We are running out of time to respond to the climate crisis, and for children, the consequences are already unfolding. Global reports continue to warn that climate change is a lived reality for several communities today. A 2021 UNICEF analysis highlighted that, nearly a billion children, that is almost half of the world’s population, are at extremely high risk from climate impacts. Also, nearly three in five young people aged 16–25 years report feeling very or extremely worried about climate change. Almost half say these fears are already affecting their daily lives, from sleep to concentration.
One such story, detailed in a 2025 UNICEF report, is that of 13-year-old Sathi Akhter from Bangladesh, whose life was upended when monsoon floods caused by climate change destroyed her home and farmland. What she lost was not just shelter, but the very fabric of childhood—schooling, stability, community, and a sense of future. Like many others facing repeated climate shocks, her family migrated from a small village in Bangladesh to Dhaka in search of survival. But displacement brought a deeper loss, emotional strain, instability, and uncertainty, often leading to anxiety, sadness, and persistent worry in children. Her story is not an exception. It is increasingly becoming the norm.
Despite mounting evidence, climate change continues to be treated primarily as an environmental and economic challenge, while its mental health consequences, especially for children, remain on the margins of policy and public discourse. This is a gap we can no longer afford.
Climate Change: A Silent Mental Health Emergency
Climate change must be understood not only as an environmental crisis, but as a child mental health crisis, which is often invisible. When climate disasters driven by climate change strike, especially in rural areas, the impact is deeply holistic. Families can lose land, homes, livelihoods, and savings within hours, triggering an urgent struggle for survival. Children often bear the hidden cost—schooling is disrupted, learning gaps widen, and the emotional toll is profound.
In urban areas, the challenges shift rather than disappear. Displaced families move into overcrowded settlements with poor infrastructure and higher health risks. Children face increased vulnerability to exploitation, unsafe work, and school dropouts, while financial distress can push families toward child labour or early marriage. These cumulative stressors significantly heighten vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Here, it is important to note that between 2016 and 2021, over 43 million children were displaced due to extreme weather events (UNICEF 2023). Each displacement is not just physical, rather it is deeply psychological.
Understanding the Psychosocial Impact
Delving deeper into the psychosocial impact of climate change on children, the ADAPT (Adaptation and Development after Persecution and Trauma) model developed by Derrick Silove in 2013 highlights five core psychosocial pillars essential for children’s well-being: safety, connection, identity and roles, justice, and hope. Climate disasters systematically take away each of them from the children, exposing them to physical danger (safety), displacing families and communities (connection), disrupting developmental roles and fostering dependency (identity), restricting access to education, exposing them to social evils like child marriage, trafficking, and abuse, taking away dignity (justice), rendering the future uncertain and fear-laden (hope).
Viewed through this lens, climate change is a profound disruption of the psychosocial systems that enable children to grow, adapt, and thrive.
Hence, when a child’s world is shaken by floods, storms, or fires, the immediate experience is often a threat to safety, marked by fear of recurrence, separation anxiety, and hypervigilance, where even ordinary sensory cues such as rain or wind can trigger distressing memories. Simultaneously, the fracturing of communities disrupts essential bonds and support systems, as children lose friends, caregivers and safe spaces, often resulting in withdrawal or heightened dependency on remaining relationships. They suffer loss of identity as children who once defined themselves through school, family roles, or aspirations may suddenly be pushed into premature responsibilities like taking care of their siblings.
Furthermore, such children begin to question why losses are uneven and recovery unequal. This may manifest as anger, mistrust, or disengagement from protective systems, eventually enticing them into delinquency and addiction. Ultimately, what is most deeply affected is the child’s sense of hope for a better and stable future. The erosion of future-oriented thinking and purpose in life can also lead to suicidal ideations and even suicides.
How Distress Shows Up Across Ages
Recognising these deep impacts also requires careful attention to how distress manifests differently across developmental stages. Instead of articulating their experiences as “climate trauma”, children experience their distress through changes in behaviour, emotions, and bodily responses.
In early childhood (3-7 years), this may appear as regression, such as bedwetting, thumb-sucking, increased clinginess, or the emergence of new fears related to darkness, water or wind. In middle childhood (8-12 years), distress is manifested through school refusals, unexplained headaches or stomach aches, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and withdrawal. Adolescents (13-18 years) express through mood instability, risk-taking behaviours, substance use, social withdrawal, and hopelessness. These age-specific indicators further help to provide vital entry points for timely psychosocial support and intervention.
From Vulnerability to Resilience
Although a lot has been spoken about children’s vulnerability, it is equally important to recognize that they are not merely passive trauma recipients; rather they possess inherent capacities for resilience that can be nurtured. We can work to build their resilience across three interconnected capacities — coping (managing immediate stress), adaptive (adjusting to new realities while maintaining functioning), and transformative (finding meaning and growth through adversity).
At the individual level, children benefit from skills such as emotional awareness, regulation, and problem-solving; open communication with family and caregivers also play a critical buffering role. Schools emerge as pivotal spaces for recovery, offering stability, predictability, and supportive relationships through attentive teachers and peers, while communities contribute by rebuilding social connections. Normalising emotional expressions and fostering peer connections can significantly reduce distress and rebuild a sense of safety.
While implementing these processes, the goal must, however, extend beyond helping children “manage” adversity, but to enabling them to regain a sense of safety, belonging, and hope and ultimately to thrive.
Rethinking Our Response
It is time to agree that climate disasters will continue, but their impact on children’s mental health is not inevitable. What matters is how we respond. Recognising climate-related distress as a natural response rather than a pathology is the first step toward compassionate care. This must be complemented by preparing schools with mental health and psychosocial support-informed disaster plans, equipping teachers with psychosocial support skills, and ensuring access to mental health services within educational spaces. When we respond with awareness, preparedness, and empathy, we move from merely reacting to crises toward actively safeguarding the mental well-being and future of children.
Somasree Basu is a practicing psychologist, social development practitioner, and sustainability advocate working at the intersection of mental health, gender equity, and environmental sustainability. She currently serves as Program Consultant at Shreeja India, a non-profit that works to empower underprivileged girls and women from rural Bengal, and is a Director of Merak Institute, an institute that promotes mental health and emotional wellbeing. Views expressed are personal.