It could be argued that as loneliness was identified in less than one per cent of the nearly 509,000 contacts made to Childline last year, loneliness is not as significant as they are suggesting, but the problem is that loneliness can be a symptom, a cause and a consequence of other behavioural and mental health issues, and is therefore very difficult to isolate the hows and whys.
Social media has been identified as one of the key factors behind this increase in loneliness, but I think that is too simple a solution to what is a much more complex issue. Yes, isolation is the result of constant comparisons of self and lifestyle, but there is also a high level of instant connectedness, never enjoyed by those of us who had to sit cramped on the stairs with the phone wire under the door, or run to the phone box with ten pence to get our friends to call us back!
In conversation with my 16-year-old last night, I think he pinpointed the real issue. In his critique of friends he loves dearly - but whose strong sense of entitlement and lack of responsibility frustrate him deeply - he suggested that it was because, despite the apparent confidence of the millennials, they didn’t really believe that they were worth it. This is perhaps a natural human state that is exacerbated by the number, or perhaps more accurately lack of, ‘likes’. Children too are learning that they are not worth it, as they grow up with parents who are texting while pushing the pushchair rather than pointing out the sights and sounds to their child, or who are taken out for nice meals but instead of playing word games, or chatting, are kept quiet during the wait for food by tablets.
Being on your own, being somewhere quiet, doing something without an audience (whether it is real or virtual) is not loneliness. I wonder then if when children express the pain of loneliness or even the fear of it, they are actually describing the inability to share their deepest thoughts and needs: a need for the intimacy of relationship that allows them to share their vulnerability, their less than perfect life, and talk about what really matters as well as the trivial and silly.
The NSPCC website offers some great advice on how to help children and young people who are experiencing loneliness and isolation for whatever reason, so do follow it, but we have more to offer. For my mum, who was a lonely, abused child, the Church and her faith in a God encountered through Sunday school and holiday clubs, was the lifeline that brought her belonging and healing. As the people of God, we have a remedy to offer: a deep connection with a God who promises that he will never leave us, even when things are really bad; a friend who wants to hear about what really matters, whose battery never runs out. But we have to nurture that knowledge in the children in our neighbourhood, and ensure that those that don’t know find out that there is a different kind of connection that never loses signal, has no data limit and is completely free of charge, all the time!
