How to raise environmentally conscious children

By Dr Elizabeth Cripps

Dr Elizabeth Cripps is a mother, writer, philosopher, and activist. She’s the author of Parenting on Earth: A Philosopher’s Guide to Doing Right by Your Kids – and Everyone Else.

Before I get to the how, let’s start with the why.

Central Europe is flooding. In recent years, wildfires have devastated Australia, California, and southern Europe. Climate change destroys homes and livelihoods. It spreads disease and devastates biodiversity, and it is getting worse. One billion children are at ‘extremely high Risk’.

As parents, we know this. In the UK, we also know that our children are comparatively lucky. Children in Bangladesh and Sudan have lost their homes, their schools, their friends, their families, their lives. We must raise our children to face this difficult truth: to understand the challenges their generation will inherit and meet them with resilience, justice and determination. We owe this to them, and to those whose lives are already torn apart.

‘But I don’t want to scare them!’

Here’s an obvious worry. Childhood is the time to be carefree: to play, to build imaginary

worlds without the weight of adult responsibility. The last thing we want to do is force our

children to grow up too soon.

This has huge implications for how to raise environmentally conscious children. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at all. Our children need to be prepared for the future: not have it come as a horrible shock. What’s more, they are already scared. In 2020, almost three quarters of UK eight- to 16-year-olds were worried about the state of the planet. Many struggled to eat or sleep because of it. Not talking doesn’t help. Our children, like us, are also moral beings. They’re entitled to grow up with the knowledge to make the world a better place.

So much for why. Now for the how.

Don’t change the subject

These are hard conversations. If your child asks about bushfires or floods, it’s tempting to dismiss their questions with a white lie, or ‘you don’t need to worry’. Instead, listen actively.

Take time to hear what they have to say. Acknowledge their fears. Be calm and honest, explain as best you can. Then, move on to what they can do…

Make children part of the way forward

If we are anxious or afraid, it can help to be part of positive action. Children can be involved in this from almost any age, from litter picks to fundraising or climate protests. Do this, and even as they learn about the climate crisis, they also learn that the future is not fixed: that we all have a voice, and we can use it.

Share stories

There’s only so much we can learn from facts. Books, films, music, art and drama help forge a deeper, emotional connection. True stories provide role models: from activist Greta Thunberg to Cole Rasenberger, the eight-year-old who took on the packaging industry, young naturalist Dara McAnulty, or Ta’Kaiya Blaney, an Indigenous and environmental activist since she was eight. (Looking for inspiration? www.earth.org has a great list of childrens’ books.)

Be a role model

Our children learn from what we do, not just what we say. If you talk the talk on climate change but fly abroad for holidays, eat lots of meat, and never raise your voice for change, your child will be confused rather than motivated.

Get outdoors

Time in nature helps raise environmental consciousness and boosts physical and mental health. Studies have shown that ‘forest floors’ in day care centres improve children’s immune

systems and that outdoor activities increase their wellbeing. Outdoor play combines these benefits with the opportunity to develop imagination, thinking and social skills.

Be authoritative, not authoritarian

It matters – very much – how we do all this. Authoritative parenting is proactive, supportive and sympathetic, with consistency and clear limits, honest dialogue and positive reinforcement. Authoritarian parenting is harsh, punitive and often arbitrary – centred on showing a child who is ‘in charge’. Development psychology favours authoritative, compassionate parenting for many reasons, including moral development.

And be there for them

Climate anxiety is real. As they grow, our children will have to manage the mental health impacts of climate change. They must acknowledge difficult emotions and balance being ‘good climate citizens’ with their own lives and relationships. They will need a trusted community to do this with. As parents, we can help them to forge those links – and we can be ‘adult allies’.

Be age appropriate

This is about empowering our children, not scaring them. For very young children, building environmental (and social!) consciousness is about time in green spaces, learning to express emotions, share, and show empathy. This can progress to challenging everyday assumptions (crucial in our throw-away, high-consumption society). Even young children can attend protests or do simple ‘eco-friendly’ tasks like building bug boxes or sorting recycling.

Next, children can learn simplified science. They can have difficult conversations, give names to concepts like ‘justice’, and appreciate the power dynamics which make climate change so much worse for some communities. We can encourage them to do eco projects, in or outside school. As they get older again, they can learn more complicated science and politics, as well as critical thinking. They can learn to evaluate the information thrown at them by social media. They can become activists in their own right. (For more details on this age-appropriate approach, see Harriet Shugarman’s excellent book: How To Talk to Kids About Climate Change.)

The bigger picture

In our warming world, being a ‘good parent’ is complicated. We should raise environmentally conscious children. We should make the family lifestyle as sustainable as possible. But there’s something even more important we can do too.

If we owe our children anything at all, we owe them a safer future. But climate change is not caused by me or by you in isolation, nor can we solve it alone. It’s a collective crisis, provoked by governments and corporations. So, being ‘good parents’ means using our powerful, combined political and economic voice. It means contacting politicians, petitioning banks or pension funds to divest from fossil fuels, and donating to NGOs or activist groups. It means demanding sustainable alternatives (or not buying at all), talking about the climate at the school gates and the office water cooler. It means attending protests, joining groups like Mothers Rebellion, Parents for Future or Mothers Rise Up.

Like it or not, in this emergency, we must all be activists.