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. 2025 Feb 5;20(2):e0317725.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317725. eCollection 2025.

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

Geertje Schuitema  1   2 , Anthea Lacchia  1   2
Affiliations

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

Geertje Schuitema et al. PLoS One. .

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 suggest that because climate change was more psychologically distant than COVID-19, it was more difficult for children to effectively use emotional-, meaning-, problem-, and relationship-focused coping strategies to deal with their climate anxiety. One important conclusion of this study is that messages and strategies used to motivate adults to take climate action may increase climate anxiety among young children. Also, relationship-focused coping strategies are underutilised to help children deal with climate anxiety, whilst these were promising coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, creating positive social support and collective action may help young children to cope with climate anxiety.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Mean scores on 6 emotions across three conditions.
Error bars indicate 95% Confidence Intervals.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Sketches on perceived consequences (2a and 2b) and perceived antecedents (2c and 2d) of climate change.
(A) First illustration of perceived consequences of climate change. (B) Second illustration of perceived consequences of climate change. (C) First illustration of perceived antecedents of climate change. (B) Second illustration of perceived antecedents of climate change.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Sketches on perceived consequences (2a and 2b) and perceived antecedents (2c and 2d) of COVID-19.
(A) First illustration of perceived consequences of COVID-19. (B) Second illustration of perceived consequences of COVID-19. (C) First illustration of perceived antecedents of COVID-19. (B) Second illustration of perceived antecedents of COVID-19.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Impression of sketches on four dimensions of psychological distance of climate change.
Four dimension of psychological distance refer to (A) place, (B) time, (C) Social distance, and (D) hypotheticality.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Impression of sketches on four dimensions of psychological distance of COVID-19.
Four dimension of psychological distance refer to (A) place, (B) time, (C) Social distance, and (D) hypotheticality.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Impression of four coping strategies used to cope with anxiety related to COVID-19.
The illustrations refer to (A) meaning-focused coping strategy, (B) problem-focused coping strategies, (C) emotion-focused coping strategies, and (D) relationship-focused coping strategies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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