As Malta confronts the growing realities of climate change and its associated disruptions, one dimension remains largely absent from public discussion: how climate change is already being felt emotionally by our youngest citizens.
When we talk about climate anxiety or eco-emotions, we usually picture teenagers marching with placards or adults worrying about the future of the planet. Rarely do we imagine children under eight worrying about the sea or extreme heat. And yet, this is increasingly the lived reality of young children growing up in Malta and across the world.
Children today are born into a warming world. They experience longer heatwaves, environmental degradation, anxious adult conversations and a steady stream of dooming climate-related news. Even when they cannot articulate it in adult terms, they experience these changes emotionally.
In my recent peer-reviewed article, ‘Climate emotions in early childhood: a conceptual framework for research, intervention and policy action’, published in the international journal Environmental Education Research, I argue that early childhood is not a climate-neutral stage of life. This article is based on my research that is being conducted at the University of Malta, and draws on emerging interdisciplinary work linking child development, emotional well-being and environmental change.
Early childhood (from birth up to age eight) is a period of rapid brain development, emotional openness and deep reliance on caregivers. These are precisely the conditions under which climate change becomes emotionally meaningful, even when children lack the language skills to express it.
Beyond ‘climate anxiety’
One of the problems in how we currently discuss children and climate change is actually the language we use. Terms such as ‘climate anxiety’ or ‘eco-anxiety’ are often applied broadly and interchangeably. While these concepts may be useful for adults and adolescents, they do not sit comfortably with early childhood.
Young children rarely express climate-related distress as explicit fear about the future of the planet. Instead, in my research, such distress in young children appeared in quieter and more indirect ways: worries about animals or familiar places, sadness linked to environmental loss, confusion when adults appear distressed, repetitive play involving disasters or rescue, or bodily signs such as clinginess or sleep disturbance.
These responses are not necessarily pathological. In fact, they are often developmentally appropriate reactions to uncertainty, loss and moral concern. Labelling them too quickly as anxiety risks pathologising children and discouraging adults from engaging openly with them. A more helpful approach is to speak of climate emotions, which include the full range of feelings children may experience in relation to climate change, including fear, grief, anger, empathy, care, curiosity and hope.
How young children make sense of a changing climate
Rather than asking whether a child is anxious, we need to ask a more meaningful question: what shapes a young child’s emotional experience of climate change?
Four interconnected factors developed from my research matter.
First, development and emotional regulation. Young children are still learning how to understand and manage emotions. Abstract, global threats such as climate change can feel overwhelming without careful adult support.
Second, relationships with parents, caregivers and educators. Children regulate emotions through relationships. They borrow calm, or fear, from the adults around them. When adults avoid the topic, catastrophise or feel emotionally overwhelmed themselves, children often sense this and fill in the gaps with their own interpretations.
“Children contribute least to climate change, yet they will live with its emotional consequences the longest”
Third, play and imagination. For young children, play, drawing, storytelling and role-play are not optional extras. They are the primary ways children process emotionally complex realities. Climate emotions often surface symbolically in play long before children can talk about them directly.
Finally, the wider social and cultural narratives children are exposed to. Maltese children are living through environmental change and climate-related disruptions, while also hearing stories about it at home, in schools and through the media. Narratives focused only on catastrophe can create a sense of helplessness, while those emphasising care, responsibility and collective action can support resilience.
Why this matters for Malta’s early childhood sector
For parents, caregivers and educators, this perspective offers reassurance, guidance and challenge.
Reassurance, because children’s emotional responses to climate change are not signs of failure. Rather, they are signs of awareness and care.
Guidance, because it highlights the importance of emotionally available adults, honest but hopeful conversations, and safe spaces for expression.
And challenge, because it calls on us to rethink how climate change education is approached in the early childhood. Information-heavy or fear-based approaches risk overwhelming children. Silence, on the other hand, leaves them alone with feelings they cannot yet understand and process.
What young children need are small, meaningful opportunities to feel connected and capable: planting seeds, caring for animals, restoring a school garden or telling stories about collective repair. These acts do not solve climate change but they help children develop resilience and a sense of agency rather than helplessness.
A matter of public responsibility
Children contribute least to climate change, yet they will live with its emotional consequences the longest. Supporting their emotional well-being is, therefore, not only an educational concern but also a public health and intergenerational justice issue.
For a small island state like Malta, investing in climate change education in early childhood, educator training, age-appropriate communication and child-friendly green spaces is not optional. Ignoring young children’s climate emotions does not make them disappear; it simply postpones them.
Children under eight are not too young to feel the impacts of a changing climate. They are, however, too young to carry it alone.
By listening carefully to their play, their questions and their silences, and engaging in meaningful conversations with them, we may recognise that climate change is not only a scientific or political challenge. It is also an emotional and relational one, and the early years are where meaningful change must begin.
Jane Spiteri is a senior lecturer at the Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education, Faculty of Education, the University of Malta. Her research is primarily guided by education for sustainable development, focusing on early childhood, outdoor learning, climate change education, and gifted and talented education.