Review: Ecological awareness, anxiety, and actions among youth and their parents – a qualitative study of newspaper narratives

Abstract

Background: Despite the growing impact of climate change on mental health, there have been few studies to date investigating how children and teenagers manage their ecological grief and eco-anxiety and how they can leverage it into environmental action. In this scoping review, we analyze lay press narratives about how youth respond to climate change to examine the dynamics between minors and adults around the evolving climate crisis. Methods: We included articles published between 2018 and 2021 in six of the top ten American newspapers by circulation about young people during the climate crisis. The 131 articles we selected addressed the attitudes of children, adolescents, and parents toward the climate crisis. We conducted a qualitative analysis based on discourse analysis aided by NVivo software. Results: Newspaper articles commonly categorized children, adolescents, and their respective perspectives and experiences around climate change along four patterns of discourse: (a) fierce young activists; (b) adultified children; (c) innocent victims; and/or (d) ultimate saviors. In turn, articles considered parents and adults in one of four paradigmatic ways: (a) experiencing eco-anxiety through parenthood; (b) taming children's eco-anxiety; (c) criticizing youth-led activism; and/or (d) reimagining climate action as a source of meaning in the lives of young people. Conclusion: Through the framework of childism, or prejudice against children, we conceptualize immature ways for adults to respond to youths' concerns as a defensive stance against overwhelming climate change anxiety. Alternatively, principles of existential psychology can help inform healthier and more productive responses from parents, clinicians, educators, and public health officials as they seek truthful yet supportive responses to address legitimate ecological threats that will disproportionately affect generations to come. Key Practitioner Message• The lay media has increasingly shed light on the reality of children's eco-anxiety and how adults respond to that anxiety.• Reports in the lay press may help inform what little is known about how children and teenagers manage their ecological grief and eco-anxiety and how they might leverage it into environmental action.• US newspapers depict children and adolescents in the context of climate change alternately in one of four ways: as demanding activists, adultified minors, innocent victims, or ultimate saviors.• How adults should respond to children's eco-anxiety is rarely addressed in US newspapers. When addressed, the proffered advice often involves taming children's ecological anxieties and maintaining control over the household.Child and adolescent mental health care providers:• Should be aware of the lay media's narratives regarding children's reactions to ecological challenges.• Can support parents avoid the trap of childism, confront difficult truths, and process distressing feelings • Can help parents take responsibility as role models, and through actions empower their children.. . .perilous ti...

Understanding youths’ concerns about climate change: a cross-cultural qualitative study of a generation’s ecological burden and resilience

“…In our previous study of U.S. newspaper discourses surrounding young people and climate change, we observed one narrative that cast young people as emboldened activists, claiming and wielding power (5). In the present study, even if some participants described feelings of empowerment through engaging in climate action, these sentiments were far outweighed by expressions of powerlessness.…”

Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer

“…CCA has received growing attention in the popular press (Benoit et al, 2022 ), yet little research has examined how it relates to psychiatric symptoms, including symptoms of MDD and GAD. Furthermore, with more people, especially young people, taking action to address climate change, research is needed to explore how engaging in action may relate to both CCA and mental health symptoms.…”

“…Reimer (2013) argued that young adults are the ideal target for engaging in environmental activism because of their developmental stage, environmental knowledge, and ability to be effective messengers. At the same time, young people’s activism can also be stigmatized; for example, newspapers in the United States discussing climate change depict youth alternately as demanding activists, adultified kids, innocent victims, or ultimate saviors (Benoit et al, 2022 ).…”

Parents’ Educational Anxiety Under the “Double Reduction” Policy Based on the Family and Students’ Personal Factors

“…Many studies have found that anxiety is characterized by intergenerational transmission, and in the family environment, the more obvious the anxiety of parents, the more likely children are to develop anxiety tendencies. 39 At the same time, the most direct response to parental education anxiety is to increase the child’s learning intensity, reduce the child’s entertainment and leisure time, and prematurely and over-develop the child’s cognitive ability. In this way, under the dual pressure of spirit and academics, children are prone to boredom and fear of learning, and parents treat their children with excessive intervention and control, which can easily cause their children’s test anxiety.…”