Children can foster climate change concern among their parents

• Published in: Nature climate change 2019-06, Vol.9 (6), p.458-462
• Main Authors: Lawson, Danielle F., Stevenson, Kathryn T., Peterson, M. Nils, Carrier, Sarah J., L. Strnad, Renee, Seekamp, Erin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 704/844/841; 706/689/694/682; Children; Climate Change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice; Knowledge management; Learning; Letter; Parents; Parents & parenting; Public concern; Transfer learning
• ISSN: 1758-678X; 1758-6798
• DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0463-3

The collective action that is required to mitigate and adapt to climate change is extremely difficult to achieve, largely due to socio-ideological biases that perpetuate polarization over climate change 1 , 2 . Because climate change perceptions in children seem less susceptible to the influence of worldview or political context 3 , it may be possible for them to inspire adults towards higher levels of climate concern, and in turn, collective action 4 . Child-to-parent intergenerational learning—that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents 5 —may be a promising pathway to overcoming socio-ideological barriers to climate concern 5 . Here we present an experimental evaluation of an educational intervention designed to build climate change concern among parents indirectly through their middle school-aged children in North Carolina, USA. Parents of children in the treatment group expressed higher levels of climate change concern than parents in the control group. The effects were strongest among male parents and conservative parents, who, consistent with previous research 1 , displayed the lowest levels of climate concern before the intervention. Daughters appeared to be especially effective in influencing parents. Our results suggest that intergenerational learning may overcome barriers to building climate concern. Public concern about climate change is difficult to motivate. This study finds an increase in climate change concern among parents after their middle school-aged children participated in a climate change school curriculum.