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Tuesday 3 January 2023

Anxiety deficit declines



Save the Children survey reveals climate anxiety in youngsters: Teenage climate change campaigner from Chorley discusses his fears

A recent survey has revealed that climate anxiety is rising among children in the UK, and one teenage climate change campaigner from Chorley explains why this may be the case.


Fair enough, if young people are taught to be anxious about climate change then some will be anxious about climate change. In their case, climate anxiety lessons are achieving their objective. What about those who aren't anxious about climate change? 

We should surely initiate an initiative aimed at finding out if a lack of climate anxiety among some young people could lead to anxiety about not suffering from the right kind of anxiety. We may need to teach these youngsters that becoming more anxious about climate change could lessen their anxiety about not suffering from the right kind of anxiety.

Unfortunately, some young people may be natural sceptics with no exploitable anxieties at all, in spite of all the educational resources thrown at them.

5 comments:

The Jannie said...

Wot? 24/7 indoctrination is having negative effects on vulnerable young people? Whodathunkit? Those scum doing the indoctrination, that's who.

Ed P said...

STC used to be a good charity, but recently they seen to have gone stupid/woke, i.e., in self-destruct mode, with loss of donations ahead.
Anxiety about and interest in mainstream concerns is fine - children must at some point in their developments discover and consider their interpretations of the adult world. Worrying the young unnecessarily, as so much of the media do, is stressful and counter-productive - they can process facts (if they're true facts), but hate all the bullshit.
Save the children, but do not pervert them (mentally or in any other way).

Sam Vega said...

Having taught my children to question everything, especially the ridiculous consensus that seems to prevail in the media and in education, I guess I'm laying myself open to a visit from the authorities. Preventing them from learning, denying them the obvious advantages of being anxious and self-hating and loathing the culture that is their birthright.

Macheath said...

For many years, I used Occam’s Razor, Utilitarianism and the teachings of Socrates to equip pupils with a mental tool-kit for evaluating what they are told.

I can report from experience that, while not all educators are dedicated to instilling the appropriate anxieties, those of who try to show their charges how to identify bias and adopt an objective viewpoint are likely to find things very difficult during the annual appraisal (now renamed professional development review).

A K Haart said...

Jannie - yes, an anxious population is a very basic political aim.

Ed - it's as if kids are officially regarded as trainee consumers of political doctrine with no future as independent citizens. For decades, advertisers have been criticised for treating kids as trainee consumers, but at least they don't try to scare kids into conforming.

Sam - "And When Did You Last See Your Father?"

Macheath - interesting and an interesting change of name. My impression is that our grandkids are not taught to be analytical and objective simply because most teachers either won't teach it or don't know how. Hard to tell which from a grandparent's distance.