A new study by the Lancet medical journal concludes that this generation will suffer the most from global warming. If nothing changes, researchers say children born today will live in a world more than 4 degrees warmer by their 71st birthday.

The effects of  global warming has raised an important question for many parents: How should they talk to their kids about climate change?

CGTN's Karina Huber reports.

The Museum of Natural History in New York is a regular excursion for Jody Neal and her two kids.

Teaching her children about the environment and how global warming is affecting it, is important to her, but she also doesn't want to alarm them.

Leelou, who is seven, recently got a lesson about climate change in school.

"I could see that it was really impacting her directly. That it was causing her a lot of fear," Neal said.

It was talk about the polar caps melting and rising sea levels that scared Leelou the most. The family lives near the water in New Jersey.

"She's really taking this stance that she wants us to take immediate action to move to somewhere with mountains, any ways we can stop it. So, I think it's something that she's very worried about just from the short introduction they've had in school," Neal said.

Awareness about climate change is growing thanks mainly to younger people who have been marching around the world to draw attention to the issue.

Schools and the media have been discussing it more, too.

Parents are increasingly facing some difficult questions about how the world will look in the future if global temperatures continue to rise. Many are struggling to know how best to respond to their children.

Gail Gross is the author of "How to Build your Baby's Brain."If nothing changes, researchers say children born today will live in a world more than 4 degrees warmer by their 71st birthday.

"We don't want to frighten our children. In fact, just the opposite. We want to our children to be secure and confident. That leads to competency. So, whatever we tell them needs to be age appropriate and it needs to be positive," Gross said.

Gross says staying positive helps children think of ways they can take action.

"What can we do for Mother Earth Then you're bringing children into thinking about activity which lowers stress. And you're also giving them things they can do that make them feel they're competent, they're doing something for the environment. That's the way we should be talking about climate change with little children," Gross said.

Neal agrees.

"I think if it's introduced in a way that everyone has a part to play in really improving the situation and small ways that we can all do that every single day, that would be a good way to ease them into the topic and then once they get older they can perhaps understand more of the magnitude that we're facing in regards to environmental impacts," Neal said.