From climate change victims to climate change actors: The role of eco-parenting in building mitigation and adaptation capacities in children

Abstract

Studies have acknowledged children not as climate change victims only, but also as climate change actors. However, only a few have addressed the preparatory stages of children as climate change actors. However, the few studies that addressed these preparatory stages gave attention only to the roles of schools and government agencies without adequate attention to that of parents. This article therefore attempts to discuss the role of eco-parenting in building mitigation and adaptation capacities in children. Relying on the authoritative parenting model, the article avers that eco-parenting can have significant effects on children's ability to protect the environment, mitigate, and adapt to climate change impacts.

Keywords:

• actors
• adaptation
• authoritative parenting model
• children
• climate change victims
• eco-parenting
• mitigation

Notes

1. Parenting practices refer to specific parenting behaviors and goals for socialization (such as slapping a child, teaching children environmental values, requiring children to do their homework, taking an interest in children's activities), whereas style, on the other hand, refers to the emotional climate in which parenting practices take place (such as tone of voice, bursts of anger, displays of empathy) (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). It is in this sense that eco-parenting practices are used in relation to authoritative parenting style.

2. Authoritative parenting has also been shown to be suitable for intergenerational learning which is an essential element in environmental education. This was affirmed in Gentina and Muratore's (2012) and Gentina and Singh's (2015) studies in which parents who adopt authoritative parenting principles by encouraging their children (teenagers and adolescents) to be assertive and self-expressive, reported to have been influenced or learned from their children's environmental knowledge. This was not the case with authoritarian parents who consider their children as too immature to make their own decisions and exert control over their children's attempt at influence.

3. The current global ecological crisis is largely caused by human activities (Romm, 2016) and as such, it is an inescapably moral and ethical issue (Coward & Hurka, 1993; Brown et al., 2006, Gardiner, 2006; Posas, 2007) which falls within the purview of Environmental Ethics. Environmental ethics therefore, deals with the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of the environment and non-human contents (Brennan & Lo, 2015). It seeks to instill pro-environmental thinking, concern, and reverence as well as requiring a mental disposition that sees the environment and its contents as intrinsically valuable (i.e., good or ends in themselves). It is with environmental ethical principles, therefore, that parents can train children to become environmentally friendly.