Embrace your inner child this season
It’s a time of year when many of us are connecting with family of all ages, and hopefully connecting with our inner child, too, as we enjoy the season.
As you spend time with (or are thinking about) the kids in your life this holiday season, don’t shy away from conversations about eco-anxiety. Eco-anxiety is impacting kids all over the world, and researchers are telling us that many of them are feeling isolated in their feelings.
“Climate change has important implications for the health and futures of children and young people, yet they have little power to limit its harm, making them vulnerable to climate anxiety” Hickman et al.
Talking about our climate feelings can go a long way to helping kids feel seen and heard. If you’re looking to spark a conversation about eco-anxiety with the young people in your life, read on for insights from some experts on the subject!
We asked Leslie Davenport and Carl Lindemann, two authors who have written books on climate change feelings for kids, about how storytelling can help kids navigate their eco-feelings.
Leslie Davenport wrote “All the Feelings Under the Sun” to help young readers sort through their feelings about climate change and provide tools to manage and focus those feelings in healthy directions. She also graciously took time to answer our questions.
EAS: What led you to writing this book?
LD: The American Psychological Association has a children’s book division, Magination Press, that keeps their finger on the pulse of kid’s mental health needs. With eco-distress rising quickly among youth, they recognized the need for a child-friendly workbook that provides an accurate understanding of our warming world and equips them to successfully navigate the challenges with emotionally intelligent skills.
They are familiar with my work in climate psychology and reached out to me with an invitation to write the book. I was thrilled at the synchronicity — a wonderful opportunity for me to widely provide the tools and practices I’ve been teaching and place them into the hands and homes of kids and families. They also found a talented illustrator, Jessica Smith, who created beautiful drawings to accompany the text. It makes the book even more engaging and reader-friendly.
EAS: What do you hope people gain from reading this book?
LD: I’m very practical, and the book goes beyond providing information to offering a range of tools and practices for building emotional resilience within a social justice framework. It guides kids to recognize and validate feelings through reflection, writing, conversation and expressive arts. While there are strong challenges ahead, the book includes examples of children and youth who are making a difference in the world.
“The book goes beyond providing information to offering a range of tools and practices for building emotional resilience within a social justice framework.”
LD: It guides them to become their best eco-wise self through identifying their unique gifts, talents and interests with ways to leverage them into actions that become part of creating a safer and healthier world for everyone. Educators have begun using the book as a foundation for classroom lesson plans.
EAS: How do you engage with your own eco-anxiety?
LD: I start with the perspective that any feelings of emotional distress–fear, anger, frustration, ambivalence, grief — are a natural response to the harm happening to all of life due to climate chaos. They are messengers and allies if we are paying attention, empathic, and caring.
So I make room for them when they naturally arise. For example, I may get teary when reading some environmental reports. Rather than thinking of good vs bad emotions, I see healthy emotions as ones that flow. So I make time for them as well as engaging in the beauty and joy in life. I practice yoga, gardening, and cherish time with family and friends. I’m also very involved with climate psychology teaching and community endeavors.
EAS: What message do you have for other people who feel this way?
LD: Thank you for being part of the rapidly growing community of climate-aware people who care about what is happening to our world. If you don’t already do so, find some of your like-minded/hearted community. Lend your perspectives and talents.
Advocacy is not limited to demonstrations and civic engagement. Whatever your sphere of influence, every human activity and institution is ripe for a sustainability review and transformation. Change can come through working with our climate-triggered thoughts and feelings in tandem with collective engagement. Take regular care of your heart, body and mind and consider this an invitation to become involved and/or deepen your resiliency and community connections and efforts.
“Take regular care of your heart, body and mind and consider this an invitation to become involved and/or deepen your resiliency and community connections and efforts.”
Carl Lindemann – Author of Santa Soaked
Carl Lindemann is the founder of the Santa Soaked Storytelling Initiative, which uses the figure of Santa as a starting point to examine how our consumption habits are connected to climate change. We had a chance to ask Carl some questions about this project and how he navigates eco-anxiety.
EAS: What led you to writing “Santa Soaked: A Story for All Ages”?
CL: The initial inspiration came in the middle of a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat about 15 years ago. It’s total sensory deprivation, and so things start surfacing from the unconscious. THREE WORDS, a phrase, began to plague me: SANTA CAN’T SWIM!!! Santa is imprinted in our minds early, and what the warming Arctic means for his home in our mythic consciousness came together.
My own journey with climate awareness began in October, 1991. I was in my first term as a boarding school chaplain and the legendary David Brower came to speak at assembly one morning. He explained what was to come in chilling detail. I got it. Now, it’s getting us….
EAS: What do you hope people gain from reading this book?
CL: If a children’s illustrated book could do the trick on environmental awareness, Dr. Seuss’ incomparably brilliant The Lorax would have done so long ago! That realization that something else was needed to root the awareness in my story led to the storytelling workshop concept.
“You’ll find that most everyone connected to this work has such a story. This is a venue to develop and share those.”
CL: “Santa Soaked” is essentially his “how I came to understand the climate emergency” personal narrative. That serves as a model for participants – families, parents, kids – to share their own in the workshop. You’ll find that most everyone connected to this work has such a story. This is a venue to develop and share those. The goal is to get everyone thinking, telling and retelling their own version of this story – with added details about how this awareness has moved them to action.
EAS: How do you engage with your own eco-anxiety?
CL: Engagement with this campaign is how I channel that free-floating anxiety into action. If I don’t stay grounded through engagement, that energy dissipates into depression. Having a rigorous spiritual discipline (meditation) and support community is also crucial.
EAS: What message do you have for other people who feel this way?
CL: Gather into community! Alienation and isolation turns eco-anxiety into despair – connection and engagement is our society-wide anti-depressant!
“If I don’t stay grounded through engagement, that energy dissipates into depression.”
Inescapable Stressors
Even though it seems scary – maybe even unfair – to talk to kids about climate change, it’s important to remember that they don’t have the luxury of ignoring this issue into adulthood.
“Such high levels of distress, functional impact, and feelings of betrayal will negatively affect the mental health of children and young people. Climate anxiety might not constitute a mental illness, but the realities of climate change alongside governmental failures to act are chronic, long-term, and potentially inescapable stressors.” Hickman et al
We owe it to the next generation to create space to talk about what’s happening in our world, to be a safe place to unspool, unravel, untangle, unpack, and rebuild something beautiful together.
Note from EAS team-member, Beth Roth:
As a parent to to two young children, it’s been really interesting to observe how different the conversation is around the earth than it was when I was their age. The reality and challenges of our changing climate is something that’s very present for them, even at 4 and 6. Acknowledging that, and actively engaging with with that reality alongside them, is really important for all of us.
Thanks so much to Carl and Leslie for sharing with us.