Our notes
When we talk about children being the future, many of us worry about what that future will bring. As the climate crisis unfolds, the future seems bleak and children and young people are seeing the effects of climate change. We used this meeting to discuss how we talk to young people and children about climate change.
We started off with ourselves, thinking our our own stories. What is the conversation that I want to have? What are my concerns or worries about having a conversation about climate change?
How do we broach the subject of climate change with children and young people? Sometimes these subjects are brought up at school, but it seems there is no curriculum and it often depends on the individual teachers’ interests and opinions. We discovered that what the children we knew learnt at school seemed very varied.
When we talk we don’t want to depress or demoralise children and be a killjoy. Children can be frightened. Being scared is part of life, whether you are young or old, and there can be a thrill in this, but we don’t want them to be terrified.
Some people said it makes them feel angry that a burden for the future is placed on kids. We, as the grown-ups should be taking the lead and not expecting young people to be carrying the responsibility. There was an idea that up until age 10 or 11, children should be free to play and be children. The idea emerged that we should talk about it regularly and not save it up like some big scary lecture. Some television programmes aimed at young people, such as “Newsround “tackle the subject of climate change and its global impact. In the UK, we’re lucky as it hasn’t hit us very hard.
Taking everyday actions, such as recycling in the home can be a way to help children understand the reason for doing such things and lead to more conversations. Next, we watched a short video from the BBC and Open University about talking about climate change. We heard about how young are very aware…and angry. In the video, a psychologist who works in this area gave us some ideas about tackling the subject. The things that resonated with us about the film were:
- How tiring it is to be so angry and upset.
- Young people aren’t listened to.
- Because of this, there should be a “Question Time” for young people to challenge adults in power.
- Young people are ignored, even if they choose to campaign in the playground at school.
- Someone saw a positive in the fact that 48 per cent of young people felt ignored because it shows that they were thinking about it.
- The fact that the whole issue is considered to be up to the next generation.
In conclusion, we decided it’s about asking the right questions at the right time. We need to make space for children to speak amongst adults. We need to make the learning creative and age-appropriate.
We had some books suitable for different ages and felt that this was a good way to introduce the subject to younger children. This raised a question for another time, how do you know what’s age-appropriate?
To combat anxiety do something. Think of appropriate actions, such as recycling or mending things. There was an idea someone had heard about. Take the child shopping and instead of just buying things look for products that are ethically sourced or local and then create meals around that. Don’t put the responsibility on the child. Start the project and let the child join in. And remember, we all change all the time, children included.