Before they can name ecological grief: a brief research report of young children’s climate emotions in a small island state

1 Introduction

Research on ecological grief and climate anxiety has expanded considerably over the past decade, drawing attention to the emotional consequences of climate change (Clayton, 2020; Cunsolo and Ellis, 2018; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2020). Ecological grief has been used to describe grief associated with experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, landscapes, livelihoods and ways of life (Cunsolo and Ellis, 2018). Climate anxiety, meanwhile, refers to forms of worry, fear, distress and uncertainty associated with climate change and its projected impacts (Clayton, 2020; Pihkala, 2020). Together, these concepts have helped to broaden understandings of environmental change beyond physical risk and policy response, foregrounding its affective, relational and psychosocial dimensions.

This research report focuses on early childhood. This is not intended as an arbitrary chronological boundary, but reflects the widely used developmental and educational definition of early childhood as spanning birth to approximately eight years of age (UNESCO, n.d.; UNICEF, 2023). This is an important area of research because less is known about how young children experience, express and co-regulate the emotions associated with climate change, ecological loss and environmental harm. While studies with adolescents and youth have foregrounded climate distress and coping in more explicit terms (e.g., Hickman et al., 2021; Kim-Shin et al., 2026; Ojala, 2012a, Ojala, 2012b; Samarawickrama et al., 2026), early childhood climate emotions research remains comparatively limited and conceptually fragmented (Spiteri, 2025a, Spiteri, 2025b; Spiteri and Pace, 2023). Recent research has begun to address how children’s understanding of climate change emerges in early childhood. For example, Spiteri and Pace (2023) show that children aged 4 to 7 years have some understanding of climate change but they also hold misconceptions. Similarly, Carballo-Losada et al.’s (2025) study with 5–8-year-old children shows that their understanding of climate change increases with age and is shaped by parental communication.

Furthermore, this age range is especially relevant because young children are not insulated from climate change. They experience climatic changes through heat, extreme weather, pollution, waste, reduced access to outdoor play, media narratives, family conversations and sustainability activities in early childhood settings. Although children under eight may not use adult terminology such as ecological grief or climate anxiety, they may nevertheless express a range of emotions about climate change, including concern, sadness, fear, confusion, care or protectiveness in relation to damaged or threatened environments (Spiteri, 2025a). Nevertheless, early childhood climate emotions research remains limited and conceptually fragmented (Spiteri, 2025b).

This gap in the literature is critical for ecological understanding which is shaped by people’s relationships with place, species, landscapes, memory, responsibility and loss (Bennett et al., 2017). Such a gap matters to early childhood because young children’s climate emotions are shaped by developmental, relational, cultural and educational contexts, rather than by individual cognition alone (Spiteri, 2025a, Spiteri, 2026a). In fact, research suggests that children’s environmental concern is more likely to become constructive when supported through participatory, developmentally appropriate and action-oriented approaches (Spiteri, 2023). Therefore, rather than treating young children as too young to engage with environmental loss, research needs to explore how children already notice, interpret and respond emotionally to the changing worlds around them early on in life.

The report responds to this gap by situating young children’s climate emotions at the intersection of three underdeveloped areas of research: early childhood, small island vulnerability, and child-centred qualitative methodology. It focuses on children under eight, whose climate emotions may be expressed through embodied, relational, play-based and place-based forms of understanding rather than through adult terminology or abstract climate vocabulary. It locates these questions in Malta, a small island state where climate pressures, including heat, water scarcity, coastal vulnerability, urbanisation and biodiversity loss, are encountered through everyday family, educational and outdoor experiences. Methodologically, it draws on secondary qualitative analysis of the author’s existing empirical research in Malta with young children, parents and educators (Spiteri, 2020, Spiteri, 2021, Spiteri, 2022, Spiteri, 2024a, Spiteri, 2024c, Spiteri, 2026b; Spiteri and Pace, 2023). Informed by child-centred methodological work showing that young children’s perspectives may be expressed through speech, drawings, photographs, embodied responses, play and other multimodal forms of communication (Spiteri, 2024a), the report examines how environmental loss, climate worry and care are affectively understood and co-constructed in early childhood.

The report makes two contributions. First, it brings early childhood into conversation with ecological grief by showing how young children’s climate emotions may be expressed through local, embodied and relational forms of understanding before they possess formal climate change vocabulary. Second, it highlights how these emotions are shaped by adult mediation, place attachment and the specific vulnerabilities of small island contexts, thereby offering an important early childhood lens for climate emotions and conservation social science.

1.1 Small island context

The Mediterranean is widely recognised as a climate change hotspot. Regional warming has exceeded the global average since the 1980s, and future annual and summer warming rates are projected to be approximately 20% and 50% higher than the global annual average, respectively (IPCC, 2022b). This accelerated warming is particularly significant for small island and coastal contexts, where overpopulation, rising temperatures, marine heatwaves, water stress, biodiversity loss and coastal vulnerability intensify children’s everyday encounters with environmental change (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2025; MedECC, 2020). For young children, these macro-environmental shifts are felt as immediate, embodied, and sensory realities. They feel the intense heat, notice waste or pollution, hear adults speak about environmental problems, engage with school activities about sustainability, or express concern for animals, plants and the sea. These everyday encounters provide an important empirical basis for examining how climate worry and ecological concern may appear in early childhood.

Malta is a small island state, situated in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, and exposed to climate pressures, including rising temperatures, water scarcity, coastal vulnerability, biodiversity loss, urbanisation and limited green space (IPCC, 2022a). Although Malta is not classified as a small island developing state under the United Nations classification, and in this report it is not representative of all island contexts, it serves as an illustrative small island and Mediterranean case through which to examine how climate vulnerability, dense urbanisation, limited land, heat exposure, water stress and coastal pressures may shape young children’s everyday environmental understanding. Therefore, Malta provides an ideal empirical context for investigating these dynamics.

2 Aim and research questions

The aim of this report is to examine how early forms of ecological grief, climate emotions and environmental care are expressed by Maltese children under eight, and how parents and educators may mediate these responses. The study is guided by the following research questions:

• How do young Maltese children describe or represent climate change and the emotions surrounding it?
• How do parents and educators interpret, mediate or respond to young children’s climate emotions and environmental concern?
• What do these child, parent and educator accounts suggest about the place of young children within research on ecological grief, climate anxiety and conservation social science?

3 Materials and methods

3.1 Research design

This study utilised a bounded secondary qualitative analysis and cross study thematic synthesis of the author’s previously published empirical research on early childhood sustainability, young children’s climate change understanding, parental mediation and educator perspectives in Malta. Secondary qualitative analysis involves the re-examination of existing qualitative material in order to address a new or extended research question (Heaton, 2004). This approach is particularly appropriate where existing studies contain rich but underexplored affective meanings that can be productively reinterpreted through emerging theoretical lenses. In this case, the published corpus was revisited through the concepts of ecological grief, climate anxiety, climate emotions and relational care in early childhood.

The original studies examined children’s environmental understanding, intergenerational learning, sustainability education, climate change conceptions and parental communication, but did not primarily analyse ecological grief, climate emotions or relational care as their central focus. The present report therefore does not reproduce the original analyses. Instead, it asks a new question of the available material. The analysis was also informed by child-centred qualitative traditions that recognise young children as meaning-makers whose perspectives may require flexible, participatory and multimodal approaches (Spiteri, 2024a).

Each published finding was retained based on its relevance to the present research questions. This enabled comparison across child, parent and educator perspectives while preserving the contextual limits of each original study. No new participants were recruited, no new data were collected, and no identifiable, unpublished or raw participant data were analysed. The analysis was restricted to published, anonymised findings, extracts and interpretive material from previously published studies. For this reason, the study should be understood as a secondary qualitative synthesis of published empirical material rather than as a reanalysis of unpublished primary data.

3.2 Data sources

As indicated in Table 1, the secondary analysis synthesises qualitative data across studies conducted by the author in Malta, with children under age 8, and their parents and educators, ensuring multi-perspective triangulation (Spiteri, 2020, Spiteri, 2021, Spiteri, 2022, Spiteri, 2024a, Spiteri, 2024c, Spiteri, 2026b; Spiteri and Pace, 2023). Together, these sources provide a small but coherent qualitative corpus through which to examine ecological grief and climate worry in early childhood within a small island context.

Table 1. The empirical sources included in the secondary qualitative analysis.

3.3 Analytical procedure

The unit of analysis was an emotionally salient meaning unit. This included child utterances, descriptions of drawings or other multimodal material, parent or educator interview segments, and published analytic extracts that referred to environmental change, heat, pollution, waste, animals, plants, the sea, damaged environments, worry, sadness, fear, uncertainty, care, responsibility, hope, reassurance, avoidance or adult mediation.

The analysis followed an interpretive thematic approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006). First, the relevant published findings and ethically accessible qualitative materials were reviewed in full. During this stage, attention was paid to emotionally significant references to environmental change, including heat, pollution, waste, animals, plants, the sea, damaged places, future loss, worry, sadness, fear, confusion, care, responsibility, avoidance, reassurance and hope. The coding was also informed by a developmental systems view of climate emotions, which understands children’s responses as shaped by interactions among emotional development, adult mediation, social context, climate knowledge and opportunities for agency (Spiteri, 2025a).

Second, extracts and findings were coded inductively and deductively. Deductive coding was informed by the literature on ecological grief, climate anxiety and climate emotions (Clayton, 2020; Cunsolo and Ellis, 2018; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2020). Inductive coding allowed themes to emerge from the child and parent accounts themselves, particularly where emotions were expressed indirectly through drawings, talk about animals or places, references to heat, or parental descriptions of children’s questions and concerns.

Third, codes were compared across studies to identify recurring patterns and tensions. Particular attention was given to differences between children’s concrete, place-based expressions and parents’ more reflective accounts of risk, uncertainty and communication. This cross-study comparison enabled the analysis to identify how young children’s ecological concern is shaped both by direct environmental experience and by adult mediation.

Finally, themes were refined in relation to the article’s central focus: how ecological grief and climate worry may appear in early childhood without necessarily being named as such. The analysis therefore prioritised emotionally charged meanings of environmental change rather than formal climate change knowledge alone.

3.4 Ethical considerations

The present article did not extend beyond the anonymised material already made available in published form. Nevertheless, analytical integrity was maintained by ensuring that early childhood behaviours were not interpreted through adult or clinical classifications of psychological trauma. Although the dataset is small and geographically tied to Malta, it serves as a valuable proxy for understanding child-environment relationality across island and coastal settings vulnerable to climate change globally.

3.5 Reflexivity and analytic independence

Because this secondary analysis draws on the author’s own previous studies, reflexivity was central to the analytic process. The author’s prior involvement in the original studies provided contextual familiarity with the Maltese early childhood and sustainability education context, but also created a risk that the reanalysis could confirm earlier interpretations. To reduce this risk, the present analysis was guided by new research questions that were distinct from the aims of the original studies.

Extracts were coded in a source tagged matrix, original study aims were separated from the new climate emotions analysis, and attention was given to ambiguous or disconfirming material, including examples where children’s accounts reflected general environmental concern rather than ecological grief or climate anxiety. To strengthen analytic independence, the coding framework and theme matrix were reviewed by an independent qualitative researcher, and revisions were made where interpretations required clarification or moderation.

The analysis does not claim statistical representativeness, prevalence or direct generalisability. Rather, it offers a cautious interpretive account of how climate emotions may become visible across a bounded corpus.

4 Findings

This section presents the findings of a bounded secondary qualitative synthesis of published empirical material. Since the original studies were not designed specifically to examine ecological grief or climate anxiety, the findings are presented as an interpretive account of how climate emotions become visible across child, parent and educator accounts, rather than as evidence of fixed psychological states or clinical categories. The analysis therefore attends to emotionally salient references to heat, pollution, animals, plants, the sea, damaged environments, adult communication, uncertainty, care and action.

To strengthen transparency, Table 2 provides an illustrative evidence trail from the published empirical sources included in the secondary analysis. These examples are not presented as newly analysed primary data, but as published, anonymised examples and interpretive material that show how child, parent and educator accounts informed the development of the themes. The table also clarifies the movement from empirical observation to theoretical interpretation, thereby making explicit how the analysis links concrete accounts of environmental concern with the broader conceptual framing of climate emotions in early childhood.

Table 2. Illustrative examples from published empirical sources.

The secondary analysis identified five interrelated themes that illuminate how climate emotions such as ecological grief or climate anxiety, are expressed in early childhood. Across the corpus, children’s, parents’ and educators’ accounts did not present these concepts as fixed psychological states. Rather, they pointed to emotionally charged ways of noticing, interpreting and responding to climatic change. These patterns resonate with prior research that conceptualises climate emotions as diverse, situated and shaped by social, developmental and relational contexts (Clayton, 2020; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2020, Pihkala, 2022; Spiteri, 2025a, Spiteri, 2025b).

4.1 Localised, concrete, and relational place attachment

First, young children’s climate concerns were strongly local, concrete and relational. Rather than approaching climate change as a distant, abstract or primarily scientific phenomenon, children anchored their concerns in familiar places, sensory experiences and everyday encounters with the more-than-human world. Their references to heat, pollution, waste, animals, plants and the sea suggest that climate emotions and climate concern in early childhood are mediated through proximity, embodiment and attachment to place (Spiteri and Pace, 2023). Previous research with young children similarly shows that environmental understanding is often concrete, relational and moral, with children referring to animals, plants, pollution, waste and the need to protect familiar environments (Spiteri, 2021). This finding aligns with research showing that ecological grief is often connected to losses affecting valued species, ecosystems, landscapes and ways of life (Cunsolo and Ellis, 2018), and with research on childhood nature connection which emphasises the formative role of direct experience, care and emotional bonds with the natural world (Chawla, 2020).

In the present analysis, early expressions of ecological grief appeared less as grief over planetary loss in the abstract and more as concern for environments that children could see, feel, imagine or relate to directly. It is worth noting that the report does not claim that young children experience ecological grief in the same way as adults, adolescents or communities facing direct ecological loss. Rather, it uses ecological grief as a sensitising concept to examine early, emergent and relational forms of concern, sadness, care and loss-oriented understanding in relation to damaged or threatened environments. For example, children’s references to the sun becoming “very hot”, to animals being harmed, or to the sea and outdoor spaces being polluted were treated not simply as factual statements, but as affectively charged expressions of concern for familiar environments.

4.2 Affective engagement preceding conceptual mastery

Second, children demonstrated affective engagement and environmental care before achieving secure conceptual understanding of climate science. Although children’s explanations of climate change were sometimes partial, fragmented or marked by misconception, they nevertheless expressed concern, empathy and a sense of responsibility towards animals, nature and damaged environments (Spiteri and Pace, 2023). This is significant because it challenges the assumption that children must first master climate science before their emotional responses can be considered meaningful. Instead, the findings suggest that emotional engagement may precede, accompany and potentially support cognitive understanding. This interpretation is consistent with work showing that climate emotions include not only fear and anxiety, but also care, empathy, sadness, guilt, hope and moral concern (Clayton, 2020; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2022). In early childhood, ecological grief may therefore be better understood as an emerging affective orientation towards environmental harm, rooted in relationality and care rather than in scientific literacy alone. This pattern is not limited to children; Maltese pre-service early childhood teachers have also been found to hold partial understandings and misconceptions about climate change, shaped by community funds of knowledge and identity (Spiteri, 2024c).

4.3 The paradox of parental mediation and communicative gaps

Third, parents recognised climate change as a serious threat to children’s present and future wellbeing, yet they often experienced uncertainty about how to communicate this threat in emotionally safe ways. Parents’ accounts reflected a tension between honesty and protection. They wanted children to understand environmental realities, but they were also concerned about inducing fear, helplessness or distress (Spiteri, 2025b). This tension sits alongside earlier evidence that environmental learning in families is bidirectional, where adults can shape children’s responses, but young children may also influence parental environmental concern and behaviour (Spiteri, 2020, Spiteri, 2026b). The finding echoes broader research showing that climate anxiety among children and young people is shaped not only by awareness of climate change, but also by adult responses, perceived inaction and intergenerational dynamics (Baker et al., 2021; Carballo-Losada et al., 2025; Dayton et al., 2023; Hickman et al., 2021; Ojala, 2015). It also reflects emerging evidence that parent-child communication plays an important role in how children make sense of climate change and related emotions (Léger-Goodes et al., 2023). In the present analysis, children’s climate emotions were therefore not interpreted as individually produced responses alone, but as relationally mediated experiences shaped by adult silence, reassurance, avoidance, concern, role modelling and opportunities for dialogue.

4.4 Educators as pedagogical and emotional mediators

Fourth, educators also emerged as important mediators of young children’s climate concern, although their role was less directly centred on climate emotions than that of parents. Across the wider early childhood education for sustainability literature in Malta, educators appear to shape children’s environmental understanding through the environmental topics they introduce, the language they use, the activities they provide and the opportunities they create for care-based action (Spiteri, 2022, Spiteri, 2024c). This is significant because young children’s climate emotions are not formed only through family conversations or direct encounters with environmental change, but also through everyday pedagogical practices in early childhood settings.

At the same time, educator mediation may be constrained by partial climate knowledge, uncertainty about how to discuss difficult environmental futures, and the tendency to frame sustainability primarily through practical behaviours such as recycling, saving water or caring for plants and animals (Spiteri, 2024c). These practices can support constructive forms of care and agency, but they may also leave children’s climate emotions or confusion insufficiently named or explored. The educator’s role therefore sits between protection and participation. Educators can help children connect concerns about climate change with hopeful, concrete action, but they also require developmentally appropriate pedagogical resources to address climate emotions in safe and conceptually accurate ways.

4.5 The worry—care—action continuum and constructive hope

Finally, children’s climate emotions appeared to move along a continuum between worry and care, rather than fitting neatly into categories of distress, resilience or hope. Expressions of concern about heat, pollution, animals, waste and environmental damage were intertwined with curiosity, empathy and a desire to protect or repair the natural world (Spiteri and Pace, 2023). These findings align with research suggesting that young children’s environmental concern can be supported through participatory climate action, intergenerational learning and concrete opportunities for care (Spiteri, 2024b). This finding supports research that cautions against pathologising climate emotions and instead recognises their potentially adaptive, moral and action-oriented dimensions (Clayton, 2020; Pihkala, 2020; Spiteri, 2025a, Spiteri, 2025b). It also resonates with work on constructive hope, which distinguishes passive reassurance from forms of hope grounded in agency, meaning and engagement (Chawla, 2020; Ojala, 2012a, Ojala, 2012b; Ojala, 2015). However, the analysis also suggests that worry does not automatically become constructive. Without developmentally appropriate emotional support, credible adult guidance and meaningful opportunities for participation, young children’s concern may remain confusing, overwhelming or difficult to integrate. The key issue, therefore, is not whether children should be shielded from climate emotions, but how families, educators and communities can help children hold concern and care together in ways that are emotionally sustaining and ethically responsive.

5 Discussion

The findings contribute to an emerging body of research showing that climate emotions are developmentally, socially and culturally mediated rather than solely individual psychological responses (Clayton, 2020; Crandon et al., 2022; Lawrance et al., 2022; Norgaard, 2011; Pihkala, 2022). Although most empirical evidence has focused on adolescents and adults (Hickman et al., 2021; Léger-Goodes et al., 2022), the present findings suggest that emotionally meaningful engagement with the impacts of climate change may emerge much earlier through children’s relationships with familiar places, significant adults and everyday experiences of the natural world. The study therefore extends climate emotions research by foregrounding early childhood as a period in which concern, attachment, uncertainty and care may already be taking shape, even when children do not possess formal climate terminology.

A central contribution of the study concerns how ecological grief may be understood in early childhood. The findings suggest that it should not be treated as a discrete clinical condition or as a fully articulated grief response modelled on adult experience. Ecological grief appears as an emergent, relational and developmentally situated form of emotional engagement with environmental change (Clayton, 2020; Cunsolo and Ellis, 2018; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2020, Pihkala, 2022). Young children may not name ecological grief, climate anxiety or solastalgia (Albrecht, 2005), yet their accounts reveal concern, care, uncertainty and affective attachment to damaged or threatened environments. The absence of adult terminology should therefore not be mistaken for the absence of emotional meaning.

In the studies analysed, children’s emotional responses were not triggered only by explicit awareness of planetary scale loss. Instead, concern emerged through disruptions to familiar and valued environments, including heat, pollution, waste, animals, plants, the sea and everyday outdoor spaces (Spiteri and Pace, 2023). This suggests that early forms of ecological grief may be expressed less as an abstract cognitive response to scientific information and more as a relational response to perceived harm affecting places and beings that children know, inhabit and care about (Scannell and Gifford, 2013). Such an interpretation supports relational, embodied and context-sensitive approaches to climate emotions that recognise how emotional meaning develops through interactions among people, places and the more-than-human world (Crandon et al., 2022; Malone, 2018; Scannell and Gifford, 2013; Spiteri, 2025a; Taylor, 2013; Verlie, 2021).

Another key contribution of the study is its attention to the developmental expression of climate emotions. In the studies analysed, young children communicated environmental concern indirectly through drawings, play, questions, embodied reactions, references to animals or places, and emotionally charged talk about everyday experiences. Such methods of expression may be overlooked if climate emotions are assessed only through verbalised anxiety and adult definitions of psychological categories. The indirect and multimodal ways in which children communicated environmental concern are consistent with wider childhood research demonstrating that young children’s perspectives are often expressed through drawings, play, photographs, movement and other non-verbal modes of communication (Clark, 2017; Darbyshire et al., 2005; Punch, 2002).

Recognising possible expressions of ecological grief in early childhood therefore does not require imposing adult psychological categories on children. Rather, it requires taking seriously the affective meanings children attach to environmental change while remaining cautious about how those meanings are interpreted. Children’s partial or fragmented scientific understanding does not make their emotional responses insignificant. Their concern may be grounded in attachment, empathy, sensory experience and relational care rather than in secure climate-science knowledge. At the same time, the present findings should not be read as evidence that all expressions of sadness, concern or care constitute ecological grief. They instead indicate how emotionally meaningful responses to environmental harm may become visible before children can name or fully conceptualise them.

The findings further suggest that young children’s climate emotions are relationally mediated, reinforcing the importance of intergenerational dynamics in shaping how those emotions are experienced and expressed. Parents and educators in the analysed material recognised climate change as a threat to children’s present and future wellbeing, yet often felt unsure how to communicate this threat in ways that were honest, hopeful and emotionally safe (Spiteri, 2022, Spiteri, 2024c, Spiteri, 2025b). Similar tensions have been documented internationally, where parents recognise the importance of discussing climate change while simultaneously seeking to protect children from emotional distress (Baker et al., 2021; Dayton et al., 2023; Lawson et al., 2019). These findings are consistent with social-ecological perspectives that conceptualise children’s emotional responses as emerging through interactions between individual development, family relationships, educational contexts and wider environmental systems rather than through individual cognition alone (Crandon et al., 2022).

Children’s climate emotions should therefore not be treated as isolated psychological reactions. They are co-constructed through adult communication, silence, reassurance, avoidance, role modelling and opportunities for meaningful participation. More broadly, environmental meanings are produced through relationships among people, places and the more-than-human world (Bennett et al., 2017). Research with parent–child dyads similarly shows that family communication shapes how children understand climate change and express related concerns (Carballo-Losada et al., 2025; Léger-Goodes et al., 2023). The present findings also reflect the bidirectional character of intergenerational environmental learning: adults influence children’s interpretations, but children may also carry environmental ideas and practices from educational settings into family life (Spiteri, 2020, Spiteri, 2022, Spiteri, 2024c, Spiteri, 2026b).

Educators occupy a particularly important position within this relational context. Early childhood settings may provide opportunities to connect environmental concern with care, participation and developmentally appropriate action. International sustainability frameworks emphasise the importance of developing knowledge, values, empathy, responsibility and capacities for meaningful engagement (European Commission, 2022; UNESCO, 2021). Applied to early childhood, however, these objectives need to be accompanied by explicit attention to emotional wellbeing. Sustainability education cannot be limited to behavioural practices such as recycling, saving water or caring for plants; it should also create safe opportunities for children to express uncertainty, sadness, curiosity and hope. These findings suggest that educators require both conceptual knowledge and pedagogical resources that enable them to acknowledge difficult environmental realities without overwhelming children or offering uncritical reassurance.

These findings also have implications for conservation social science. Conservation increasingly recognises that environmental engagement is shaped not only by ecological knowledge but also by values, identities, emotions and human–nature relationships (Bennett et al., 2017; Chan et al., 2016; Díaz et al., 2018). Young children’s expressions of worry, care and attachment reveal how ecological loss is felt within everyday family and educational contexts. They also suggest that the emotional foundations of environmental stewardship may begin early through children’s attachments to animals, plants, places and shared practices of care (Chawla, 2020).

If conservation social science overlooks young children, it risks missing an important dimension of how societies learn to value, grieve and care for damaged environments across generations. In this sense, the findings support broader calls to move beyond individualised and cognitively centred accounts of climate anxiety towards relational, embodied and context-sensitive understandings of climate emotions (Crandon et al., 2022; Spiteri, 2025a; Verlie, 2021). The findings also raise the possibility that peer cultures may provide important contexts in which climate emotions are shared, negotiated or transformed, although this proposition requires direct empirical investigation (Corsaro, 2018; Spiteri, 2025a, Spiteri, 2026a). This suggests that conservation social science should consider not only children’s environmental knowledge, but also the intergenerational practices through which children participate in care, advocacy and everyday environmental action (Spiteri, 2024b).

Importantly, the findings caution against pathologising children’s climate emotions. Worry, sadness and concern about environmental harm should not automatically be interpreted as signs of dysfunction. Such emotions may indicate empathy, attentiveness, moral concern and responsiveness to the more-than-human world (Clayton, 2020; Lawrance et al., 2022; Pihkala, 2020). However, children’s concern should not be romanticised as resilience, agency or environmental commitment in itself. Difficult emotions become more manageable and potentially constructive when children are supported by emotionally available adults, credible communication and meaningful opportunities to participate. This interpretation is consistent with research on constructive hope, which distinguishes active and relational forms of hope from passive reassurance or denial. Constructive hope is strengthened through agency, trust, meaning and engagement (Chawla, 2020; Ojala, 2012a, Ojala, 2012b, Ojala, 2015). The challenge, therefore, is not to shield children from all climate emotions, but to create conditions in which they can express concern, receive developmentally appropriate support, hold concern and care together, and participate in collective practices of care without becoming overwhelmed.

Overall, the study advances a more inclusive understanding of climate emotions across the lifespan. By foregrounding young children’s experiences, it challenges assumptions that children under eight are too young to engage meaningfully with environmental loss. It also cautions against treating them as miniature adults whose emotions can be understood through adult language and categories. Possible expressions of ecological grief in young children are better approached as emergent, relational, embodied and place-based forms of emotional understanding. Recognising this has implications for conservation science, early childhood education, family climate communication and child-centred climate policy. It calls for approaches that support children’s emotional wellbeing while also respecting their capacity to notice, care about and respond to the changing worlds they inhabit.

6 Strengths and limitations

A major strength of the study is that the Maltese context gives it international relevance. As a small island state, Malta makes visible many pressures that are increasingly shared across small island contexts that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (IPCC, 2022b). In small islands, climate change is woven into everyday life, family conversations, school practices, seasonal change, outdoor play and children’s relationships with place. The findings therefore speak not only to Malta, but also to other small island, coastal, Mediterranean, densely urbanised settings vulnerable to climate change where environmental change is experienced through intimate, local and intergenerational relationships.

Nevertheless, the study has limitations. The corpus is small and the findings should not be generalised to all young children or all small island states. The analysis is also shaped by the fact that the original studies were not designed specifically to investigate ecological grief. The analysis is therefore interpretive and retrospective. Although this enables new affective meanings to be identified across the corpus, it also requires caution in that children’s environmental concern should not be over-interpreted as evidence of clinical anxiety, trauma or fully articulated grief. The study is also shaped by the author’s own previous research corpus, which provides coherence but may limit the diversity of perspectives included. These limitations are also the source of the report’s contribution: by revisiting existing early childhood climate and sustainability research through a new analytical lens, the study identifies emotional dimensions of children’s environmental understanding that may otherwise remain overlooked.

7 Future research

Future research should move beyond secondary analysis and include empirical studies designed specifically to examine climate emotions, ecological grief and environmental concern in early childhood. Longitudinal studies would be particularly valuable for exploring how young children’s emotional responses to heat, pollution, biodiversity loss, coastal change and other environmental pressures develop over time, and how these responses are shaped by family communication, peer cultures and early childhood education settings. Further research is also needed to develop child-centred and developmentally appropriate methodologies for studying climate emotions, such as multimodal approaches that do not rely solely on verbal accounts.

Comparative research across small islands would also help clarify which aspects of young children’s climate emotions are context-specific and which may be more widely shared. Future studies should examine the role of parents and educators as emotional mediators, particularly how adults balance honesty, reassurance, protection and opportunities for meaningful action.

Intervention research is also needed to identify pedagogical and family approaches that support children’s environmental concern without pathologising it, and that connect worry with care, agency, constructive hope and collective forms of ecological repair. Such work would strengthen the empirical basis for recognising young children as legitimate participants in climate emotions research, conservation social science and child-sensitive climate policy.

8 Conclusion

This report has argued that young children’s climate emotions, such as ecological grief and climate anxiety, deserve greater recognition within research. Drawing on empirical research from Malta, it suggests that children under eight may express climate worry, ecological loss and environmental care through local, embodied and relational forms of understanding. These responses are shaped by children’s developing understandings of environmental change as a result of climate change, as well as by relationships, place attachment, adult mediation, everyday encounters with nature and opportunities for environmental care and action (Spiteri, 2025a).

The findings challenge the assumption that children under eight are too young to experience or communicate meaningful responses about climate change. They also caution against interpreting children’s climate emotions only through adult vocabulary, clinical categories or explicit measures of climate anxiety. Young children may not name ecological grief, yet they may notice, feel and respond to environmental harm in ways that are emotionally and ethically significant. Recognising this requires methods of listening that attend to children’s drawings, play, questions, silences, bodily responses, attachments and everyday expressions of care.

The task is neither to burden young children with adult responsibility for the climate crisis nor to shield them from all knowledge of environmental change caused by it. Rather, researchers, educators, parents, policymakers and conservation practitioners should create developmentally appropriate conditions in which young children’s climate emotions can be heard, validated and supported. This includes emotionally safe conversations, meaningful participation and collective practices of care that connect children’s worry with agency, hope and ecological repair (Spiteri, 2024b).

By foregrounding young children’s perspectives, this report extends the research beyond adult and adolescent experience and positions early childhood as an important site of climate emotion, intergenerational learning and conservation concern. If ecological loss is already entering children’s everyday worlds, then conservation social science must take seriously not only what children know about environmental change, but also how they feel, care and begin to imagine their place within damaged yet still liveable futures.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Timothy Beatley, University of Virginia, United States

Reviewed by: Asha Priya Thangavelu, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India

Łucja Lange, University of Łódź, Poland