Images have been created by Craig Froehle, Angus Maguire, the Center for Story-Based Strategy and the Interaction Institute for Social Change.
“But he’s spoiled!” my older son proclaimed loudly, expressing his opinion that his brother always gets what he wants.
Now, his claim is blatantly untrue. In fact, my older son is probably the one who gets what he wants more often just because he has stronger opinions. My younger son is more likely to say, “Yeah, sure, that sounds good.”
But I wasn’t going to get into that conversation. I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere and just turn into the nonsense of trying to list every time that my older son got what he wanted.
Instead, I took a different angle. “Well, you know that we do try very hard to be fair. But fair doesn’t always mean equal.”
Sure, it addresses some mature themes like the patriarchy. But we talk about hard social issues all the time in our family.
Sure, my boys are explicitly not the target audience. But they read all sorts of stuff that centers girls and women, including Squirrel Girl comics and the Ramona books, and love them.
Sure, they won’t get all of the jokes. But that’s true in day to day life and they’ll get plenty of them, like Ken’s job being “beach.”
So I think they’d enjoy it.
But more importantly, I want them to be exposed to the messages it carries in such an accessible way.
This weather – the record heat, the poor air quality – is scary and exhausting for adults. But what if you’re a kid? And what if you’re a kid who has heard it’s caused by climate change? Instead of avoiding the term climate change when talking to our kids, it’s becoming more important than ever. But there are some ways we can talk to them that are factual, don’t inspire fear, and even help empower them.
1) Present the facts without panic. Say something like “The weather is so much hotter than it’s been in the past because pollution we’re putting into the atmosphere is making the Earth warmer over many years.” Or for the air quality issues, “They are having bad wildfires in Canada and the smoke is blowing down here. It’s worse than usual because the spring was so dry. The climate is changing because of pollution we put in the atmosphere.”
2) Talk about what adults are doing to fix it. This is a big part of not sparking climate anxiety. Something like “Many adults are working to build and improve clean sources of energy that don’t make this pollution like solar and wind. Other people are pushing politicians to do even more to address the problem.” If they’re younger kids, you can point out what high schoolers and college students are doing. They feel like adults but not parental figures, which may have even more of a punch.
3) Involve your kids in making systemic change. Have them envision what a truly sustainable community would look like to them and how it’s different from your own community. Then have them write to local policy makers to tell them what they think of climate change and what they would like to change locally. This is really empowering! Check out the Cultivating Climate Justice At-Home Family Toolkit for a template and more ideas.
4) Find ways to live more sustainably in your own lives and explain the reasons behind it to your kids, like switching to solar or wind power, eating less meat, biking/walking/ taking public transit instead of driving, etc. This doesn’t replace systemic change though! Check out my book for tips (and tips on activism too).
5) Make meaning together in your actions. Find ways to be fulfilled through more environmentally friendly activities, whether that’s more time together, building relationships with neighbors or friends, more time in nature, writing stories or creating art, etc. This will be what makes your actions personally sustainable as well as environmentally sustainable!
Kneeling on the bricks in our town square, my older son seemed to be attacking them with chalk. Intently focused, he was rubbing his blue piece of chalk onto a brick.
“I’m rage-chalking,” he informed me.
“Ah,” I said, now understanding. “Yes, that’s absolutely something you can do.” I nodded and went back to filling in my own squares.
Endless hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding; astronomically high prices and low wages; biodiversity collapse – is this the future you expect for your kids in 30 years? For many of us concerned about climate change and social inequality, it seems like the future is going to be pretty grim. Some people are even going so far to think we’re going to be living in something out of a dystopia SF novel (if we’re not already).
But while being prepared for a legit natural or human-caused disaster is a good thing, hunkering down in despair isn’t. Honestly, our children deserve for us to at least try to turn this ship in the right direction. No one wants to tell their kids, “We didn’t bother trying because what was the point?”
I didn’t expect to think of the Fraggles when reading about Indigenous perspectives on the environment, but that’s just how my brain works. Despite the weird connection, it gave me a new perspective on how I can treat holiday gifts and in fact, our whole community in the year to come.
“You’re so brave,” said a woman on the sidewalk as I pedaled by her slowly. Her words came right on the heels of me tearing into my older son about not screwing around while biking in the road. (He was riding so slowly I was almost crashing into him and swerving.) “Uh, thanks?” I stammered, not sure what else to say.
While I didn’t have much to respond in the moment, the comment stuck with me. Brave? What did she mean by that?
Are you a tired person? (Probably – if you’re reading my blog, you’re probably a parent or somehow responsible for small kids.) Do you want to take action on climate change? (Even if you don’t, you should!) If both of these things – or neither – apply to you, be sure to check out the Climate Action for Tired People: A Toolkit and Quiz for Parents and Others! Developed by climate communicator and therapist Kate Schapira in collaboration with me, it helps you figure out where you fit in the climate justice movement and how to use your skills effectively.
“Shhh, be quiet, she’s trying to do work,” a mom said to her preschooler, a few feet away from me. I glanced up from my laptop and winced, realizing I was the “she” the mom was referring to.
I sighed. I didn’t want to undermine her, but neither did I actually want her kid to be quiet. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Parents are supposed to keep their kids safe, right? But how can we do that when the world around us is falling apart? There’s escalating climate change, COVID getting ever more contagious, civil rights eroding constantly, gun violence heightening, and democracy in danger. Not to mention the less privileged of us who have more individual, very real worries about their children’s everyday safety.
Some people retreat to denial, pretending nothing’s wrong at all and they play no part. Others – far more dangerously – blame vulnerable groups for “corrupting” children, when they are the corrupting ones instilling hate and fear.
Then there’s those of us who know what’s happening and don’t know what to do about it. I include myself in this group because as much as I intellectually know what to do about it, emotionally I still feel befuddled much of the time.
I started writing this from the balcony of a hotel while I was isolating from my kids because I tested positive for COVID. I worked so hard for more than two years to avoid it and the moment we went on vacation, got it. What else could I have done? I have no idea. There’s no way we could have expected this would still be going this long and be even more contagious when we planned this trip a year ago. That was when it was at all-time lows!
While emotionally I’m flailing, intellectually I do know some things that can help.
