Did you have a happy childhood? Pretty intense question for a casual Time Out article, we know, but if you answered ‘yes’ you may be in the minority, as a report has found that British children are currently the least happy in Europe.
The Good Childhood Report analyses the wellbeing of kids across the continent each year by asking them how they feel about their family, friends, appearance, school, schoolwork, and life in general, then ranks each nation based on the answers. And, according to them, our kids are not best pleased.
A sizeable 25 precent of respondents in the United Kingdom said they were unsatisfied with their lives. That’s nearly a quarter of the teens and tweens asked, which isn’t exactly promising. Compare that to the only 6 percent of unsatisfied Dutch children, who are the happiest, and it really begins to paint a bleak picture.
So what actually is it that’s making these young people so upset? Well, it’s important to understand what the statistics actually say. For instance, 15 year old girls tend to be less happy than their male counterparts, and this gap is widening. Children from lower income backgrounds have lower satisfaction levels than their peers with more money, and the UK had higher levels of food deprivation than the European average, so it’s not really surprising that we’re doing so poorly.
The Children’s Society, a UK charity, has spoken out about what they call a ‘crisis’ in children’s wellbeing. ‘For far too long a piecemeal approach to addressing these challenges has failed to materialise into improvements… There is an urgent need for a targeted, strategic and long-term vision for children and young people.’
The Society is asking the government to ensure that all young people have access to early intervention for mental health problems, prioritise their happiness, and take an ‘intersectional approach’ to solving these problems. You can have a look at the full report, including suggested solutions to the problem, here.
Hopefully the government will listen and someday soon our youths will be just as happy as those in the Netherlands. Perhaps the fix is as easy as making Freddos 10p again. That would certainly boost our moods.
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