When my nephew, Sam, was four years old, he said to his mother one night before bed, “Mom, I don’t want to be alive anymore.”
His mother pulled him onto her lap and asked, “Why?”
“The animals are all going to die, and I don’t want to be here when everything’s dead,” he answered. Mind you, this scene played out in 2005, long before the world watched as 1 billion animals died in Australia’s bushfires.
I’ve been thinking about this incident a lot lately as I read media reports about children suffering from eco-anxiety. For their whole lives, our kids have absorbed terrifying stories about what’s happening to our planet and the creatures that inhabit it. Worse, more and more of them understand that when it comes to doing what it takes to avoid future hell-on-Earth scenarios, adults are, on the whole, failing them. No wonder so many of them, from preschoolers to college students, are freaking out. How might we help our kids deal with their feelings in ways that are age-appropriate, empowering—and honest?
I started pondering this question long ago when my own children, now 20 and 23, began showing signs of anxiety about the climate crisis. The following suggestions grew from my observations of what helped them, what helped other families I’ve interviewed, and what professionals have to say about a problem that’s not going away any time soon.
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