Supporting children who feel lonely and sad - Mental Health Awareness shines the light on the impact of social isolation
We've recently had Mental Health Awareness Week 9th-15th May 2022 with the theme and focus on loneliness and the impact social isolation has on our mental health.
Loneliness affects millions of people every year and is a critical issue for our society, with concerning numbers of children who feel isolated or alone and often present with symptoms of depression and sadness. This impacts on their capacity to engage with life, to engage in social interaction and places them at risk of long term mental ill health.
In a YouGov Poll cited by the Mental Health Foundation in February 2021¹ found that 69% of adolescents said they felt alone, and 59% felt they had no one to talk to and of those only 50% felt loved.
Much of the figures relate to teenagers but it is evident that there are increasing numbers of primary aged children who are presenting with loneliness and sadness as reported by the Mental Health Foundation. It makes for very sad reading.
One of the cited post lockdown research studies states:
“A concerning 76% of parents and carers reported that, since lockdown, they have become worried that their children are suffering from loneliness. The results showed that parents and carers of 5-10-year-olds worry that their children are lonely often or all of the time.”
A further study showed that loneliness may affect the mental health of boys and girls differently. “Loneliness seems to be more strongly associated with elevated depression symptoms in girls and elevated social anxiety in boys.”
Whilst loneliness has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, it has long since been recognised as a key issue and in the ONS study 2018 was described as:
...a state of mind that could involve:²
- a sense of exclusion
- disconnection from others
- unhappiness with relationships
Many children in our schools also present with sadness and can be socially isolated and feel alone. Sadness can sometimes be about something that has happened that we know we are sad about, like the loss of a pet or not seeing someone who is important to us, other times it is deep within us and we just feel sad and empty without knowing what we are sad about. This could be because of a loss that has happened a while ago, that we haven’t spoken of and affects how we feel, our social relationships and can cut us off from others making us feel lonely and alone.
Loneliness affects not only our mental health, placing us on a trajectory for depression and anxiety, but also affects our physical health with symptoms and diseases such as higher blood pressure, a weakened immune system, heart disease, obesity and loneliness even increases the likelihood of early mortality.
Research shows us that loneliness is more damaging than obesity and as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.³
Raising awareness and taking an active role in combatting loneliness is everyone’s responsibility and helping children to express and talk about their feelings and experiences is a huge protective factor in preventing them from feeling alone, experiencing loneliness and feeling alone in sadness.
“Loneliness can be defined as the state of distress or discomfort that results when we perceive a gap between our desires for social connection and actual experiences of it.”¹
Following on from Mental health Awareness week we want to share our ‘Finding me’- helping children with sadness programme.
Feeling alone in sadness is a desperate place to be and for a child can be catastrophic for their immediate and long-term wellbeing. When children aren’t able to share their feelings and when they feel alone with emotional pain that they haven’t been able to talk about they are at risk of anxiety and depression, not only in childhood but into adulthood.
We recognise the importance of all children needing to have a trusted, empathic adult alongside them to help them safely express and make sense of their feelings and prevent the feeling of being alone in sadness.
Through the programme we help children with ways to be able to express and make sense of their feelings through creative activities, to recognise what sadness may look like and how to recognise when someone is feeling sad. The children will be given opportunities to share their experiences and think about how to look after themselves and others with care, compassion and kindness. Through the discussion and activities, children will:
- think about the feeling of sadness and how it may present,
- explore the feelings that may mask sadness,
- find ways to express feelings through art and creativity,
- explore how empathy can help to heal the feeling of sadness,
- discover ways to help care for ourselves.
We invite you to explore our wellbeing intervention resource and to help children to feel valued, heard and connected, to help tackle loneliness and create a more mentally healthy society.
