Haze and the Erosion of Children's Sense of Security

JurnalPost.com When the haze arrives, the calendars of children in Sumatra and Kalimantan change. It is no longer just a school calendar, but a calendar of waiting: waiting for school closures due to smoke, waiting for when they can play outside again, and waiting for the blue sky to reappear.

We have become too accustomed to calling this phenomenon the “haze season,” as if its presence were as natural as the rainy season. Yet, behind the fog blanketing residential areas, there lies a threat to children's mental health that can develop silently.

Our attention should not stop at the number of acute respiratory infection (ARI) cases. There is also the anxiety of children that needs to be heard and understood.

In environmental psychology literature, there is a term known as eco-anxiety, which is anxiety related to threats against the environment. Reports from the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica describe it as a chronic fear of environmental doom (Clayton et al., 2017).

In adults, this anxiety can manifest as guilt and helplessness. For children, the impact can be more fundamental. The world that should be a safe place to grow, learn, and play turns into a source of threat that they struggle to comprehend.

However, environmental anxiety does not necessarily indicate a mental disorder. Fear can be a normal response to a real threat. What needs attention is when that fear persists and begins to interfere with daily life.

Therefore, children need the presence of adults who are willing to listen, explain the situation honestly, and provide a sense of security without making promises that cannot necessarily be kept.

Imagine an elementary school student in Palembang or Pekanbaru. At school, they learn from science textbooks that forests are the lungs of the world. Yet, in their daily lives, they are breathing air that impairs their breathing.

They are taught to love nature, but for weeks they witness the sky turn a brownish-yellow due to the haze. The gap between the knowledge gained at school and the reality experienced can cause confusion. To them, the world seems to have lost its order.

This is where the issue of psychological ethics needs attention.

In the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles (2017), the principle of beneficence , or doing good, and nonmaleficence , or avoiding harm, are essential foundations. As a moral orientation, both principles are also relevant for considering policies that impact the psychological well-being of the community.

When forests are burned, whether due to corporate actions, negligence, or systemic indifference, a fundamental question arises: who is responsible for the resulting harm?

So far, debates regarding forest fires and haze have focused more on economic losses. How many trillions of rupiah were lost? How many flights were canceled? How loud were the protests from neighboring countries?

However, the invisible psychological toll rarely receives equal attention. One such toll is the possibility of a child growing up with the belief that adults are incapable of protecting them from environmental threats.

This burden is also not felt equally. Families with sufficient economic means may be able to provide rooms with air purifiers or temporarily evacuate to safer areas. Conversely, families with limited economic resources must endure while struggling to maintain their income.

Therefore, protecting children's mental health is also closely related to equitable access to a safe environment and services.

The World Health Organization (2022) encourages the integration of mental health and psychosocial support into climate change responses. A similar approach needs to be considered in handling haze disasters, including for children who are directly affected.

This issue can also be understood through a philosophical approach.

Martin Buber (1923/1970) distinguished between two forms of relations: I-It and I-Thou. If this thought is used to read the ecological crisis, treating forests merely as commodity objects can be understood as a form of I-Itrelation.

When forests are viewed only as sources of profit, plantation land, or objects of exploitation, the human relationship with nature risks narrowing into a relationship oriented toward utility.

Children then inherit the consequences of this broken relationship. They grow up in an environment that no longer fully provides a sense of security.

Yet, from a philosophical perspective, adults have a responsibility to keep the world a space that allows for the building of I-Thourelations, which are relationships that respect the existence of others. In an ecological context, nature should be experienced by children as part of life that needs to be respected, not as an enemy to be feared.

So, what is our responsibility as a society that upholds ethical values?

First, stop the normalization of haze.

We need to stop saying that this condition is “normal” when children are forced to wear masks to go to school or cannot play outside.

This kind of normalization has the potential to become a subtle form of psychological neglect. Children may learn to accept environmental suffering as something that cannot be changed.

In psychology, the experience of facing situations that are constantly beyond one's control is related to the concept of learned helplessness, which is a state of helplessness that is learned and can weaken a person's motivation to change their circumstances (Maier & Seligman, 2016).

Second, the state and corporations need to include assessments of children's mental health impacts in haze disaster evaluations.

Measuring impact should not be based solely on the number of hectares burned, air pollution levels, or the scale of economic loss. The psychological condition of children also needs to be considered.

How many children are experiencing sleep disturbances? How many show separation anxiety from their parents? Is there a decline in learning concentration while the haze persists?

These questions are important to help design a more comprehensive response.

In the school environment, support can begin with simple conversations. Teachers can ask what children fear most when the haze arrives and how they cope with changes in their daily activities.

Schools also need to coordinate with parents so that learning and play routines can continue in a safe environment.