Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change

by Elizabeth Bechard

What’s it like to wake up to the reality of climate change while also raising small children? As parents, how do we act on our values when we’re already exhausted from the day-to-day challenges of parenting?

After an unconventional journey to motherhood that led to the birth of her twins in 2016, Elizabeth Bechard found herself struggling with an unshakeable sense of anxiety and grief about climate change during the most care-intensive season of parenthood. As a coach, she had also noticed a troubling trend of rising climate dread in her clients, all of whom were struggling with various forms of infertility and pregnancy loss.

Parenting in a Changing Climate blends intimate memoir with Bechard’s experience as a coach and researcher, drawing on science from the study of climate psychology, science communication, health disparities, resilience, and behavior change. This book offers practical tools, resources, and inspiration for parents who are worried about the planet that future generations will inherit and who want to find ways to cultivate resilience and take action on behalf of the children they love. Readers struggling to find their place in the climate movement will come away with a clearer answer to the question our children will undoubtedly someday ask: What did you do once you knew the truth about climate change?

Genres: Parenting, Climate Change, Nonfiction

292 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 21, 2021

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book as a mother of a young child, already buzzing with anxiety over so many things that are going wrong with the world. Between the pandemic, gun violence, the charged political situation in the U.S., systemic racism, gender inequality, and so much more, climate change is definitely high on the list of things that keep me up at night as a parent and a citizen of the world. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for this book. I felt so sure that it would add to my anxiety that I let it sit on my virtual bedside table for a few weeks before I started it. When I tell you that it had the exact opposite effect of what I was expecting, it only goes to show what an elegant job Elizabeth Bechard did in creating this book. If you’re like me and are already worried about what climate change will mean for your family, this book is probably for you.
The book is organized into three sections: Pain, Possibility, and Practice. The first, as you can guess, is the hard news to hear, but Bechard weaves it so elegantly into stories of her own parenting journey and climate awakening that it never feels like a disaster reel. She walks a careful line between presenting the hard facts (which she has carefully and thoroughly researched), without making the reader feel panicked. I’m not totally sure how she does it, but it’s an incredible feat.
The Possibility and Practice sections are also beautifully written, full of personal anecdotes from her life as a fully human and not perfect person. This sets a nice tone for sharing the research she has done on action steps we can take to build a new reality for our children. The advice never comes across as preachy. She brings the reader into her research warmly and gently, sharing actionable steps we can all take to make a difference.
I was so pleasantly surprised by this book that I found myself wishing I had picked it up sooner! Just seeing that phrase “climate change” had become such a trigger for me that I immediately shut down. In reading the book I’ve learned that this response is a common one, and that the way through it is by finding ways to take small action every day, as well as to talk about climate change more, not less. If you’re like me and desperately want to make the world better for our kids but feel stuck on what more to do, I highly recommend this book!

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent. Part intimate memoir, this is not your average climate action guide, because it goes deeper and is way more practical in facing the emotions that often paralyze us despite a desire to take action. Bechard bravely confronts the heartbreaking and overwhelming reality of climate change with humanity, humor and vulnerability, while offering timely and practical strategies for parents looking to weave climate action into their already over-full lives, and to find resilience and hope in the face of climate change for themselves and their children.

[Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started the book with the attitude that climate change is just the next horseman for parents to worry about after disease, war, starvation, genocide, racism, nuclear annihilation, school shootings, … The climate events of 2022-3 foreshadow that climate may be the last horseman: all the others rolled into one. The book provides helpful pathways to prepare our children for this new world, to involve the children in helping to slow the speeding train. I finished the book remarkably optimistic and with a to-do list of my own.

[Erica Morehouse]

This is a pragmatically hopeful book that will help climate anxious parents feel seen and give them new tools for coping with their anxiety. It creates a vision for visioning an equitable future where we can face our grief together and manifest a livable future.