My DD keeps getting really distressed about climate change

[Somemoremilkplease]

My dd is 15 (nearly 16) and has been really worried about climate change for a while. She gets really upset about it and cries a lot. She is just about to do her GCSEs and afterwards she is going to do a catering course- she wants to be a pastry chef and this is what she has wanted to do since she was quite young. She cries and says that people won’t be able to eat cakes and things like that in 20 years due to climate change and that chocolate will become extinct so there is no point in her doing all the training. I try and reassure her that she is an only child and that we don’t fly or have a car and we have reduced our meat intake so we are keeping our carbon footprint down as much as we can but she just gets really upset. She wasn’t well last week so had a bath and then got really upset about using water and said that she should’ve had a shower as it would’ve used less. I don’t really know what I can do to help reassure her. She doesn’t have a smart phone or any social media so she isn’t spending hours googling things on her phone. She reads these science magazines in the school library that talk a lot about climate change so I think that is where her information comes from. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas about how I could help her cope with how she’s feeling.

Hi, I can understand how difficult it is both for your daughter be and you, seeing her distressed. I have a daughter who is similar and can get quite despondent, esp when she was going through her early to mid teenage years.
I think as your daughter matures she might not get so distressed or if she does she'll be able to manage it better. It is understandable that our daughters feel like this but I would explain to her that any articles about CC always focus on the negative side to tell you what is going wrong. After all media in general does this , nearly all the news is focused on the bad stuff and any good news is pushed into a corner.
Perhaps you could help her find some good news about the environment, recycling, people who are reducing their carbon footprint. There will be lots going on but they don,'t get the same attention.
I think she will also feel better if she feels she has some control, even in little ways, I believe Greta Thunberg has written a book to this effect and as she is near in age perhaps it might help. I do feel for you, it is not pleasant to see our children worrying about such things and their futures.

I think it gets scary more you think about it. So, key is the control. She can change the way she lives, so can feel she is doing something about it. And if everyone took small step to fight against it, it will make a big difference. Understanding that might help?
Anyways, my dc is similar, and we talk about it a lot, and think about what we can do as individuals. We watch a lot of video too. And those made for the children are mostly made with positive tone.

If her only outlet are scientific magazines in the library then no wonder she is fixating on it

I try and reassure her that she is an only child and that we don’t fly or have a car and we have reduced our meat intake so we are keeping our carbon footprint down as much as we can but she just gets really upset*

Well, this is just feeding the fear, isn't it? You are asking her not to worry so much on the one hand while you demonstrate that you are equally worried. If someone told you they were terrified of germs you wouldn't tell them how you bleached the toilet every day - what are you looking for, a medal?

Tell her that she is capable, resilient and adaptable. That no one knows what is ahead of us but she can trust herself to make good decisions when new situations arise. Tell her that people change careers all the time and being a chef is a vocation that brings many transferable skills. That no learning or experience is a waste, that they form a catalogue of tools to take through life.

@FourTeaFallOut thank you for your reply. I suppose I never thought of it that way that I was feeding her fears. I just thought by showing her that we were taking it seriously and doing our bit she may feel a bit less anxious.

Raver and Four, I wish there was a 'special 'place on MN purely for people who have zero sympathy, nothing useful to say, and quite frankly must get up each morning wondering how they can make someone else's day worse.

Well, I have a coffee first.

It’s a tricky one because result her feelings are quite reasonable. There’s little to put your faith in right now that things are going to be sorted… I cope by just trying not to think about it, but the other approach that is apparently the most helpful is to do something - eg join the local schools strike, youth XR, young Green Party, any other environmentally minded group so that she feels she is with other people who understand, who care & who are working for change.

@DistrictCommissioner I know, I don’t want to just say everything will be fine because I don’t know if it will. I’ve asked her if she would like to join the young Green Party or other similar organisations but she says she thinks it will make her worry even more

It sounds like shes dwelling on it too much. I would try and distract her away from this topic and encourage her to limit her consumption of anything climate / environment related. As a family you're doing what is within your power so as a pp said I wouldn't dwell on that either.

Maybe talk about how there have been previous worries and eventually governments / science took action and dealt with them and they receded. Like nuclear war, other wars, diseases that are all but eradicated.

This is a great program to watch.

www.youtube.com/c/HotMessPBS/featured

Reading some slightly more upbeat things like this might help her?

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/01/after-30-years-of-cop-our-ex-environment-editor-is-now-optimistic?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The other thought I had was that maybe she’s stressed about her GCSEs but this anxiety is sort of being displaced into CC. Just a thought. Maybe it will calm down once they’re out of the way. (I’ve had issues like this in the past, where the thing I’m ostensibly worried about is actually not the cause of my stress.)

She doesn’t have a smartphone which is really very unusual for a 15yo. Not bad but possibly a bit socially isolating for a teen? You as a family don’t fly or drive, also good but, fairly unusual. Are you very worried about climate change yourself?
Whose decision was it not to have a smartphone?