As children return to school after a summer of heatwaves, drought and wildfires, I’ve been struck by the way some parts of the media continue to frame young people’s climate concerns as “hysteria”.
There is a genuine conversation to be had about how adults talk to children about climate change. We should avoid catastrophism, guilt and placing responsibility for a systemic problem onto children who did not create it.
But that is not the same thing as pretending children’s concerns come entirely from schools, parents or social media.
This summer, millions of phones across England and Wales sounded with an Emergency Alert warning of extreme wildfire risk. Here in East Anglia, we witnessed the devastation of Dunwich Heath. Children saw smoke in the sky, heard adults discussing fire and drought, and watched familiar places appear in reports of destruction.
When somewhere familiar burns, sadness, fear or anxiety does not need to have been planted by a teacher. It can arise from a child’s relationship with that place.
That is why I find the language of “climate hysteria” so unhelpful.
It risks collapsing rational concern, grief, confusion and genuine distress into a single dismissive label. Instead of asking what children have experienced and how we can support them, it invites us to see the child as the problem.
In my work on climate literacy and safeguarding, I have argued that children need:
- ✅ Honesty without catastrophism
- ✅ Agency without misplaced guilt
- ✅ Support without shame
Above all, they need to know they are not responsible for solving this alone.
I explore these ideas in more detail in my latest article for East Anglia Bylines:
🔗 When the warning sounds, concern is not hysteria https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/environment/climate/when-the-warning-sounds-concern-is-not-hysteria/
I’d be interested to hear from educators, parents, youth workers and others working with young people: how have the events of this summer shaped the conversations you’re having?
