People watch the scene of the Dryden Creek wildfire, from an intersection along Highway 99 in Brackendale, north of Squamish, B.C, on June 11. How we talk to our kids about climate change can have an impact on how involved they are in helping the planet.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
There’s not a lot I shield my young kids from. They are 5 and 3, and I try to answer any question they have with age-appropriate honesty. In broad strokes, they know how babies are made, what happens when our bodies stop working and the vague origin story of Santa Claus.
But one recent query stopped me in my tracks: “Why is the sky orange?”
Smoke from wildfires burning across Canada was turning our sunny Toronto day a mildly apocalyptic hue. Instead of being honest – and potentially causing panic before drop-off – I simply avoided the question: “Orange is a fun word to say. Does anything rhyme with orange?”
As a parent, literally devoting my life to the future, my climate anxiety is often through the roof. The headlines make me want to scream: It’s already on track to be the second-worst wildfire season on record, behind 2023. A new assessment by climate scientists says the world will surpass the 1.5C warming limit within three years if current carbon dioxide emissions continue.
And while parts of the country burned out of control, the G7 leaders who met in Kananaskis, Alta., wrote a charter about the growing threat of wildfires but omitted two rather serious words, and the reason wildfires are getting worse: climate change.
Yet I often keep my climate anxiety hidden from my kids’ view. I’m hesitant to volunteer information that might contribute to their worry. When my daughter asked me why the sky was orange, I couldn’t muster the truth: That families just like ours were having to flee their homes to escape wildfires, that our air quality in Toronto on that particular day was one of the worst in the world due to wildfire smoke – and that we may have to stay inside more during our precious summer months with rising temperatures and concerning air quality.
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For Mia Gordon, a weather reporter and mom of two in Squamish, B.C., the crisis became very real as a wildfire broke out in her town earlier this month. But she didn’t avert her kids’ eyes.
“You really think it’s never going to happen in your backyard,” she said. “Wildfire season is something I talk about daily for work, but I’ve never had the experience so personally. As a mom, it was really an eerie thing to witness first hand.”
As an evacuation order was issued for Alice Lake Provincial Park – where her family goes most weekends in the summer – she was honest with her son that one of their favourite places may not always be there. But she also had him focus on the efforts of the firefighters, keeping him “curious and interested” as the water bombers flew over their house every evening.
“I refuse to be all doom and gloom. I think there is a real opportunity if we communicate to our kids, that they can be stewards of the land and protectors of the environment.”
Bridget Shirvell, a Connecticut-based journalist, mother and author of Parenting in a Climate Crisis: A Handbook for Turning Fear into Action, agrees that how we communicate to our kids can have an impact on how involved they are in helping the planet.
“It is such a hard balance between being honest and not terrifying them,” she said, underlining that she always recommends parents follow the children’s lead.
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With her own child, who is six, Shirvell frames the crisis around the choices humans make. “I never refer to wildfire as natural disaster because I make it clear that these things are happening because of what humans are doing – and the flip side of that, is that humans can also do things that are going to make the planet better.”
Shirvell says age should be the guiding factor in how to approach the conversation. For young kids, she uses a blanket analogy. “You can put a blanket around your kids, and you can talk a little bit about how the Earth has its own blanket that helps it stay at a good temperature where humans can survive. And if you put on more blankets, the Earth will get too hot.”
After the age of five, Shirvell says developing and nurturing problem-solving skills is key. At the grocery store, she challenges her daughter to find her favourite foods in packaging that is better for the environment. “I make it a game – we can get apple sauce if you can find it in something that’s not plastic.” When kids are older, that’s when you can have the “very serious talk” about what’s happening to our planet. “But keep in mind they’re going to be angry, and they should be,” she said.
So on a recent flight (yes, I know) I told my five-year-old daughter, as gently as I could, about the plane’s effects on the Earth, how the fuel it burns makes the world hotter and why we limit airline travel. I didn’t talk about the fires – but I explained why we plant trees, why we don’t eat meat and why we drive an electric car.
I also explained why this trip was important: We were flying to meet my newborn nephew and her only cousin. The future.
Later, as my daughter sat beside his bassinet, she said: “I’ll put more trees in the dirt for you, so you can have more air.”
I hope the world they both inherit has trees that are still standing and air that’s still safe to breathe. And leaders who finally make systemic changes. When our kids are adults themselves, fielding hard questions from the little ones in their lives, I hope they won’t need to skirt the truth.
