Lessons in catastrophe

‘‘mutually assured destruction’’ was confounding for children, who struggled to see how their elders could be so stupid.

The omnipresent threat of nuclear war also had the effect of making children – and many of their elders – feel quite helpless.

The parallels to the climate crisis are often remarked upon, as is children’s nature to see hope and solutions, where parents might feel despair and ennui.

While climate change is not part of the national curriculum, many teachers and schools take it upon themselves to teach the subject. It’s not an easy one to teach, and can have a profound impact.

Victoria University psychology professor Marc Wilson says children are no different to adults insofar as they are all different and their reactions will differ.

‘‘Those reactions range through enthusiasm to get cracking and fix the planet, through ambivalence and apathy, to unhappiness. But I think it’s also the case that, as with many things, it’s not the teaching, but how we’re teaching.’’

He and his colleagues are hearing anecdotally from people working with teens that ‘‘climate fatalism’’ is playing out in therapy.

‘‘It’s also the case that the school teachers we work with want to know what we know about this. Much of the research my Youth Wellbeing Study team do focuses on adolescent mental health and wellbeing, and there’s not much in New Zealand (yet) about climate anxiety and wellbeing, so that’s one of the things we’re going to do next – to have a look at this and see what is going on,’’ Wilson says.

‘‘International research, however, suggests that young folks tend to be less fatalistic than their elders, and more likely to consider climate change as a solvable challenge. But they also tend to see it as more of a challenge for the future.

‘‘On the one hand, this represents a problem in terms of engaging people in action, but it’s also been suggested that it’s a not unreasonable way of ‘problem-focused coping’.’’

At what age is a child ready to learn about climate change? Again, it will depend on the child, Wilson says.

‘‘I think the answer to this is that kids are never too young, but we need to talk to them about this in a manner that is consistent with where they’re at in terms of ability to understand. I’m not sure I’d be starting with explaining the carbon cycle, for