Season 4, Episode 27: On Raising Anti-Doomers with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff
image credit | Annie Spratt
In this enlightening episode, Thomas and Panu sat down with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, a licensed therapist and author of Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times (2025). Ariella shared her journey from motherhood amidst California wildfires to writing a book that empowers parents to foster resilience in their children. Panu Thomas each reflected on their own parenting, and enjoyed hearing of events on Ariella’s “eco-timeline” like her childhood outdoor experiences in Connecticut and her opportunity to meet one of her idols, Jane Goodall. Join us and learn more about Ariella’s positive approach to parenting in the climate era.
Links
Selected Writings
2025 Raising Anti-Doomers How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change and Tumultuous Times
Salon 2023 Grieving together, and also apart: A Jewish American wrestles with identity, belonging and trauma
Grist 2021 Here’s how to talk with your kids about climate anxiety
Glamour 2019 I’m Not a ‘Natural Mother’—And That’s Okay
Transcript
Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.
If you appreciate the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder Thomas Doherty’s new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving available at an online bookseller near you.
[music: “CC&H theme music”]
Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.
Thomas Doherty: Hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.
Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.
Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about issues like climate change, changes in the planet, changes in the weather, and changes in our lives and in our families. That’s our territory to talk about and Panu and I get to meet a lot of people in the world and collaborate with people. And today, we have a person that we both know and I'm really proud to introduce a special guest.
Ariella Cook-Shonkoff: Hello, my name is Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, everyone. I'm a licensed therapist, both an art therapist and an eco-therapist based in Berkeley, California. And most recently, I have a book coming out called Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times.
Doherty: We're really glad to talk to Ariella. She’s someone we've both interacted with. Ariella has been in an eco and climate conscious therapy group that I did some time back. It’s a personal pleasure for me to see colleagues writing books and putting themselves out. I was able to look through Ariella's book and we'll talk about that. But it's nice to see that this work is getting various treatments in people's lives and people are moving forward on this and in therapy. So, a lot of good things are in the pipeline here. Panu, do you want to get us started?
Pihkala: Warm welcome, Ariella, also on my behalf. Lovely to have this chance to discuss with you and I really love the wide range of content in your book. Before digging deeper into that, we'd like to ask you something about your journey to becoming a person who wrote this kind of book. Would you like to share something, how has it been with you and the modern human world?
Cook-Shonkoff: Absolutely. Well, I guess this journey began for me back in 2018 when I came into motherhood and around the time that wildfires were intensifying in Northern California. I had just had my second daughter and I was returning to work after maternity leave. There were nearby wildfires, and the air was thick with smoke. It was this kind of combination of going back to work and sitting in an office with clients where no one was really talking about what was going on outside and also the vulnerability I felt inside leaving my child under these circumstances. There’s a sense of safety, even though, where I lived, we were fortunate, and we didn't have direct impacts. You feel like, am I safe to leave my child? Can I really separate from them? And isn't it strange that no one's talking about the elephant in the room right now? So, that brought me on a journey into writing about it and I'd already been freelance writing for some time about motherhood mostly, but I started to really focus more on climate and parenthood. It's eventually led into this book project and the book that's finally coming out this year.
Pihkala: Thanks for sharing that and there's a lot that I can also personally resonate with. My kids are just a couple of years older than yours. Also in Finland, what Lindsay Galway has called ‘climate of silence’ was quite heavy and also silence around the emotional dimensions of those issues. Can I still ask you if you look back to your own childhood and youth, what role did the modern human world play for you, or did it have a role back then?
Cook-Shonkoff: I love this question, Panu, thanks for asking it. Yeah, it had a starring role in my childhood, actually. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut that felt pretty rural, and I spent a lot of free time in the woods behind my house, with the kids in the neighborhood, by the creek, I was out. And it was a value of my family, so my parents took us on hikes. That was pretty common for us. I was just outside a lot, in the modern human world. I loved animals at an early age. Actually, funny enough that you asked this question because in writing the book, I realized how this is reintegrating my life in adulthood in a way. I even went through a period of activism in my teenage years to do with animals and environment. So, it's really been a common thread.
Doherty: What kind of activism were you involved in when you were younger?
Cook-Shonkoff: Well, I was the only member of my family to become vegetarian at age 14 when I learned a bit more about factory farming. I started writing then for junior and senior year op-eds in my local paper, just a couple. But I then went on to become one of the presidents of the environmental club, and we did various things, such as picking up trash around town and eventually going to marches—well, maybe was more in college, now that I think about it. But yeah, we held Earth Day events in high school. We were active. This is really cool. I don't know if this is in my book, but Jane Goodall, her organization, Roots and Shoots, was this youth environmental program that opened in my town, Ridgefield, Connecticut. I was interviewed on the panel with her and got the privilege of meeting her in this interview and it was really cool. So yeah, there was a lot.
Doherty: That's great. We’ve done this eco-timeline kind of idea where you can trace your life. So, writing this book really does fit onto your timeline.
Cook-Shonkoff: Absolutely, yeah. As I went deeper into this work, I realized how it harkened back to my early years. And just my emotional experience throughout this, even listening to Greta Thunberg's words, it conjured up in me some part of my younger self that felt like her in a different way because it was a different time but felt indignant. Like, what are grown-ups doing? Why don't they care more? That’s a really good point about that eco-timeline. I love that tool, Thomas. So, thank you for introducing that to me.
Doherty: Yeah. Okay, so here's a standard question you'll probably get a lot going forward. But with Raising Anti-Doomers, I love the title because it really puts out a message. It puts out a call-to-action kind of thing of all the ways of thinking about this topic. How did it coalesce into this idea of raising anti-doomers? I know that's a big question, but what comes up for you about that?
Cook-Shonkoff: It's interesting because you don't know about what it's like to write a book until you get there. And I will say that as I got to the end of my book, in what's probably now the last chapter, I was talking about how we can do this and what's this positive frame for how to raise kids in this way. It's almost ‘Teflon-like,’ to be strong and resilient and to be able to withstand the bumps and the turbulence and all the uncertainties that exist in the world right now. I'd love to take credit for selecting it for my title, but I can't because it was plucked by my editor who had that foresight. And I actually love the title. I wasn't sure at the beginning. It's a strong title, and I think it's great in the end. The scope of the book is broader than climate, which I also appreciated heading in that direction. It wasn't my original intent, but that's how it developed.
Pihkala: Of all the rich contents in the book, if we would start by helping the listeners to get some overviews or what would you say are some of the fundamental principles or messages in the book?
Cook-Shonkoff: I'll mention that there's some graphics in the book, some illustrations, that I had a lot of fun conceptualizing, but I think really helped the reader go through the book. One being the parent identity spiral. So, it's like suddenly you're a parent and kind of what happens along the way. I'm not going to go through all the steps, but what happens along the way to become an engaged parent, focused on social issues, including climate. Like, how do you kind of stay engaged. I think that's an important one.
I think that the main takeaways, if I were really to boil them down to three simple messages would be that number one, it starts with you. It starts with the parent and being willing to go into the darker emotional places and really grapple with their feelings, not to avoid or make excuses, but really to go there and be able to kind of find ways to regulate themselves so that they're able to co-regulate their kids. So, I think that's number one, it starts with you.
And number two, I would say is to do something and make it sustainable and not be so perfectionist about it or well, is this really enough or I've got to do all of this for it to be worth it. It's so easy to talk yourself out of any action, but it could be so small. I'm sure we could all come up with some examples, but something around the household. Maybe it's just not getting food out from restaurants in the takeout packages because it's the single-use plastic and reducing that, or maybe it's on a grander scale or writing a letter or going to protest, but it could be really small. I think that's important to recognize.
The third point is really to keep coming back to the source of what replenishes you, what builds resilience. I have a lot of self-care exercises in the book. There's that self-care acronym, which is kind of a riot, but that was for my own personal development of it. I came up with this and was like, oh my gosh, maybe this is something I should throw into the book, because it's kind of fun. But whatever it is, spiritual, creative, physical, that really grounds you and brings you back to yourself so that you can reset when you get off the rails, which can happen.
Doherty: Yeah, did you create the ideas for the book with your own children first or did some of these ideas just come out of your family life? I know with the book that I worked on, the heart of it was really my training that I did with the public and different slides and different images that were resonant. And then of course you have to explain it all in the book. But did it start with things that you had figured out with your kids?
Cook-Shonkoff: I'd say it was a smattering here and a smattering there because I work with kids in my practice so there's some from there, some from family life, some that literally evolved alongside the book or came out of the pandemic because that was a time I was reorienting and doing things differently.
Doherty: Yeah, I've been looking through your book and now I'm more attentive to the figures because you've talked about them, but maybe we could talk about this one and literally unpack it. The pellet, the climate emotions pellet—when I saw that, I thought, that’s a really kid friendly image. Let me not say more, let me have you say what the climate pellet is because I think listeners may appreciate it.
Cook-Shonkoff: Oh my gosh, it's such a funny one. If you remember dissecting owl pellets in school, which we certainly do in the States, I don't know about where you are, Panu.
Doherty: So, owl poop basically.
Cook-Shonkoff: It's the regurgitated pellet. An owl eats different animals whole, like these tiny moles or whatever they are. But they have all the bones in the fur, and everything goes down into the stomach and eventually they regurgitate these pellets that have the bones and the fur. Anyway, I did take inspiration from childhood in different ways, and this is after I came up with the concept of the climate emotions pellet, but my child literally brought home an owl pellet and dissected it for homework on the kitchen table. So, this really does happen. But the idea being that there's a lot of different feelings that we're experiencing to do with climate change or many of us are experiencing and it's a mess. It's like a hot mess that's complex and we don't know what's what. And so, I like the idea of imagining these tweezers, like a tool in the science lab, and you're plucking out emotions and trying to distill, okay I'm looking at the illustration now. Okay, this grief that I'm experiencing or what about the awe that I sometimes feel when I'm out in nature. There are all these different feelings like the anxiety that I feel about the state of the world. And so, trying to distill those emotions, it’s like that emotional granularity idea. Then, once you can identify them and know what they are, there's some relief in that. I think it can be really overwhelming to have an unidentified mass in you. And then it's the idea of metabolizing emotions too, right?
Doherty: Oh yeah, for sure. What do you think, Panu, this idea of regurgitating? That must have some resonance in all the different research you've been doing lately.
Pihkala: Yeah of course. The Climate Emotions Wheel in which I cooperated with the Climate Mental Health Network is of course one very practical tool for observing various emotions and being able to name them even roughly. Emotional granularity is a growing thing discussed in climate emotion research. I think that's great to provide resources for people to do that. In the book, you're also looking at major questions about life and the world that people are asking, of course, for children and young people, that's part of human development. But being a parent, well, first of all, becoming a parent is quite a cosmic event to borrow a wording from Bayo Akomolafe, this very interesting thinker who has also written on the ecological crisis and becoming a father and many things. And then also realizing that kids will have to face existential challenges which can evoke existential questions and emotions in parents also. Perhaps that might be the next topic. Would you like to say something about these developmental challenges and big existential questions?
Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, that's a big one. You're holding, as a parent, some of these existential realities of where we're at and for yourself, first and foremost. But then, when you have a child or children more innocent, kind of vulnerable lives. I think it can invoke more fear, but it also can really motivate you in a certain way. I really wanted to speak to parents. I had been speaking with somebody, Jill Kubit, who's the founder of Our Kids Climate. And she said, we're uniquely motivated as parents to do something about this. There's a unique motivation. Many people without kids are very motivated but there's that sense that you have of your heart and your desire for your worry about your own child. Are they going to be okay? What's going to happen 30 years from now or 40 years from now? What's the world going to be like? How do I raise them in a way where I can prepare them as best I can for the challenges that are unknown. I think that there's a real delicate space there and an opening and also an opportunity because I think ultimately parents want to engage and want to do right by their kids. They want to take care of them.
Pihkala: Thank you for sharing that. I think that's very wise. There's been this discussion in books related to the topic about whether these sorts of calls to be an honorable parent or grandparent work and if so, what style is needed. For example, George Marshall, the climate communicator, discussing these ads which are playing with the Second World War framings like what did you do in the war, daddy or grandfather and then applying that to the climate crisis. Well, I'm not very fond of the war metaphor here, but Marshall, for example, is quite critical of this kind of messaging because it operates so heavily with a guilt and shame possibility. And for some parents, it can cause a desire to distance themselves if they can. So, I would personally agree with what you say about the inner desire to provide a more sustainable world for the offspring. But then in situations where communication happens, it seems that people need a lot of safety so that they can go there. Perhaps guilt or the threat of guilt and shame may do it for someone, but I'd go more for the safety dimension. But anyway, I wanted to say that aloud and hear what you think of it, Ariella.
Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There was a period where environmentalists had some shame and blame, like is that going to get more people involved in the environmental movement, at least in the US? And that didn't work very well. I don't think that's the wisest path. I think that tapping into parents’ or families’ values or motivations is the way in. It’s a more hopeful and positive approach rather than saying, come on, you got to do it or we're all going to die or we're all going to suffer. That’s going to shut people down, right? I mean, you can speak to this too.
Doherty: Yeah. Your book doesn't make that mistake. It doesn't sound preachy or guilt-laden at all, which is really nice. I really like images like the pellet because it's very kid friendly and I like it's a catharsis to spit out a pellet and it’s not intellectual, it’s very visceral. Like we do have to spit out these emotions and really look at them. So, I think that that really works well. The nice thing about your book is that it gets back to the body all the time and stress and physiology. You’ve done a great service. Then, this idea of a parenting club seems to be a way to not be isolated. Would that be the idea? What would be an example of a parenting club?
Cook-Shonkoff: Well, I'm speaking really broadly about anyone who's a parent or a caregiver, who's taking care of kids is part of this network of parents, this parent club. It's massive. I said in the intro, and I heard this from someone else. It was passed on to me when I was pregnant with my first child. Like, what's the parent club? I always remembered that, and I feel so connected to other parents in many ways and I continue to feel that way. I think there's so much potential in this social network. There's so much potential and I know we all have our different skills that we can bring to the table. I think on community levels, I've been interested in exploring that. I won't get started about all my local endeavors, but coming together and caring about something and saying, what are we going to do about this? And hey, what skills do we have? And what do we bring to the table? And then not only that, by having the parent club level, but then having an intergenerational level where we can involve our kids.
Last weekend, I was out in my park across my street with other parents and kids in my community. We were making signs, art, and stuff about democracy. We had art making music on and we're going to see what we do with the posters. We might use them in a rally or hang them on our garage door. There’s much that can be done. I do think that if we can get a groundswell of parents who are super motivated saying, I want this for my child, I want this for future generations, I want to leave a lasting contribution, generativity, right? That whole idea of making the world a better place or leaving something behind, like a legacy. If we can get all that together, then wow, I think it could be a tremendous boost to the climate movement and social movements in general, whatever the causes.
Pihkala: Yeah, that's very wisely put. One thing I really appreciate in your book is that you're not just recommending action as important as that is, but you're also recommending parents to model engagement with emotions and model rest and self-care. And after all, self-care has a strong history in the work of Black feminists, who argued that it's a very political emotion because it's providing resources for those opposing injustice. Would you like to say something more about this sort of encouragement to build resources and practices for rest and self-care?
Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, I think it goes back to this point I was making earlier about coming back to the source. As motivated as parents are, we are to do something but if we burn too hot, we're going to burn out. And so, it's essential to temper that with self-care, whatever you do. I don't love that term; I think it's really overused. But it does say what it is. So, can you find ways to ground yourself, to reset yourself periodically. I think on a regular basis and it’s best if you can schedule that in and really know like, I'm going to do this on Monday or this on this day and have several practices a day if you can. It can be really short. It can be a five-minute meditation. It can be a walk around the block. It can be listening to music. Anything that brings you joy or spending time with somebody that you care about. Be critical to take that time and ideally, find ways in whatever way you can. I know that not everyone can access it for different reasons. There's barriers, unfortunately, in our society and inequities, but do whatever is possible, because that reset will mean everything in the long term and being able to do this work for the long haul.
Doherty: Yeah, it’s great. This has been really great because it's helped me to really get clear on the book and it’s anti-doomer so it's not just climate. Like you say in your subtitle, resilient children in tumultuous times. It really is the best strategy, which is not to focus on one threat, but to focus more on, like I say, your life is the news and start with your family, your life and make that a good place and then let it ripple out into the world. Your book does have, I think you talk about it, this internal locus of control where you're bringing it back into the family and into the body. So that's really great. Well, congratulations. We've got to wrap up here today. What's your next adventure for the book or your next challenge that you're getting ready for?
Cook-Shonkoff: Oh my goodness. It's like I'm just coming out of this adventure so I'm not even sure I could tell you what it is, but I think I'm curious to see what emerges.
Doherty: Well, you’ll have, I guess what they call in the US, a soapbox. You'll have an opportunity to talk about this stuff and there will be a window where you can bring attention to this through interviews and stuff. So good luck with all that.
Cook-Shonkoff: Thank you so much.
Pihkala: Yes, it’s easy to agree on that and warm thanks for the rich conversation and all the wisdom here. Dear listeners of the podcast, if you want to connect with some earlier episodes which deal with similar kinds of themes, there's one with Jade Sasser, for example, and one with Britt Wray. There will always be so much more to talk about, and we didn't go into the art-based methods stuff that we know, Ariella, you are very fond of but something for the future.
Doherty: Well, anyway, Raising Anti-Doomers by Ariella Cook-Shonkoff. And I know it's available out there already for pre-order and it's coming out sometime in August or something like that. So, we'll make sure we time our episode for your book launch, and we'll put links and things like that in the episode notes. Ariella, good luck, and Panu, have a good evening, and listeners, be well.
[music: “CC&H theme music”]
Hi this is Thomas Doherty. If you appreciate the conversations that Panu and I have on the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder my new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving. I’ve gathered insights and strategies I’ve learned through my career in an engaging and accessible format for the public. Whether you’re new to the experience of climate distress or a seasoned environmental veteran, you’ll find something useful you can take with you for now and for the long haul. You’ll find Surviving Climate Anxiety at all the major online booksellers and in stores this fall.
