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Physical activity is crucial for young children’s well-being. Outdoor play not only supports children’s physical health and their social and emotional development but can also foster early science learning and help anchor children in the natural world. For generations, parents and caregivers have diligently taken their kids to the playground or the park for some fresh air or just shooed them out the door to do their zoomies in the backyard.

Now? Rising average temperatures and extreme heat waves, ferocious storms, droughts, floods and increasingly prolonged smoke seasons that bring respiratory issues and airborne diseases mean the gift of outdoor play can no longer be taken for granted. 

To get a picture of how these extreme weather events are affecting parents of young children, researchers from the RAPID Survey Project asked California parents with children under 6 about their family’s economic resources, their stress levels, and other aspects of well-being, including their experiences with extreme weather. The project, based in the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, summarized the responses in its March fact sheet, which complements a national RAPID survey fact sheet on parents’ and child care providers’ experiences with extreme weather. 

Together, the two reports paint a clear portrait of families profoundly affected physically, emotionally and financially by increasingly concerning weather. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are disrupting access to clean water, food and safe living conditions, affecting children’s health and development and putting stress on parents and providers alike, the surveys report. 

“This is not tomorrow’s issue,” says Joan Lombardi, who chairs RAPID’s National Advisory Council. “This is today’s. I work both domestically and internationally, and these results are for children around the world. They’ve experienced flooding. It’s hot. They live in cities with poor air quality; urbanization is increasing around the world.” 

One of the most striking findings from the national survey is that more than three in five parents had experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past two years. An even higher percentage of parents surveyed (69%) say they worry about the possibility of extreme weather events and how they might affect their children. More than half of child care providers reported experiencing at least one extreme weather event. 

The net effect is that three-quarters of parents and more than half of child care providers say they now spend less time outdoors with children due to extreme temperatures and weather. A significant percentage of parents (84%) say extreme weather negatively affects their physical health and well-being, and more than half report that their children’s physical health or emotional well-being is negatively affected.   

In both the California and the national survey, abnormally warm weather was the top concern of parents and providers alike. They have reason to worry. According to UNICEF, children are more vulnerable to the effects of heat stress. They perspire less than adults and have a higher metabolism, so they overheat more quickly. They spend more time outdoors for play and other activities, which puts them at greater risk for heat exposure. Children are less likely to take a break and rehydrate, which can be dangerous and even fatal in excessive heat. 

Heat hits some children harder than others: Children who have asthma, which disproportionately affects Black and Native American children, or who are overweight are especially sensitive to heat. According to American Forests, a map of tree cover in the U.S. is often a map of income and race; low-income populations are more at risk because they have less access to shade and to climate-controlled housing. 

In some of the largest U.S. cities, temperatures in the urban core can climb to a scorching 20 or more degrees higher than neighborhoods with trees and green spaces. One study found as much as a 10-degree difference between the shaded and unshaded parts of playgrounds. On a 90-degree day, that’s the difference between “extreme caution” and “danger” levels for risks of heat illness, according to the National Weather Service. 

In addition to the health effects and safety worries, extreme weather stresses parents and providers financially. More time indoors — at home or in care — means higher utility bills for already-struggling individuals to try to mitigate the heat or cold, or filter air polluted by smoke or airborne particulates. 

“We find again and again that the rates of hardship among families and the early education workforce are higher than most people are aware of,” says RAPID founder Philip Fisher, faculty director of the Stanford Center on Early Education. “In our recent surveys, we found that 40% of families around the country are having difficulty in any month paying for basic needs like food and housing. Upwards of 70% of people who are providing care for other people’s children are struggling to make ends meet each month.”

Lombardi says providers need resources to mitigate challenges that go beyond increased utility costs. Some need to renovate their facilities to allow for increased indoor play time, to add air conditioning, heat pumps or air filters, or to increase shade in their outdoor areas. Some are dealing with damage to their facilities from weather events, but are challenged to find money for repairs. 

“The child care workforce is already stretched beyond the limit,” Lombardi says. “They’re not able to take care of their own family needs and when you add these increasing utility and facility costs, it’s an untenable situation. 

“There’s a lot of interest in the early childhood field in dealing with the issue, but no resources to do it — and what was available is shrinking.” 

The first step in addressing these issues is to face them, the researchers say. The RAPID survey results make it clear that the effects of climate change and a warming planet aren’t just an issue for future generations: It’s here, it’s now and it’s not going away. Frederica Perera, author of “Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change,” writes that children born after 2020 will experience up to seven times more extreme heatwaves in their lifetimes on average than people born in 1960. 

The focused action needed from national, state and local entities to address the changing climate may seem out of reach for parents and providers trying to do the best for their children in the here and now, but these caregivers do have an important role in helping young children cope. Their most important contribution, Lombardi says, is nurturing care, which, according to the World Health Organization, comprises: good health, adequate nutrition, responsive caregiving, security and safety, and opportunities for early learning. 

Additionally, families, providers and communities must prepare ahead for emergencies, which are becoming unfortunately commonplace.

“Decades of high-quality research shows that the thing that can help children most … is their buffering and nurturing relationships with adults,” Fisher says. “When we think about climate, we need to be thinking about not just the well-being of children but the well-being of the adults around them. If the adults are OK, they’re going to be in a better position when we have these kinds of [extreme weather] events.”