…for easing eco-anxiety in children

Lots of parents worry about how to support their kids with eco-anxiety.

Remember it's totally NORMAL for the kids (and you!) to feel anxious or worried about the climate crisis.

Here are some nifty tools for helping you to help them with all those big feelings.

1. Remember to ACT

The ACT framework, created by our friend and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Joanne Crossley is a handy way of holding in mind some principles that you may want to use to support your child with their feelings.

⭐ Acknowledge and validate your child's feelings - This is one of the most important things we can do. Why? Because we need to help our kids feel seen and heard.

Help them to label their feelings “I can hear that you’re feeling worried”. Encourage them to notice what’s happening to their body “What are you feeling right now? Butterflies in your tummy? Shaky legs?”. Let them know that it's ok to feel this way “It’s ok to cry. I’m here”. Remember you don't have to fix their feelings - but help them to accept and sit with their feelings.

⭐ Coping Strategies - You can help your child to develop ways to manage their emotions (also known as emotional regulation strategies). The goal of these strategies is not to get RID of feelings but to learn to TOLERATE them.

You can help your child identify things that help them feel calm like drawing, writing, walking, running, breathing techniques, and noticing things around them using their 5 senses. Whatever WORKS BEST for them. More on these in tip #5.

⭐ Take action - It’s important to create a sense that you can do this TOGETHER.

Can you talk as a family about what actions you can take? These might be small changes you can make in your everyday life. Or ways to get involved in a campaign at school or in your local community. Or It might involve direct action like writing to an MP or joining marches.

2. Give yourself permission to NOT do everything

When you care about something, you may feel the urge to make big changes. This often leads to feeling like we have to do ALL THE THINGS. But that can quickly push you into overwhelm, and action paralysis.

Take small steps, and once they are embedded, then add another.

Remember: It is not on you to do EVERYTHING. As a family, agree on the topics you care about most and identify ONE THING you’re each going to do first.

3. Focus on yourself first

Even if we don’t want to admit it, the kids can sense when we’re stressed, upset or worried about something. They’re attuned from birth to read their parents’ expressions (hence all those silly faces we pull at babies, guuuuurn).

We need to make sure that we as guardians are feeling in a good place to take action and be role models before we can encourage the kids.

Oxygen masks on first and all that…

4. Be a role model

As with so much when it comes to kids, they learn from us, so we need to be the best role model we can. And guess what, that doesn’t mean being perfect.

It means teaching them that things don’t always go right and learning from mistakes. Showing them the positive and not-so-positive sides of taking action. Showing them where you fluffed up and bought something wrapped in 17 layers of plastic at the supermarket, or forgot your water bottle so had to buy a single-use bottle instead.

Just don’t do it with guilt. It also shows you’re being honest and transparent, not trying to slip things past them.

“Uh-oh mummy’s lost a point! Look at this plastic… Now, we have to reuse this for something, what shall we do with it? How could we use it elsewhere?’

Or use it as a learning opportunity… ‘what’s the most responsible thing to do with this now?’

5. Work with the breath

Our own breath is one of our most powerful tools in easing anxiety. It slows down our overactive nervous system and brings us back into the present. This could be as simple as breathing in through the nose for the count of 4 and out for the count of 5. You can all do this anytime, any place.

Once you get well practiced in basic breathing and calming you could try some other excerises. Here are 3 to get you started:

Hot chocolate breath - you can do this with a real or imaginary hot choc - imagine it’s too hot to drink, take a big breath and then blow out slowly to cool it down. Focus purely on the drink and the breath.

Blowing bubbles - Picture you have a bubble wand. Start a bubble on your wand and imagine putting your worries in it and then bloooow those bubbles away.

Belly breathing - When we’re stressed we often breath shallowly into our chests. Take some deep breaths with your eyes closed and picture yourself pushing the breath into the belly instead. Once you master that, imagine the breath flowing through the body from the stomach > to the heart > then the head < and back down again.

6. Make these activities a habit

If you can build self-care activities such as breathing into your family’s daily routine you’ll become more proactive rather than reactive to the flood of emotions.

You can increase your resilience and improve your sense of positivity and control.

7. Create your family anxiety first aid kit

When one of you gets upset or worried, what’s the go-to activity/activities that can help diffuse the situation? Keep a little box of activities, toys, or props that you can easily reach for when needed. Maybe you could even include some notes to yourselves, some reflection prompts, and some mantras.

8. Use your skills

What skills do you each have that could help you in taking action?

Your kids might have some great ideas of things they might like to do or ways to incorporate things they already love doing. Whether it’s arts, crafts, reading, music, dance, games, science… build these into the action you take as a family to harness their PASSIONS and INTERESTS.

As a bonus they’ll feel an increased sense of power, control, and ‘I can do this!’

9. Celebrate every step you take

Every step no matter how big or small is a step toward change.

So keep a family log of all the ways you’ve contributed to creating change. Add pictures, reflections, doodles, notes, train tickets to events…whatever tickles your creative fancies.

10. Laugh & play

Climate action doesn’t have to be hard or full of frustration.

Turn your litter picks into a dino poop scoop hunt - every piece of litter (aka dino poop) is a poop point, and the big pieces are 2 points. Who can collect the most poop?

Who can write the worst poem, rap, or song about a climate change issue to educate others?

Create a game for all the family and friends to play, building in silly antics using props. Ask the kids to create the rules using their imaginations - they’re usually much less restrained than us adults.

Linked to the suggestion above - provide props and tell the kids to create a game about climate change using them. It could go anywhere. e.g. Here’s a stinky sock, a roll of sellotape, a cabbage and Pete your stuffed giraffe. Now GO!

❤ Most importantly, remember to look after yourself. We need to be able to manage our own feelings so that we can help our kids to learn how to manage theirs. These 10 tips for easing eco-anxiety can be useful for us too!!