, meaning there was the right amount of carbons released into and captured by the atmosphere to maintain the balance that our planet needs. However for the last 200 years, since the Industrial Revolution (the first two minutes of this video explain pretty well what that is), we, humans, have been throwing off that balance with activities that release a lot of extra carbon, like burning fossil fuels and destroying forests.
The extra carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, emitted by these activities, is building up and it’s creating sort of a blanket that is slowly warming up the planet. This is what we call Global Warming. However, it is hard for young kids to understand the difference between changes that might occur on a 10-to-20-year scale vs. the everyday fluctuations in weather. I remember when I watched the movie The Day After Tomorrow as a kid. As we walked out of the cinema there was a huge rainstorm. I was terrified that the movie is becoming true and the world as I know it is over. Explain to your kids that the everyday changes in weather are normal (well, -ish). Have your kids interview a grandparent or an older neighbour about the changes they have observed in their lifetimes that are related to climate.
5. Encourage Them to Take Action
However cautious you are, Climate Change might still scare your kids. I mean, it scares me, and I’m sure you too if you’re reading this. The best way to make kids (or adults) feel better when they’re worried is to make them feel empowered. Emphasize that climate change is indeed an urgent issue, but we are not powerless against it. It is important they understand their role and opportunities in the situation. Share success stories with them. Tell them about Greta and the amazing impact she’s having around the globe despite her young age. Encourage your kids to take action locally. Plant a tree. Send postcards or drawings to your local government representatives to ask them to do something about Climate Change. Create banners together with your kids and take them to the Climate March this Friday. And let them find their own ways to have an impact.
