From anxiety to coping: Understanding psychological distance and coping skills for climate change and COVID-19 in 10-12-year-old children.

ABSTRACT: Children worldwide experience climate anxiety, defined as a chronic fear of environmental catastrophe. Following other scholars who sought comparison between the perceived risks and our collective responses with the COVID-19 pandemic, as they can both be considered global crises. Children's emotional responses, psychological distance and coping strategies to climate change compared and COVID-19 are compared, using a mixed-method longitudinal study among 231 primary school children across the Republic of Ireland. Pre-pandemic and post-lock down data were collected measuring children's emotions through surveys using Likert scales and sketches. Sketching, increasingly recognised as a method for assessing emotional expression, is especially useful when language skills are limited. Results sugg

SUBMITTER: Schuitema G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11798500 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature