‘JUST AN ORDINARY CHILD’

Greta Thunberg’s Dad: ‘She’s Happy but I Worry’

Father admits he was not initially supportive of the teenager skipping school to stage the climate strike protests that have led to a global youth movement.

Greta Thunberg’s father, Svante Thunberg, told the BBC that he was initially convinced it was a “bad idea” for his daughter to be on the front line of the climate-change battle. In a wide-ranging interview, he said his daughter suffered debilitating depression for several years and had even stopped eating before she was diagnosed with a type of autism known as Asperger’s and able to get treatment that allowed her to focus her energy on the environment. He said that while he was “not supportive” of her skipping school to stage her Fridays for Future climate strikes that have now swept the world, the reaction has changed her into a happy teenager. Now his main concern is the “hate” she receives from climate deniers. “You think she’s not ordinary now because she’s special, and she’s very famous, and all these things. But to me she’s now an ordinary child,” he said. “She dances around, she laughs a lot, we have a lot of fun—and she’s in a very good place.”