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Explain ecoanxiety to us: why is the concept a bit misnamed since it differs from other types of anxiety? Explain to us how this anxiety can be a driving force for change if it is channeled well?
Young people are particularly lucid about the climate crisis and they are already experiencing its emotional consequences. Up to 68% of adolescents consider climate change a very serious problem, according to a study of 10,000 young people conducted in 10 countries.
As a result of this observation, 57% of people surveyed also feel fear, anger (52%) or guilt (48%).
The term “ecoanxiety” has emerged in recent years as a broad enough term to bring together other feelings. But “the word is not perfect”, recognizes child psychiatrist Laelia Benoit straight away. The main definition, that used by the American Psychological Association (APA), includes not only anxiety, sadness, guilt or anger, but also positive emotions such as the desire to act, she recalls. .
“The APA also says that ecoanxiety is not a disease, that it is not pathological. On the contrary, it is a healthy and natural reaction to environmental disorders that are real. »
However, the step between these concerns and action is more rarely taken, whether we are children, adolescents or adults. Faced with this observation, this researcher at the prestigious Yale University has developed educational tools in collaboration with the Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais Foundation to transform ecoanxiety into positive and concrete actions.
From the outset, Dr. Benoit advises not waiting for children to arrive from school and talk about their emotions related to the climate to broach the subject: “The risk, according to our studies, is that it could create a taboo,” she said bluntly.
She draws a parallel with sex education, “a subject about which everyone has questions”, she says: “Children and adolescents have the impression that if their parents do not talk about a subject at all , it’s because they don’t want to talk about it or because it doesn’t interest them. »
It was following more in-depth interviews with children in France, the United States and Brazil that she went further than the findings of eco-anxious young people. Parents’ eco-friendly actions, such as eating less meat, flying less or others, were not well understood by their offspring if adults did not explain them. “Many parents adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, but they don’t say why, because they are afraid of worrying their children, of stressing them,” she explains.
The guides Talking to children about the climate and Talking to teenagers about the climate therefore suggest starting by being aware of our own ecoanxiety and naming it, with words appropriate to the child’s age.
It is then a matter of acting on an individual and collective scale to overcome the distress. “It’s not just politics or activist associations that act for the common good,” points out the psychiatrist. She cites several examples: organizing a second-hand clothing sale at school, improving the insulation of our building with neighbors or even participating in a waste collection in a park.
Above all, she invites us not to discredit or mock the words of the youngest, in her most recent book entitled Infantism and published last September. Children and adolescents are interested in the climate and want to act, it is better to seize the opportunity rather than look down on them, she says. Some young people have also decided to sue their government in the hope of making it accountable. When will we see adults doing the same?