Climate Change: Implications for Parents and Parenting

SYNOPSIS This tutorial draws together research on the impacts of climate change on children and youth, and suggests how parents, and parenting researchers, educators, and professionals, can engage with climate change. We start with an overview of the science of climate change and highlight the urgency of action to restore a safe climate for future generations. Then we discuss three major types of impact of climate change on children and youth: first, their greater vulnerability to its impacts on health and well-being due to physiological immaturity and dependency, a vulnerability that is greatly exacerbated for children in disadvantaged circumstances; second, evidence of widespread worry about climate change among children and youth, and their need for support and empowerment to respond adaptively to these anxieties; and third, the need to prepare the next generation for demands for massive changes in lifestyles as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy. We follow with a review of evidence about how parents can support their children through actively engaging with the issue themselves and through communication and other strategies that help build children’s hope, efficacy, resilience, and engagement. We then discuss the multiple important roles that parenting researchers and professionals can play in addressing climate change, concluding that those of us with responsibility for future generations need to recognize climate change as an urgent challenge.