Helping Children Deal With Climate Change Fears – A Video With Robin Grille

How do our children feel when they hear, more and more, about the frightening effects of climate change? How can we help them to feel empowered and connected in the face of the increasing abundance of news on the subject?

Here is a short video I made, with the assistance of Nuria Lopez, full of practical suggestions – and even some reassurance for us!

Video Overview

Robin Grille is the author of Parenting for a Peaceful World and a psychotherapist in Australia.  In the video above he helps parents to explore and discover insights into empowering themselves and children discussing climate change.

What is the difference between fear and trauma?

Fear is a natural response to a frightening event, but we settle down after the event. Trauma is when fear lingers long after a scary event.

Trauma = Fear + Helplessnes or Aloneness/Isolation

Intense fear is much more likely to resolve with some kind of action, our own action or with the help of another person. There is a lot we can do as just one person, and especially for our children.

Robin’s four step process in the video includes:

  1. Validating Our Children’s Emotions
  2. Offer Your Protection
  3. Empower Your Child To Act
  4. We Are Not Alone

Resources Listed In The Video

350.org – Building a Global Climate Change Movement, Climate-focused campaigns, projects and actions led from the bottom-up by people in 188 countries. Email is how 350 connects — Join in and get started:sumofus.org

avaaz.org – meaning “voice” in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.causes.com

getup.org.au – GetUp! is an independent movement to build a progressive Australia and bring participation back into our democracy. The US version is Move On.

More Resources

Read more on Parenting in a Age of Climate Change: Communicating Tough Truths to Children on Kindred

NASA’s Official Climate Kid’s Eyes On The Earth Website

Climate Change and Children Resource List from Pinterest

Children Are Suing Big Oil Over Climate Change – Article

A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change: Educator Lesson Plans

EPA’s Educator Resources, Environmental Protection Agency

National Wildlife Federation’s Climate Change Curriculum Connections

 

Photo: Shutterstock/Sangoiri

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